What He Said: LSU QB Jayden Daniels after the FSU loss

LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels finished 22-for-37 passing for 347 yards, a touchdown and interception in a Week 1 loss to Florida State.

Daniels also led the team in rushing for 64 yards on a night where the running backs fell flat.

After getting to the red zone five times on six drives in the first half, LSU didn’t get onto the scoreboard in the second half until one minute left in the game. In that span, FSU scored 31 unanswered points to secure the 45-24 win.

Here’s everything Daniels said after the loss.

Q. Jayden, Coach talked a lot about choices, needing to be made, where does that fall on you?

JAYDEN DANIELS: Everything falls on me. What Coach was talking about, the urgency and the choices we make, he’s right. Everything falls back on me. Being the leader and the quarterback on the team, I have to get the guys going. I have to set the tempo. First half, we had that. We’ve got to finish drives that we had in the red zone. You know that set us back a little bit. But coming out of halftime, that starts with me and getting the guys going. First drive, I felt like we had urgency, but in critical moments I have to get going, and I have to set the tempo and I have to be able to push the guys. Because everybody is looking at me and how I maneuver on a daily basis, and I have to go back to the drawing board and look to what I can do to get the team more prepared on a day-to-day basis.

Q. Those two fourth downs in the first half, how critical were those, not being able to convert those?
And do you feel like those are things you can learn from in terms of how you can operate in those types of situations?

JAYDEN DANIELS: A hundred percent. Those two fourth downs are very critical, especially playing a Top-10 opponent — a Top-5 opponent that we played tonight, a very good team that’s been playing together for a while. They capitalized on those type of things. Not being able to come away with points and capitalize on those opportunities, it hurt and it set us back a lot. The second fourth down, that was on me, even though I was probably doing too much, just handing the ball off and hopefully we can get into the crease and get a first down.

The first one, I just got to lay the ball up. Fourth down, give somebody a shot. Going back on the film, that’s something I’ll take to heart and look at it very critically.

Q. The throw to Brian that didn’t get completed and the interception, how much of a swing did that feel like down on the field and what happened with Malik, was there a miscommunication there or something?

JAYDEN DANIELS: Malik just slipped. It is what it is. He slipped, lost his footing. A DB made a play, turned his head. Just something we have to live and die with. The throw down to Brian down the sideline, if I put it down the line more like the second time, he would score — same result. Just things that fall back on me with my technique and everything that I got to through in my mind. If I put the
ball out there a little bit more, Brian scores and the game might swing our way, the momentum shifts.
The second one, that’s football. Somebody is going to slip and fall. The DB is going to make a play. But after that, it’s up to me to respond back, and we didn’t respond back in the right way.

Q. What was Florida State’s defensive line doing to give your offensive line some trouble?

JAYDEN DANIELS: We got ourselves in critical second-and-long, third-and-long situations where they
know that they are able to pin their ears back and just rush the passer. So you know, staying out of those situations, helping the offensive line out; me getting the ball or me making the right protection call. You know, stepping up, taking a hit, but also delivering a ball. That’s things that could change the defense.
And also, pushing the urgency and the tempo, like Coach said. Second half, if we keep pushing that, maybe we tire out their D-Line and we don’t give them a chance to sub in, and just go out there and pin their ears back.

Q. To hear your coach say, “We are not the team that we thought we were,” what does that do to you and what does that stir in you?

JAYDEN DANIELS: It’s just something we have to prove to him. We have a long season ahead. I agree with him. We’re not the team we thought we were. We thought we were somebody else that we weren’t. And, you know, I feel like just as a whole team, we got ahead of ourselves. We thought we were going to come out and it was going to be easy. We have to step back and look back at ourselves in the mirror and how we are going to respond to this at the end of the day. We have a short week coming up, and we don’t really have time to sit back and think about the loss. We have to get ready for Grambling. It’s how do we respond to that. If I know how the team is every day when I’m in the locker room with them, and I
know that they’re going to find the right way; but it’s on myself as a leader and a captain of the team to be able to go out there and prepare my guys mentally and physically on the practice field to be ready on Saturdays.