LSU's Future "Extremely Bright" as Brian Kelly Era Officially Begins
LSU didn't get the result it wanted for its seniors during Tuesday night's Texas Bowl loss to Kansas State. But the future of the program couldn't look much more positive through the eyes of interim coach Brad Davis.
The Tigers' offensive line coach who was leading this team on the sidelines for one last game made sure to get the point across to all 39 available scholarship players and walk ons who were a part of one last game in the 2021 season.
"The future at LSU is extremely bright," Davis said after the game. "The kids we have at LSU love LSU. Coach Kelly is going to take these kids to new heights. My message to the kids after the game was remember this feeling and let it drive you to be better."
This is a new era that LSU walks into with Kelly now fully accepting the mantle as the next coach of a program that two years ago, had one of the great runs in college football history. For Kelly, the goal is to start enacting that championship mindset from day one with this team, already starting to get some of his practice tendencies involved with this young, ascending group.
"It’s about standards, championship standards. This football team won the national title in 2019, and for whatever reason, we’re going to have to get the standards back up to that level," Kelly said on the broadcast. "That’s why I’m here, to get the standards back to where they were. That’s my job to go to work on that, and I’ve been working on that. I’ll have my chance to work with this football team in January.”
Kelly repeatedly talked about alignment throughout his entire opening press conference and feels stronger than ever that everyone in the athletic department has the same goals in mind with this program and its future.
It won't be an easy trek to get this ship steered back into those championship conversations, but it all starts with building the right culture around the program. Kelly has been able to get a start on that phase and next will be topping off a roster with plenty of positions to fill before the start of the 2022 season.
“Football is so important. This is about graduating from LSU and playing for championships," Kelly said. "The alignment at the university is what pushed me to this position."
