WATCH: LSU football QBs during their team’s first preseason practice
LSU quarterbacks Garrett Nussmeier (13), Rickie Collins (10), AJ Swann (15) and Colin Hurley (16) work out during the first fall practice.
BATON ROUGE – The third year was a crucial one for Brian Kelly and his football teams.
Everywhere he appeared at the FBS level, the teams coached by Kelly hit the gas in their head coach’s third season, accelerating some teams to heights never seen before and bringing a traditional power back to the top.
The LSU football team prepares for the third year of Kelly’s tenure and opens the season in Las Vegas against USC in the Vegas Kickoff Classic on Sunday, Sept. 1 (6:30 p.m., CT, ABC).
And there is another radical change in college football: The College Football Playoffs have been expanded to 12 teams, giving more teams and fan bases the opportunity to get involved in playoff action toward the end of the season.
For storied programs like LSU, which play in arguably the SEC’s toughest conference, some say the path to the playoffs has gotten broader. That said, the fact that 2024 will be Kelly’s third season at the helm and his typical trajectory in his previous season suggests that big things are on the cards in Baton Rouge this season.
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That’s why making the CFP field is the only option this year and anything else would be a washout for the Tigers. Here’s why.
This is how Brian Kelly is doing in his 3rd year
Kelly led Central Michigan to an 8-4 record and its first Mid-American Conference championship in 2006 and its first bowl game appearance since Herb Deromedi did it in 1994. The Chippewas won their first bowl game that season, defeating Middle Tennessee State 31-14 in the Motor City Bowl.
Cincinnati hired Kelly after Central Michigan’s historic 2006 season and led the Bearcats to another undefeated 12-0 Big East championship in the third year. They played in the New Year’s Six Bowl for the second consecutive year at the Sugar Bowl, where they lost to Florida in 2009.
After 2009, Notre Dame poached Kelly. You guessed it, in three years, Kelly led the Fighting Irish to the national championship game against Alabama in 2012. Kelly coached Notre Dame to a 12-0 regular season record before losing to the Crimson Tide.
Kelly himself has said that he realistically expects the teams under his leadership in the third year to make noticeable progress toward the CFP and possible national championships.
The LSU football team has won 10 games in each of the last two seasons. Players say they expect more in 2024
“My goal is to win the national championship here,” said Will Campbell, LSU’s star junior left tackle, during preseason training earlier.
The LSU football leadership team has spoken about their expectations ahead of the start of the 2024 season. In short, they agree that winning games by double digits is no longer enough.
“We don’t believe that’s the standard anymore,” LSU starting quarterback Garrett Nussmeier said during spring training. “We hold ourselves to the standard that 10 games is no longer good enough.”
“The expectation has gone up. We all know we’re not satisfied with just winning 10 (games). It’s not a results-oriented thought process, it’s an expectation of how we want to conduct our day-to-day operations. It’s how we want to conduct ourselves in the meeting rooms during fall camp, how we want to process what happened on the field, how we want to broadcast it.”
Despite losing Heisman Trophy-winning signal caller Jayden Daniels and two first-round draft picks at receiver, Malik Nabers and Brian Thomas Jr., LSU players insisted on continuing this season.
Brian Kelly hopes player ownership will lead LSU to the College Football Playoffs, maybe even beyond
One of Kelly’s main talking points in the preseason and postseason was the level of responsibility the players have on this team. The coach said it’s the highest level he’s seen during his tenure at LSU.
He mentioned that this was an issue with almost all teams in his third year.
It remains to be hoped that the takeover of the LSU team by those in charge will pay off in the end. At least in the form of a place in the 12-team College Football Playoff.
Anything else is not good enough.
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Cory Diaz covers the LSU Tigers for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his Tigers coverage on Twitter: @ByCoryDiaz. Have questions about LSU athletics? Send them to Cory Diaz at[email protected].
