The third-ranked LSU Tigers defeated Louisiana Tech 23-7 on Saturday night, but it didn’t feel like a win.
In the postgame press conference, Coach Brian Kelly didn’t hold back in his disappointment with the lethargic performance.
“We are happy with the win, we are not happy with the production across the board, we got to coach better, that’s the bottom line, we got to coach better, we got outcoached in a lot of areas,” Kelly said.
“You’ve got to run the football. We didn’t run the ball effectively tonight, and it made it difficult for us. We didn’t make great decisions, so players got to make plays, coaches got to coach better, you can tell by my voice, I’m not happy with the performance, but it’s a win.”
Kelly said leading up to the game that LSU is expected to play to a certain standard, regardless of the opponent, and the coach made it clear they didn’t play to that standard.
“We didn’t coach well enough, and we didn’t play well enough tonight, and that’s not our standard, and so they are disappointed they didn’t live up,” Kelly said.
BK’s voice then got louder.
“They want to do, they want to do it, they just didn’t do it tonight, and so we got to go back and figure out what was in our preparation, what was in our mindset when we took the field for this game, we couldn’t live up to that standard,” Kelly said.
Quarterback Garrett Nussmeier threw for 237 yards and a touchdown, but the longest pass play of the night was only 23 yards as the downfield passing game was nonexistent for a second straight game. He threw a deep ball on the first series to Barion Brown, but it was underthrown and intercepted.
The Tigers rushed for 128 yards, but only 3.8 yards a carry. Caden Durham was held to 29 yards on 13 carries.
“It’s individual mistakes, it’s scheme mistakes, it’s not seeing the right hole, from the running game standpoint, it was a lack of execution from players and coaches alike,” Kelly said.
It didn’t help that starting center, and the reigning SEC Offensive Lineman of the Week, Braelin Moore, went down with an ankle injury on the first play from scrimmage.
Kelly is not using Moore’s injury as an excuse. He pointed out DJ Chester replaced Moore and Chester started 13 games for the Tigers at center last season.
LSU also lost tight end Trey’Dez Green to a knee injury.
The severity of their injuries is not known.
The Tigers are not the first team to experience a letdown performance after a big road win.
It’s also not the time to hit the panic button, because the explosive offense we anticipated from LSU has yet to show up.
But Kelly made it clear in his animated postgame press conference that he expects better execution, because they have the players to do something special this season.
“This is all in on everybody, this just isn’t our coaches stink or are players stink, this is everybody collectively did not live up to the standard that we have set here, and you can only do that when you believe you have more and we have more and that didn’t show up tonight, and that’s disappointing,” Kelly said.
We’ll see if the execution improves this Saturday against a Florida team that has many more problems after they were upset in the Swamp by South Florida, 18-16.
From a Louisiana Tech perspective, it was another frustrating night on offense.
The Bulldogs had just 154 yards of total offense. Starting quarterback Trey Kukuk threw for just 50 yards. Back-up Blake Baker led Tech on a scoring drive in the fourth quarter, and Coach Sonny Cumbie hinted at a possible quarterback change in his postgame press conference.
“Some of it is just from an execution standpoint on offense, getting into a rhythm, really for three series of this year, we felt good about the rhythm, I thought we had a good series there with Blake, we will have to evaluate it from the quarterback standpoint, but there’s also the other players around too, in terms of how we are running the football and how we are reading the cuts,” Cumbie said.
Tech averaged just 2.1 yards a carry,
This Saturday the Bulldogs are back home to host New Mexico State.
