After LSU dropped its season-opener to USC on Sunday night in Las Vegas — marking the program’s fifth consecutive Week 1 loss — [autotag]Brian Kelly[/autotag] made headlines with a frustrated press conference that included him banging the table out of anger.
One comment from Kelly stood out in particular, however, as he seemed to say that he thought Trojans quarterback Miller Moss outplayed LSU’s [autotag]Garrett Nussmeier[/autotag], though he did praise Nussmeier’s play overall.
“They’ve got some good athletes. I thought the quarterback played well tonight,” Kelly said Sunday night. “He outplayed our quarterback. He made the plays when he needed to.”
That naturally attracted a bit of attention, but speaking to the media on Tuesday, Kelly walked back those comments slightly while clarifying what he meant.
“My comments after the game were, ‘How do you think Nussmeier player?’ I said, ‘He played pretty good, but the other kid played pretty good too and they won the game,'” Kelly said. “So this had nothing to do with Garrett Nussmeier not playing well, I think his numbers spoke for themselves.
“There’s a couple of plays that he left out there that he’d like back, and I’m sure there were a couple of plays that Moss left out there that he’d like back… I thought the kid played well, but our guy played really well either. So whatever my comments were, they were not intended in any way to disparage a guy who went 30 of 39 for 308 yards.”
While Nussmeier was far from the problem for the Tigers in Sunday’s loss, the offense overall wasn’t nearly as explosive as what we saw last season, which is a cause for concern.
But Kelly made it clear that he didn’t intend to be critical of Nussmeier, who he reiterated played well in the loss overall.
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