Brian Kelly evaluates how far LSU has to go: ‘The divide is not huge’

LSU came up short on Saturday in their 50-30 loss in the SEC Championship to Georgia. It was a disappointing end for a Tiger team that overcame a lot to earn a spot on that stage. However, Brian Kelly believes it highlighted how close his program already is to contention.

Kelly broke down the margin during his postgame press conference in Atlanta. He says only a handful of plays separated the two teams even with the final score coming by 20 points. Kelly knows they have work ahead of them, but he doesn’t believe it’s nearly as much as many may think.

“I’m not gonna sit here and say woulda, coulda, shoulda. But if we just do a little better job on a field goal situation and take seven off the board? It’s 43 points. Maybe we convert, it’s 37, and you got a one-score game…That’s a pretty close game so that divide is not huge. But we got work to do,” Kelly said. “We’ve got to continue to develop our football team. This foundation is really strong and we’ll be able to continue to build on it. But I don’t believe that gap is something that we can’t continue to close.”

LSU accomplished a lot in Kelly’s first season down in the bayou. They won the SEC West with a 6-2 conference mark that featured wins over Alabama and Ole Miss. The Tigers competed for a College Football Playoff spot too with a resume that was worthy of consideration down the stretch.

Even in defeat, Kelly believes yesterday showed that his team is already on the brink of making these accomplishments normal in Baton Rouge. There’s still work to be done but, because they know where they are now, the Tigers know what the road ahead will look like in order to continue to compete.

“It brings into light the program that we’ve made and the things that we have to continue to work on. I think it clearly defines who we want to be and that we’re not there yet. And that’s okay,” said Kelly. “We’re not happy that we’re not SEC champs…We wanted to win this game. But we know where we’re at.”

“We need to go to work and get better at the things necessary for us to be better collectively, individually, and as a football program.”