Brian Kelly open to feedback from LSU players amid recent struggles

Times are officially tough in Baton Rouge, with LSU on a three-game losing streak. Florida was the latest team to take down Brian Kelly and the Tigers, ending any chance of making the SEC Championship or College Football Playoff. Not what anybody envisioned in Baton Rouge this season, even after an early slip-up vs. USC.

Although LSU still has a couple of games remaining on the schedule, Kelly has expanded his open-door policy even more. The head coach wants feedback from the players to figure out what has gone wrong this year. After all, the players make up a key cog of the program.

Questions are certainly being asked from the outside. But Kelly is asking them internally as well, hoping to find a solution.

“There’s nobody in this building that’s happy about where we are and what the outcomes are,” Kelly said on Monday. “Essentially, what you’re doing more than anything else is getting the autonomy or the feedback from your players. Because they are stakeholders in this as well. You want to hear what they have to say. ‘What are the things that we need to stop doing? What are the things that we need to start doing? What are the things we need to do more of?’ So, we’re always asking those things from our players and getting that kind of feedback.”

A players-only meeting was held following the Florida loss. Will Campbell was open about the topic during his recent media availability. While no captains have been named for the 2024 season, Campbell is a three-year player inside the program and is certainly a voice Kelly would listen to.

“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 Wednesday during the SEC Coaches Teleconference. “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.”

Saturday will be an instant opportunity to see if the feedback has worked short-term. LSU has another home game in the SEC, facing Vanderbilt. Finishing the season out strong is still a must for the Tigers to get positive momentum back inside the program.