Brian Kelly tirade: Questions of LSU's offense 'totally valid'

LSU coach Brian Kelly made headlines Saturday night after he blew up on a question from a reporter following a 20-10 win against Florida. The reported made note of the lackluster offensive performance for the Tigers in the win, causing Kelly to go on a tirade.

“Stop, really? Is that the first question?” Kelly asked. “We won the game 20-10. Try another question. What do you want me to tell you? I just laid it out for you. We played the game to win the game. We played the game to win the game.”

The Tigers are off to a 3-0 start to the season and clearly Kelly felt the criticism was unwarranted. College football analyst Josh Pate believes the question was valid, but agreed the reporter maybe shouldn’t have asked it right out of the gate.

“If I were the LSU coach coming off the field, I know how tough it is to win those games,” he said on Josh Pate’s College Football Show. “You got Florida’s max effort. They played poorly at the quarterback position, but you got the max effort and you won the game. The last thing you wanna be doing is getting criticized. So if I’m Brian Kelly, I probably sound like that. But if I were an LSU fan, I’d have those concerns. So the question’s totally valid. Maybe ask it fifth instead of first. Ask it Monday or Tuesday instead of Saturday.”

LSU ranks just 109th in the country with 20.0 points per game. Additionally, the Tigers were outgained 362-322 in Saturday’s win.

If not for a particularly abhorrent day from Gators quarterback DJ Lagway, who threw five interceptions, the outcome might have been different. Instead, LSU came away unscathed and still undefeated.

That has allowed the Tigers to avoid the questions of there offense a little bit longer. But if they keep playing at their current level, they won’t be able to much longer.

“Clearly LSU’s offense is a shell in terms of what people thought it would be capable of so far,” Pate said. “Now, that’s through three games and they played two really tough defensive opponents. Last week kind of was what it was against Louisiana Tech. I will even give you benefit of the doubt that was a let-down spot, lookahead spot. So maybe you’ve just been in a letdown spot for your inferior opponent and you’ve played two really good defenses.

“Brian Kelly’s right. Maybe Brian Kelly is telling the God’s honest truth that they called that game last night in the best manner to win that game. …Let’s just pack it in here. We got the win. Move on down the road. When we need to open the offensive briefcase, it’ll be there.”