Looking ahead to Das Boot
As much as we want to bask in the euphoria of Saturday’s OT win over Ole Miss, the season has to move forward and LSU has a tricky game at Arkansas on the horizon.
That’s the challenge for Brian Kelly’s No. 8 ranked Tigers face and as always he had his weekly presser with Baton Rouge media on Monday.
“Certainly a great night celebrating 100 years of Tiger Stadium” Kelly began. “I thought the atmosphere was tremendous, I’m proud of our team how they just kept fighting. They believed they were going to win the football game.”
Kelly rightfully sung the praises of his defense for their ability to keep Ole Miss out of the end zone in the second half and overtime.
“The defense held Ole Miss to no touchdowns in the second half and overtime. If you told me going into the game they won’t score a touchdown in the second half and if it went to overtime they wouldn’t score a touchdown I’d say we got a pretty good chance of winning the football game.”
As mentioned above, LSU has to move on and that’s what Kelly and his staff are going to have to try and challenge the team to do.
“Just a great night, big victory and only our second, with many more games in the SEC to come, so we have to keep it in perspective,” Kelly said. “And the perspective is now we gotta go on the road, consecutive weeks, against a very solid Arkansas team. A team that, as you know, historically over the past four years has we’ve played games where the final score has been decided by three points or less.”
While the LSU offensive line did a great job keeping quarterback Garrett Nussmeier upright, the group wasn’t able to get the running game going and Kelly was asked about the struggles up front.
“Running game, again, is about five guys on the offensive line, the tight end, the wide receivers, the running back, and the quarterback, all together in lockstep.” Kelly said. “We had nine successful plays, 10 unsuccessful plays, and four plays that were a wash.
“The unsuccessful plays were across the board. It was not pushing and cracking a safety, it was the quarterback not getting us into the right play, it was the running back not reading the correct hole and hitting it the right way, it was the tight end not reaching the end instead of blocking it off and not allowing it to stretch on the outside zone. My point being, it’s a little bit of everything. We’re not in sync with all of our guys coming together as one in the running game.”
Kelly also said that as a team, LSU is “exceptional” in pass blocking and that they need to be “exceptional run blockers, too.”
Kelly said he is going to lean on veteran players like Nussmeier, Whit Weeks, and Greg Penn to help the younger players have the right mindset as the Tigers try to come down from the high of the Ole Miss win, and focus on Arkansas this Saturday.
Kelly was asked specifically about freshman tight end Trey’Dez Green lining up at wide receiver now that that unit is starting to get banged up a little. Kelly said that lining Green out wide is on purpose and something they “have” to do.
“Quite frankly I think that’s something we have to do,” Kelly said. “We’re probably in a position where, watching him play, all the complexities of playing the tight end position can be eliminated by getting him more in a wide receiver role. I think we’re getting to that point where we’ve made that decision that that has to happen.”
Speaking of wide receivers, Kelly said he expects “at least” one of CJ Daniels or Chris Hilton to play this week against Arkansas. Kelly said Daniels has a “really good chance” of being back, while Hilton is, allegedly, “day-to-day.”