Brian Kelly is 0-3 in season openers thus far in his LSU tenure. While other programs across college football largely began their campaigns with matchups against Group of Five opponents or FCS squads, the Tigers embarked on the last three seasons with daunting battles against Florida State (twice) and USC. It does not get easier in 2025 when LSU hits the road for a marquee showdown against Clemson.
The Aug. 30 prime time clash may be an early College Football Playoff preview. Both Tigers teams have postseason aspirations and rosters that are, on paper, strong enough to get them into the bracket. It is one of the biggest games on the entire non-conference slate, and Kelly is making it a bigger deal of this contest than any of the other previous season openers.
“We’ve circled the game,” Kelly said on the “College GameDay” podcast. “I’ve never done that before in openers. It’s all over our weight room. It’s all over our workouts. We’re wearing shirts. I mean, we’re doing the kumbaya of ‘We’re playing Clemson and we need to beat Clemson.’ So is that too much pressure? No, I think we’ve got enough mature, veteran guys on this team. We had a clear conversation about why we were doing it, and they’re all in on that.”
Kelly opened his LSU career in 2022 with a neutral-site duel against Florida State, one in which his Tigers fell behind by two touchdowns and never fully clawed back in a 24-23 defeat. The Seminoles won the rematch in 2023, again on a neutral field, in 45-24 blowout fashion. Last year, LSU headed out to Las Vegas and surrendered a late lead in a 27-20 loss to USC.
“The fact of the matter is they are exciting openers, and unfortunately we have not done well in those openers and haven’t had the outcomes that we wanted,” said Kelly. “Clemson will be a great challenge, but one that I think more than anything else, we have a football team that can go on the road. And that’s what you have to do. You have to have a defense that travels. We finally have got the roster in a position where I believe these are the kind of games that you want to go and play, and you need to win them.”
When LSU hired Kelly in 2022, the expectation was that he would take the program back to national championship contention. He fell short of that goal each of the last three years, and those season-opening losses played key roles in holding the Tigers back from reaching the CFP.
A dominant offseason in which LSU acquired the No. 1-ranked transfer portal class, however, breathed new life into the program ahead of Kelly’s pivotal Year 4.
“I’m not going to make any other statements other than the fact that we need to win the opener, because we’re 0-3,” Kelly said. “Not that this will be a deciding factor whether you get in the playoff or not — it is a long haul — but we need it as a program and for the fan support, the people to be rallying around this team, which I believe is going to be an outstanding team.”
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