Brian Kelly says LSU had 'great poise' in difficult environment

LSU cruised to an easy 41-14 win over Mississippi State, showing ‘great poise’ and jumping out to an early lead that neutralized the crowd and made it a significantly easier game than it could have been.

Coach Brian Kelly came away pleased with his team for executing against what he described as a difficult defense.

“Yeah, I mean I think that’s a difficult defense to play against,” Kelly told ESPN’s Katie George following the game. “I thought our guys really handled themselves with great poise in a very difficult environment early on to play in.”

LSU’s offense was on point throughout, despite another early deep red zone hiccup. After the Tigers were flagged for a false start on fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line and had to settle for a field goal, they managed to convert six of their next seven drives into points, including five touchdowns.

Quarterback Jayden Daniels hooked up with star receiver Malik Nabers and turned it into an air show.

“Obviously the thing is getting Jayden to throw the ball down the field was the big emphasis this year, and I thought he did a great job hooking up with Malik Nabers,” Kelly said.

Nabers, despite nursing an injured right shoulder after taking an early hit, managed to rack up 13 catches for 239 yards and two touchdowns in the contest.

With Mississippi State unable to guard Nabers, LSU simply picked its poison.

“Then it allows you to do so many other things,” Kelly said. “Run the ball efficiently, then the medium passing game is then available to you. They’ve been really good. They’ve scored on 10 of 11 possessions last week, then this week again they were very efficient.”

On the other side of the ball, LSU gave up only seven points in non-garbage time, showing great poise on defense as well as offense. The Bulldogs scored a late touchdown after backups were in.

“We played really good defense,” Kelly said. “When you’re playing on the road in the SEC, you have to come with a competitive edge that obviously we didn’t have in our opener. And these guys have learned that, there’s a lot of young players that are figuring out how to play. Proud of the way they played today.”