WATCH: Brian Kelly previews LSU vs. Ole Miss
LSU head coach Brian Kelly met with the media on Monday to review the Arkansas win and look ahead to the Ole Miss game. On Saturday, the Tigers head to Ole Miss to face the Rebels at 5 p.m. CT.
Among the issues LSU must address is its defense, which had a tough time defending the Razorbacks offense. Quarterback KJ Jefferson’s big game was spoiled by LSU driving down the field for the game-winning field goal. Kelly sees tweaks on the way for the group.
“I think there’s some other tweaks that we can do defensively to see that we get guys in the right position and let them influence the game accordingly,” Kelly told reporters. “So if there’s not another guy that you know, let’s take a red shirt off a particular player or another guy that’s going to get into rotation, you might see some players play a little bit more.
“We have to do ordinary things extraordinarily well. And I know that it’s an overused cliche that we hear so many times. But we are having a tendency of trying to chase too many plays on defense and what I mean by that is we’re trying to make plays that are really not our place to make, and we just need to do our job. And I think once we settle down and just do the ordinary things extraordinarily well this can be a really good defense because it’s shown itself to have the resiliency and toughness and the players necessary to do that.”
A new face emerged at safety in Marshall transfer Andre Sam, who came in this offseason and had a big game on Saturday with an interception. Kelly heaped praise on the Louisiana native’s efforts to help this team.
“He’s made progress. I’ll give you an example,” Kelly said. “The interception he made, he would not have made that interception earlier in the year, especially against Florida State. He wasn’t playing deep enough. He was getting great depth on the post. He’s done a really good job. He’s got to continue to make those open field tackles. That’ll be an area that we’ll concentrate with him on. But he’s so comfortable and plays with great energy, great enthusiasm, I love to coach him every day and he just wants to get better. That’s the guy you want to coach.”
