Brian Kelly challenges LSU players: ‘Do you want to fight or not?’

A promising season for LSU has quickly fallen apart, with the Tigers dropping a third straight game on Saturday on the road at Florida.

Coach Brian Kelly knows his team is at an interesting inflection point, one that will say a lot about what kind of players he has developed from a character standpoint.

“This is really a simple exercise of do you want to fight or not?” Kelly said after the loss on Saturday. “Do you want to fight and take responsibility as coaches and players that we’re not playing well and we’re struggling right now? So it’s life. It’s a myriad of things, but it’s a reflection of what life’s about.”

Things looked good for LSU until the second half at Texas A&M, when the Aggies took over and slew of Tigers mistakes led to a second loss on the season.

A week later against Alabama it was a humbling blowout at home.

Then the stumble against a Florida team that was reeling and simply trying to keep its coach from being fired. Sure, the Swamp is a tough place to play, but LSU will feel it let one get away.

Now the focus turns forward.

“There’s a rough spot here that we have to fight through, and we have got to do it together,” Kelly said. “So if you’re a thumb-pointer, if you’re not somebody that’s saying, ‘I’m going to work and continue to work to be better’ then we don’t have a place for you in the last couple weeks. But if you want to fight and you want to keep working to get better then we’re going to be alongside of you.”

LSU has a couple games remaining. Both are winnable, but neither will be a gimme.

Vanderbilt is up first, and the Commodores will be coming off a bye week. They’ll be fresh and well-schemed to take on the Tigers. Then the regular-season finale sees Oklahoma stepping into Death Valley.

Those games will give you a pretty clear picture of what LSU is made of.

“At the end of the day it’s about overcoming adversity and fighting through these last two games that are at home that we desperately want to win,” Kelly said.