Brian Kelly addresses LSU players-only meeting this week, what feedback he received

Three consecutive losses have caused LSU‘s season to go sideways under Brian Kelly. A players-only meeting was called ahead of Saturday’s game against Vanderbilt. A typical move for a struggling team, the Tigers are hoping they can turn things around.

Players have spoken on the meeting already but on Wednesday, Kelly addressed the matter. He admitted there can be a negative connotation toward the term “players-only meeting” from the outside. Kelly believes it was a positive for his team.

“It really depends on what the morale is in your program,” Kelly said during the SEC Coaches Teleconference. “Essentially, what kind of relationships you have with your team and how you’re doing things inside out? Because you’re right, sometimes, perspective is — ‘Well, there’s a player’s only meeting. There’s friction between the coaches and the players.’ That’s not the case.”

The message during the players-only meeting appeared to be a simple one — everything needs to be better from LSU. Losses to Texas A&M, Alabama, and Florida have thrown the Tigers out of the SEC championship and College Football Playoff race. Year Three was supposed to be a big one for Kelly but expectations have fallen short.

At least two games remain on the schedule and finishing strong appears to be a big goal. Vanderbilt and Oklahoma are the final two opponents. Kelly says the players want to stick to the same process but go perform at a much higher level.

“What the players-only meeting was about, this was shared to me through our leadership council, was that we got to play better,” Kelly said. “We got to stop talking about ‘We should have had this.’ We got to play better and stop making excuses. Feedback was, collectively from everybody, was that we need to play better and stop making excuses. Go out and play and perform and execute.

“From that perspective, we followed it up with another meeting and got a cross-section of what the opinions were. Our guys want to be coaches harder, want to stick with our process, and no complaining. Go out there, get the job done.”

Brian Kelly describes importance of leadership council

This type of meeting would not be possible without having a leadership council. Kelly makes sure to meet with them on a weekly basis, putting input into have the LSU program works. Some of the topics are not too serious, while others provide feedback to the coaching staff from the player’s perspective.

As the head coach states it, there are over 100 people from different kinds of backgrounds. Making sure their voices are heard is important to him.

“We meet weekly. It’s morale, it’s ‘We don’t like the sweatsuits. Can we wear these jerseys this weekend?’ It’s a variety of different things,” Kelly said. “The ultimate goal here is, there are standards of how we do things, and players know that. But there are times where you want to get feedback. Sometimes, listening is a really good exercise to solicit information. It’s really about getting the players’ thoughts. We don’t always unilaterally agree on everything but it gives them a form where they can have some input on what’s going on.

“You need that within your program when you have 115 players that come from different socioeconomic backgrounds. White, black, Hispanic. Rap music to country music. You’ve got to get information and you’ve got to give them a platform where they have that. That’s what our leadership council does.”