Brian Kelly addresses fine line between snowballing, competing: 'The dam finally broke'

The LSU Tigers suffered a massive loss to the Alabama Crimson Tide on Saturday night by a score of 32-13. For head coach Brian Kelly, the damn finally broke on the Tigers as they tried to compete and get back into the game.

There have been times this season when LSU has been able to compete through issues, like in the South Carolina game. However, as Kelly explained in his postgame press conference, it’s a fine line that the team has been walking.

“You saw it,” Brian Kelly said. “We’re back in the ballgame if we score on the one-yard line — or the three-yard line. That’s the margin, right? We drive it all the way down to the goal line. We’re poised to make it a one-score game and you’ve got a ball game.”

Of course, LSU wasn’t able to make it a one-score game. Shortly after that, the Crimson Tide blew the game open as the Tigers struggled to get stops on defense and their offense couldn’t keep up.

“We can’t overcome the myriad of things that didn’t go the right way tonight. That’s just the reality of it,” Kelly said. “A lot of that falls on my shoulders, that I’ve got to do a better job and our players have to learn from these situations that we can’t put ourselves in or we can’t overcome it. Unfortunately, it was untimely and that was a really good football team and if you keep doing that and I said this to our team, you’re living on borrowed time when you keep putting yourself in tough positions and tonight the dam broke when we kept putting ourselves in those tough positions the dam finally broke.”

One major issue for LSU was their inability to stop Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe in the rushing game. He would lead all players in rushing with  185 yards and four touchdowns on 12 carries. Compare that to LSU rushing for 104 total yards as a team.

With the loss, LSU now has three losses on the season. That means, even in the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff field, the Tigers have likely been eliminated. That makes it the first three seasons under Brian Kelly where the Tigers haven’t been able to get to the Playoff.

Now, Brian Kelly and LSU are looking to try and get back to their winning ways. That starts with a road trip to play the Florida Gators next weekend.