Year 2 of the Brian Kelly era is in sight, and the Tigers head football coach know the curve has been officially flattened by his colleagues.
Jay Johnson and LSU baseball won a College World Series earlier this month. Kim Mulkey and LSU women's basketball won the NCAA Tournament earlier this year. Can football follow suit?
"At LSU, all we can think about is championships. ... I’ve got a big opportunity on my hands as well to continue the success of what was a very good first year," said Brian Kelly as he took the podium for the second time as the Tigers' head coach.
It was a learning experience in Year 1 for Kelly, all the way down to a media days event. Notre Dame is unaffiliated and never had to participate in an annual conference summit. But he's comfortable in the environment, and he's comfortable with the expectations after a surprise run to an SEC West title that began with a painful loss to Florida State at the Caesars Superdome.
"We’re excited about what we’ve done in a very short period of time, and the foundation of success is built in consistency," Kelly said. "Alabama and Georgia continue to hold that mantle of consistency in terms of playing for championships, and that’s what we’ll be looking to be at LSU, is playing for championships consistently, year in and year out."
If it's familiar messaging, that's because it is. Johnson's arrival from Arizona included promises of a return to hoisting the CWS title for the first time since 2009. He delivered. Mulkey's first day as head coach had the image of her pointing to the absence of a banner in the rafters that read Final Four or champion, and promising to hang one for her home state. She delivered.
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LSU football's drought hasn't quite been as long, but the consistency he's looking to bring wasn't delivered with a title in 2019, even if it was brought by arguably the greatest football team of all time. What happened after? A fall back to mediocrity. That's Kelly's mission in Year 2, to avoid steps back and return LSU football to the mainstay at the top of the college football world just like the Alabamas and the Georgias. A title also wouldn't hurt for a coach, not unlike Johnson, who has finished in the runner-up seat and arrives in Baton Rouge with higher ambitions.
"You don’t do it by just being a one-and-done. You’ve got to be able to do that over a period of time," Kelly said. "And that’s really the transition from Year 1 to Year 2. Where in Year 1 I was learning the league. I was learning how to go on the road and play in the kind of environments. I was learning our roster and our strengths and weaknesses. Going into Year 2, we have a lot of that knowledge. … Now it’s how do you do it week in and week out. And for us, that’s what our team now has been focused on."
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MORE FROM BRIAN KELLY
ON FLORIDA STATE REMATCH
As impressive as Year 1 was in the end, the start was inauspicious when Kelly's Tigers fumbled a mistake-prone loss away to the Seminoles when a game-tying PAT was blocked following a thrilling drive that should've sent the game to overtime. His team recovered and ultimately earned a spot in the SEC Title game on the strength of a similar moment in a win over Alabama, where LSU went for 2 and the win rather than extending the game with a tying PAT.
This time around the Tigers are hoping for a much faster start, with another date against Florida State, this time at Camping World Stadium in Orlando to kick off the season. The rematch has served as some added motivation during a grueling offseason.
“I think in some years, you’d like to kind of walk your way into the season," Kelly said prior to his stop at the podium, "but this is a team that really understands what’s in front of them, and Florida State is going to give us a challenge just like playing the very best of the teams in the SEC, so, look, it’d be easy for me to say hey, let’s change the schedule a little bit and have an easier game, but Florida State looks at it the same way we do. We get an opportunity to really season ourselves in Week 1, and I think their motivation has been all summer about playing Florida State and playing much better than they did last time.”
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ON TRANSFER PORTAL ADDITIONS
“I think when we talk about areas within your program that you’re coming but you’re not there yet … when you have to dip into the transfer portal and bring in that many guys [in the secondary], that’s an area of concern, because you really don’t know what you have until you play against Florida State," Kelly said.
"So there are going to be a number of new players back there. We do have some returning players that we’re excited about back there. Brooks and Burns in particular are two veteran players that are going to help us a lot back there. But look, that was an area of concern. We are a team that needs to get off the field on third down. We did not do a very good job of that last year. That’s going to have to change and it will start in that particular area.”
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ON JAYDEN DANIELS' PROGRESSION
“I think that they were all part of our learning curve with him, quite frankly, because we knew Jayden as a person but we didn’t really know him much as a football player, and how would he respond in really a new system of offense where he had to make a 180 in terms of what he was asked to do," Kelly said. "So what does development look like for him? I think it would be the natural progression from the last game in which he played, where he was aggressive, but he was under control. He ran the ball when he needed to, but yet stepped up in the pocket and made the tight window throws.
"I think that was the progression from what we saw in the first week where a step up in the pocket meant step up and run, or not making those tight window throws and I think that that’s what we saw during the year was his natural progression of understanding the offense and being more confident. We want to see that in Year 2. We want to see that confidence that we saw at the end of the year continue to show itself right through the first game against Florida State.”
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