New Orleans native, St Augustine graduate, former Edna Karr and O Perry Walker coach, and longtime LSU assistant coach Frank Wilson addressed the media Tuesday for the first time as interim head coach of the Fighting Tigers. Wilson said he’ s humbled and honored to lead the Purple and Gold.
“This moment, this opportunity is so much bigger than me, I just happen to be the caretaker at this moment for this wonderful institution we so love,” Wilson said.
The 51-year-old Wilson is stepping in for Brian Kelly, who left Baton Rouge on Monday after he was fired on Sunday for failing to bring a championship caliber team to Baton Rouge.
Wilson has served as an assistant coach at LSU for ten seasons and he has been part of 95 victories at LSU. Wilson served as running backs coach and recruiting coordinator from 2010 to 2015.
He left Baton Rouge for the head coaching job at UTSA. In 2020 and 2021, Wilson was the head coach at McNeese.
When Kelly was hired, one of his first hires was Wilson as BK recognized it was important to have the two-time National Recruiter of the Year on his staff.
When Kelly called, Wilson left his head coaching job in Lake Charles to be the running backs coach and associate head coach for LSU.
Wilson says his message to the team…. finish what we started. And at practice on Tuesday, he used a significant moment in U.S. History to rally the team. \
“I was watching quite some time ago when we got bombed at Pearl Harbor, and the sirens went off ‘whoo-whoo, whoo-whoo’ and (it) was an alert, was an all call. It was a rally call for us to come together,” Wilson said.
At the end of Tuesday’s practice, Wilson had sirens going off and had the team come together.
“As those sirens went off for the rally call, our team merged together at the 50-yard line. We held up all four of our fingers in both hands. We chanted ‘fourth quarter.’ We chanted ‘finish’ because we’re all in,” he said.
“(It’s) simply our football team answering to the rally call, being there for one another in a tough situation when (to) use an analogy, we’ve been invaded.”
Related
We’ll see if the new mindset will result in a better performance when the Tigers visit 4th ranked Alabama.
Wilson promised the Tigers would run the ball. Run game coordinator and tight ends coach Alex Atkins takes over as the team’s play caller for the fired Joe Sloan.
Former Louisiana Tech and NFL quarterback, Tim Rattay, who has served as an analyst, will be the quarterbacks coach.