LSU coach Brian Kelly and the Tigers are anxious to make an opening-weekend statement at Clemson in the seismic season opener for both programs next month. Doubling down this week on previous remarks about “The Real Death Valley” earlier this month at SEC Media Days, Kelly catered to his base once again ahead of the anticipated road trip.
“You want attention to detail on fourth-and-goal. You want great habits. They’re needed when you’re on the road and you’re playing in Death Valley ‘Junior’ — not ‘the’ Death Valley — that’s what you need, you need those traits on a day-to-day basis,” Kelly said during a LSU Rotary Club meeting in Baton Rouge.
Clemson coach Dabo Swinney was asked at ACC Kickoff about his team’s home-field advantage compared to Tiger Stadium in the SEC and Kelly’s punch.
“There’s always fuel for the fire,” Swinney said. “You can take whatever you want, everybody’s different, and they can be motivated by different things along the way. You know, Michael Jordan used to make stuff up, right? For those of you following Michael Jordan, he would just make stuff up, whether it was true or not, because that was how he motivated himself on some things. But, everybody’s different in that regard.”
Swinney took Kelly’s remarks in stride: “[It] isn’t going to have anything to do with blocking, tackling, and executing on game day,” he said. “So, it makes it fun, but let’s go focus on what we have to do.”
LSU has not won a season opener during Kelly’s tenure and has lost five straight overall in Week 1 dating back to 2020. Clemson is currently a three-point favorite to win the opener, according to DraftKings Sportsbook.
LSU signed the nation’s top-ranked transfer portal calls in the 2025 cycle and, like Clemson, is a unanimous top-15 team in various preseason rankings. The Tigers’ top priority this offseason was to surround quarterback Garrett Nussmeier with more options in the receiving game while also making sure the personnel on defense was better than what defensive coordinator Blake Baker has taken the field with each of the last two years.
“We needed to give him more tools,” Kelly said in Atlanta. “I know we haven’t played the kind of defense necessary to win a national championship. We’ve given Blake, now, the tools, to play championship-level defense. Clearly, the 2023 offensive football team we had was good enough to win the national championship, but we weren’t good enough as a team.
“A lot of that was addressing the shortcoming we had on defense,” Kelly. continued. “I love our seriousness and focus and intent. Anytime you go on the road and play a team like Clemson, you better bring a defense with you.”
Read the full article here
