Brian Kelly addresses special teams woes, plans to reevaluate return game

The LSU Tigers lost to the Florida State Seminoles Sunday night after nearly pulling off an improbable comeback. Throughout the majority of the game, the Tigers did not play particularly well in all facets of the game. However, the one area LSU looked most troubling was on special teams. And during the postgame press conference, head coach Brian Kelly addressed the special team’s woes.

“I’ve been doing this a long time. You put a guy back there, and you watch him, you evaluate him through four weeks of practice,” said Kelly on kick returner Malik Nabers. “You feel comfortable that with his elite skillset and his mindset that he’s gonna be able to do a great job. And that wasn’t the case. That was a mistake that we made.”

Kelly was critical of Nabers and understandably so. The sophomore from Youngsville, LA, muffed two punts on the night. Fortunately for him and LSU, neither one resulted in points for the Seminoles; however, both came at pivotal momentum swings in the game. Nabers still wants to be the return man at LSU, but Kelly is not so certain of that:

“He wants to do it, and we’ll reevaluate that situation. He’s a great kid. We didn’t lose the game because he dropped those two punts. We miraculously were able to overcome those. But that’s on us. We made that evaluation; we watched them catch punts, and we felt like he was in a position that he could do that for us.

“As it relates to the field goal, it came from the same left side; we made an adjustment after the field goal and made a switch in personnel. That didn’t work, either. That’s on us. We have to do a better job coaching.”

In the field goal kicking department, the Tigers would eventually leave four points on the field. Four points that could have easily meant a victory for LSU in their 24-23 defeat. The first block kick was in the second quarter when the Tigers trailed 7-3. The Seminoles’ punt block unit was able to collapse the left side of the Tigers’ formation to prevent the kick from getting off. The second block kick, arguably the biggest, was LSU’s extra point attempt to tie the game. And almost in a mirrorlike fashion, Florida State broke the line on the left side again to block the kick and end the game.

To closeout, Kelly explains this is a team effort, win or loss. And all parties must be held accountable.

“And again, that’s coaching and execution. We’re all in this together; players and coaches alike. We have to go back tomorrow, go back to work, and get better at those things. But no, we didn’t go through camp and go, ‘Wow, we are who we are, we have all these holes.’ We didn’t expect a lot of the mistakes that we saw out there today. But, as coaches, we have to be critical of ourselves and look at our evaluation. And say, we’re part of this as well, and we’ve got to do better job coaching.”