Brian Kelly responds to Week 1 hype with ‘rat poison’ analogy

No. 9 LSU is among the talk of college football coming out of the opening weekend by going on the road and winning over No. 4 Clemson. That said, Brian Kelly needs them to ignore that and, as an all-time great would say, not eat that rat poison.

While on ‘The Paul Finebaum Show’ on Monday, Kelly addressed some of the national praise that his team has already gotten since the 17-10 win on Saturday. With that, Kelly referenced the saying of Nick Saban about rat poison and that the Tigers are a team now that will need to avoid ingesting it.

“Well, you know, we’ve heard this for many years, Paul, you and I – you know, the rat poison, right, from Nick, you know,” said Kelly. “Can’t eat the rat poison.”

LSU earned this hype by winning their first opener of the decade in a one-score win at Clemson. It wasn’t the best first half for the Tigers but they managed to get control, during a tight second half in a difficult environment, with a touchdown in the third quarter to tie it and a touchdown in the fourth quarter to win it. That has now since validated some preseason expectations of Louisiana State, as the Tigers are expected to see a bump in their ranking coming out of week one as they’re now being more legitimately viewed not just as a playoff team but as a national title contender.

That being the case, Kelly can’t keep that from his team, as it’ll be easier for him to just talk to them about it rather than act like it’s not there. However, LSU can’t let any of it affect them or their play, just like they didn’t this weekend in helping them to win their first game of the season.

“To me, you know, more than anything else is you address that with your team and you address it and say, ‘Look, there’ the deal. The challenge will be us. The challenge is us each and every week,” said Kelly. “That is staying with our process, staying locked in on the things that we have done so well. We need to continue to do that.”

“When we get outside of that and start listening to what other people have to say and get concerned with all those things? Like, our team didn’t play angry. They played aggressive. They could have been angry and emotional and out of control and doing crazy things based upon what people were saying about them, but they didn’t do that. And they can’t do it when they’re saying great things about you,” Kelly said. “You really have to remove that and focus on what’s important, and that is, you know, your preparation for your next opponent so you can go 1-0.”