After LSU fell 27-20 against USC to drop its fifth consecutive season-opener, a frustrated Brian Kelly took the podium at his postgame press conference.
It produced a clip that quickly made the rounds on social media as Kelly stated that he was “angry” with his football team and lamented having to voice the same concerns yet again after a loss.
Kelly concluded by saying he’s not doing a good enough job as a coach, but that wasn’t enough for him to avoid some ire from the national media, including First Take’s Shannon Sharpe, who didn’t mince words when criticizing Kelly on Monday morning.
“I think it’s BS. I think he should’ve led with what he finished with. ‘I’m not doing a good enough job.’ He did the exact same thing last year when Florida State thumped them. ‘Clearly we’re not the team that I thought we were.’ No, you’re not the coach that you thought you were,” Sharpe said. “At some point in time, it comes down to coaching. It comes down to accountability.
“You had 10 penalties for basically 100 yards. You either coach that behavior or you condone that type of behavior. But how about this, ‘Oh, their quarterback outplayed ours.’ Lincoln Riley outcoached you.”
Sharpe went on to say that Kelly should’ve taken more accountability and aired his frustrations with his players behind closed doors.
“The really great coaches – look at Dabo. When he got thumped by Georgia , he said ‘That’s coaching. That’s on me.’ Coach Saban used to do it all the time,” Sharpe said. “The really, really good coaches, the coaches that can get to their players and get them to understand, even if a player makes a mistake or does something repeatedly, they’ll take it and they’ll get behind closed doors.
“If he wanted to have this kind of conversation, ‘Guys, we talked about this all summer. We had this problem a lot last year. We start to feel good about ourselves, and we let teams back into the ballgame. And that came back to bite us.’ If you wanted to do that behind closed doors, I’ve got no problem with it. But Brian Kelly has a repeated behavior of doing this, publicly chastising his players and obfuscating himself of responsibility.”
It’s certainly harsh words, but there’s some similar frustration in LSU’s fanbase after the team once again wasn’t ready to win against a power conference opponent in Week 1.
There’s plenty of time to turn things around, but the Tigers are already facing a lot of questions just one game into the season.
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