Brian Kelly explains decision to pull Garrett Nussmeier in loss vs. Texas A&M

The LSU Tigers got stunned in the second half against the Texas A&M Aggies. Amid that, Brian Kelly decided to pull quarterback Garrett Nussmeier with about six minutes left in the game, much to Nussmeier’s frustration.

After the game, Kelly did address that decision and Nussmeier’s frustrations. At the same time, given the situation, he felt it was his obligation to pull him to prevent any injury in junk time that could completely derail the season.

“Well, I would’ve been disappointed too,” Brian Kelly said. “If you took me out of the game in that situation, I would have been disappointed too, but it was a bigger picture. We were struggling in protection. I thought it would have been unfair to have him in the game, under those circumstances, with where the game was clearly out of reach. To have him get injured in that situation, I thought would have been malpractice from my standpoint.”

Injuries have become a major piece of the conversation for LSU and Nussmeier, in particular, this season. A torso injury early in the season seemed to impact his arm strength at times. Then, an ankle issue he suffered against South Carolina became another hurdle to overcome. Neither of those has necessarily kept him from playing, but as the offense has struggled, those injuries have been magnified.

As Kelly noted, LSU was struggling to block Texas A&M and the Aggies were teeing off on Nussmeier at one point. Still, he’d finish the game completing 22 of 35 passes for 168 yards and a touchdown. However, with sacks coming off rushing yardage, he rushed for -44 yards.

It was Michael Van Buren, the Mississippi State transfer, who came in to replace Garrett Nussmeier. In his brief playing time, Van Buren completed 3 of 4 passes for 50 yards and a touchdown. He’d rush for seven yards on five attempts.

Brian Kelly on his future as LSU head coach amid disappointing season

In a season where there were massive expectations on LSU, the Tigers have failed to live up to them. Now, head coach Brian Kelly can feel the hot seat heating up underneath him. At the same time, Kelly knows that his future at LSU isn’t a decision he’s going to be able to make.

“That’s out of my hands. It’s impossible for the head coach, that’s been here for four years and 35 years of doing this, to think anything else but ‘this is my responsibility and we’ve got to get it turned around.’ That’s not my decision in terms of whether I’m here or not,” Kelly said.

“But that’s what I will do as a head coach that’s been doing this for over three decades. When things are not going well from a football standpoint, the head football coach has to be agile enough and able to make those changes and find out what we need to do to get our football team to play better.”

Kelly and LSU are now trying to regroup from losing three of four games in their bye week. After that, they travel to Tuscaloosa to take on the Alabama Crimson Tide.