LSU stopped the slide on Saturday night. Hosting Vanderbilt, LSU got back on track for a 24-17 win. The victory ended a three-game losing streak dating back to the Texas A&M game on Oct. 26.
The Tigers are out of the conference hunt and well out of the playoff picture, but don’t confuse that for a lack of pressure. LSU isn’t a program used to losing streaks and dropping a fourth game in a row would have turned the noise dial up to a 10.
After a win, the dial is turned down — for now.
The coaching staff and players needed this one. LSU didn’t mail it in against a decent Vanderbilt squad and got its seventh win of the year. The Tigers have a chance to finish with eight wins if they can beat Oklahoma in Tiger Stadium on senior night to close the year.
Here’s what Brian Kelly said following the win.
Getting back in the win column
“I’m really pleased and happy for our players and all of our coaches. They, obviously, you know, listened to the noise that’s out there about LSU football and the indictments that are made, unfortunately, so early in this program’s development. But the players didn’t listen to it. The coaches didn’t listen to it.”
“Proud of them and the way they prepared this football team. And you know, we played a really good Vanderbilt team. They shortened the game. They held onto the football. They play good defense.”
Kelly gave a shout-out to the crowd too.
“Having fan support out there today was really nice to see,” Kelly said.
Finally closing a game out
“We didn’t close out three games. You know, we had three games that were in the third and fourth quarter that we had a chance to close our, or the narrative would have been much different around here.”
“Everybody would have slept better. I would have slept better. And you guys wouldn’t have anything to talk about.”
The fourth down call
“We were getting so much man coverage in those fourth down situations. We knew that we had an opportunity to get the ball out quickly with the coverage being off us.”
Kelly said it was rare for the Vanderbilt defense to give cushion on the outside, but LSU took advantage of it when it was there on third and short and fourth downs.
“We felt like the ball could come out quickly and we could make people miss,” Kelly said.
Josh Williams’ big game
“He ran through the face of multiple defenders. It was physicality. It was want to. It was desire. It was all those things in one. It was just a guy that, you know, was committed to no matter what, the first guy’s not going to bring me down.”
“He set the tone for our entire team, a toughness on offense and a resolve that these guys showed this week. And I think he was one of our leaders this week, spoke up so many times. He spoke up before our team meal today and when we meet with our team.”
“He really was committed to making sure that we found a way to win this game.”
On the recruiting noise
Brian Kelly can’t address the Bryce Underwood situation directly because coaches can’t talk about unsigned recruits, but it was obvious what he was being asked about.
“The recruiting doesn’t mean a whole heck of a lot when you’re talking about your football team in the present. I mean, everybody else certainly felt differently about that recruiting piece, but that doesn’t really affect our players, nor the coaches.”
“You’re disappointed because you’ve put many, many years into recruiting. But it really didn’t affect the core of what we wanted to accomplish. And that was we wanted to finish the football game.”
Improved run game
“It had a lot to do with certainly the offensive line and getting great movement up front. But more importantly, it was Garrett Nussmeier.”
“He managed the running game as well as he’s managed it since he’s been here. The ball had to get out on the perimeter sometimes.”
Kelly said some of those quick throws to the outside were called runs that Nussmeier checked.
“We were getting overloaded and the ball needs to get out to the soft corner or to wherever that access is. And he did a fabulous job with it. And this is the standard that we need from him relative to where our running game be can be really solid if we get that kind of play.”
Making the most of checkdowns
“We were running a lot of four vertical and they were carrying those inside seams with their linebackers. So the linebackers were running with those inside seams, which created a big disparity between the depth of the linebacker that was trying to get into the seam and our checkdown.”
On using the 4-3 defense
“You want to be in a lot more four down against a power running team like this. You don’t want a lot of bubbles. You don’t want a lot of air in your defense.”
What the coaching staff did better
“I just thought we were simpler. I think we had five calls on defense, and we ran some pass plays multiple times. You know, it wasn’t a different look. We were very consistent with our play calls on both sides, and that was the mantra this week, is be committed to the calls. Whatever that call is, execute that call, and we’re not going to have a lot of calls this week. We cut out a lot.”