Columbia was rocking as South Carolina took a 17-0 lead with 12:19 left in the second quarter on Saturday afternoon. LSU, in its first true road game of the year and facing its biggest deficit, had to get to work and Brian Kelly’s squad did just that. The offense scored 31 points on its next six possessions, while the defense allowed just seven on the next five South Carolina drives.

Finally, after inconsistencies plagued the Tigers early on this season, LSU started to get comfortable. Chaos ensued in the final quarter, but the Tigers did enough to get the 36-33 win and improve to 2-1 overall and 1-0 in SEC play.

“So proud of the grit and perseverance of our football team down 17-0 on the road in the SEC against a veteran team, especially on defense,” Kelly said. “The guys work so hard, they’re not going to give up, that’s in their DNA, they’re not going to let the rope slip. It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s early in the season, we’ve played really good opponents and we’ve had the lead in the fourth quarter twice and in one we let slip away and this one we finished off.”

In a year where there were questions on both sides of the ball, losing three first round picks on offense and a whole new defensive coaching staff, the Tigers have struggled to find their footing, but a performance like this shows the buy-in and overall effort is where it needs to be.

“Football teams take on identities and personalities and this team is going to battle. We’ll continue to coach these guys because they want to do great for LSU and they’re going to work at it,” Kelly said. “I’m just really proud of the way they blocked out the noise. I don’t think anybody picked us to win this game. Everybody had South Carolina winning this game, so they blocked that out and focused on getting themselves ready to compete on the road against an SEC opponent. Down 17-0 tells the story of the grit and perseverance of this team.”

Few players embody that toughness better than quarterback Garrett Nussmeier, who started just the fourth game of his career and his first true road game on Saturday. Despite throwing an interception and facing a ton of pressure from the aggressive Gamecock defense, Nussmeier continued to spin it and kept his entire offense believing it would win this game.”

“He’s a great leader, he communicates with the group and stays positive,” Kelly said. “He throws a pick in the redzone and he comes back the next series and you’d never know he made a mistake. He can move onto the next and that’s what you have to be in the SEC. Elite quarterbacks have to do that. That’s what makes him special.” 

The growth of this team maybe hard to see after a messy win like this, but Kelly says there are ample reasons to have optimism coming off of this road SEC win.

LSU’s next two games are against UCLA and South Alabama, both in Tiger Stadium, giving them two weeks of non-conference games to steady the ship and get healthy before conference play begins in October. Kelly sees the improvements, but knows its going to continue to be about execution as the Tigers pursue their goals this season.

“We showed resolve defensively early and then we started playing some complimentary football where we’d get a stop then go score on offense and we hadn’t done that the first couple of weeks,” Kelly said. “There’s great improvement there, but more than anything they fight like LSU Tigers and that’s what we want for our fans and for their teammates. If they continue to do that, we just need to execute better and if we do that this is going to be a really good team.”

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