Micah Baskerville details when playing in the SEC Championship became a realistic goal for LSU

Coming into the season, not many people thought LSU was going to make a run to the SEC Championship Game. Here they are, though, ready to compete against Georgia. Linebacker Micah Baskerville explained when this became a realistic goal for the Tigers. Notably, the Tigers weren’t thinking about this before the season started.

“No, sir, we weren’t talking about that,” Micah Baskerville said. “We were talking about what was important now, just buying in, everybody making their own time to work out, everybody doing their questionnaire, things like that. We didn’t talk about it as far as that’s going to handle itself, but we have to work our way and get there and be prepared.”

Micah Baskerville was then asked if he thought this was possible when LSU was blown out by Tennessee in early October.

“Not right off the bat. But after having the conversation, I had a conversation with a couple coaches, some of the teammates, we was like, Man, we still got a lot of things to do, we still got a lot of things we can accomplish,” Micah Baskerville said.

“After that we came together, had a little player meeting, talked about we still got things that we can accomplish. So we came together as a whole. Coach [Brian] Kelly came and talked to us, gave us a great message, told us to finish strong. That’s what we’re trying to do.”

Micah Baskerville on how Brian Kelly sparked this turnaround

In his first season, Brian Kelly has completely turned around LSU. There are a lot of reasons for this, but for Micah Baskerville the biggest thing that’s changed is mental preparation.

“Okay, well, first I say doing the little things. He harps on that a lot because in every game there’s something you got to do. If you keep doing the little things, the routine plays, then we see it come out successful,” Micah Baskerville said.

“Another thing is our mental preparation. He’s big on our mental preparation. He feels that if we do have great mental preparation, we can play fast, play free and give all our effort without thinking. Those are some things that I see about his process that he talks about a lot that are very important.”