Scott Rabalais: Brian Kelly shares his view of an LSU program daring to be great
Jul 26, 2023 Updated 13 hrs ago When he spoke to the Baton Rouge Rotary Club last year for the first time — a Rotary Club luncheon is the traditional last speaking engagement for an LSU football coach before preseason camp begins — Brian Kelly wore glasses. He was shielding an eye infection at the time. This time, Wednesday afternoon before a typically packed house of hundreds in the South Stadium Club high atop Tiger Stadium, Kelly had a clear vision about him.
Not only in terms of his ocular health, but also of his football program going into year two. No, we’re not going to get bogged down here by Year Two comparisons for Kelly and LSU football with women’s basketball and baseball. Kelly did pay homage to the job Kim Mulkey and Jay Johnson did getting their programs to the NCAA championship level so quickly, but other than the LSU flag they all play under, it’s not the same thing.
In women’s basketball, one newcomer (Angel Reese) can alter the dynamic enormously. In baseball, adding a Paul Skenes and a Tommy White has big implications for the batting order and the pitching rotation. In football, to pinch the Southeastern Conference’s pet phrase, it just means more.
A lot more. A lot more guys pulling together to do a lot more things the right way. A 10-4 first season indicated LSU is ahead of the curve to start the Kelly era.
A modest season, perhaps, by what Georgia is doing and where it is. But that’s a fully mature program operating in Athens. Ask Billy Napier and Florida if they would like to have done what LSU did on their opening possession.
But Georgia, the current SEC and college football standard bearer, and Alabama, still the dragon that must be slayed for LSU to get where it wants to go, are the programs LSU aspires to be up there with consistently. And in Kelly’s view from high above what writer Willie Morris so colorfully described as “this terrain of old tumult,” the Tigers still have some climbing to do. Not as much as you might have expected a year ago.
But some climbing still. “Our football team is poised to have the kind of year that we all expect,” Kelly said. You practically hear the breathtaking expectations sweeping through every mind in the room.
About 500 people echoing some version of Han Solo in “Star Wars” saying, “I can imagine quite a bit. ” “This is about being elite here at LSU,” Kelly went on to say. “But not just elite on the football field.
We want to be elite in everything that we do and how we do things both on and off the field. We want to be elite in the classroom. We want to be elite in the community and we want to be elite certainly in all of our playing environments.
” Wednesday was also the last day of summer workouts. As Kelly left the packed room to head back to LSU’s football complex, down on the terrain of old tumult his players were going through conditioning drills (coaches are not allowed to attend, just conditioning staff). Elite-level expectations have filtered down from Kelly on high, as it were, to his players about how to train, how to eat, how to meet, how to act.
“This,” Kelly said, “is where your players really grow. This is where accountability starts to take place. This is where you throw the (athletic training) tape in the trash can, not next to the trash can.
This is where you run through the line, not to the line. This is where you build those things that go to championship performances. This is how you go from good to great and great to elite.
“It's hard to get to that level. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. So those linchpins, those things that we don't see have been working on over the last five months.
” Now for the next five months. The oh so important ones. Can LSU take the baked out summer work and combine it with talent and the “never settle” elite expectations and be a team come Jan.
1 that has earned a spot in one of the CFP semifinals in the Sugar or Rose bowls? Yes, there is still a gap to close, Kelly acknowledged last week at SEC media days in Nashville. First to climb over Alabama in the SEC West. Then to try to take down Georgia, the overwhelming SEC East favorite, in the conference championship game.
Then maybe talk of the College Football Playoffs. “I know that based upon how we've recruited and how we'll continue to recruit that we'll have a football roster that will be able to compete against Georgia,” Kelly said last week. “Is that right now? No, it's not.
But if we continue to do what we're doing, we're going to have a roster that can compete against Georgia, and then it's just a matter of getting it done on the playing field so everybody then can assess they've closed the gap. ” Kelly’s vision is clear. The only question is whether LSU can get ahead of the schedule again like it did last season.
.