Brian Kelly is urging players to continue developing championship habits

Brian Kelly stated before the season started that his main goal was installing a championship culture at LSU. We are now mid-way through the season, and Kelly is staying on his player to stay the course. During a recent press conference, the Tigers’ head man explained how he is urging players to continue developing championship habits and revealed what those habits are to him.

“I think it’s a little bit of everything. It’s how they handle their responsibilities away from football, (in the) classroom. We’ve got a lot of work to do in the classroom,” said Kelly. “Certainly, the attention to detail when it comes to just the day-to-day habits that we’re trying to build with our football team. Those are transformational. You take those with you to the practice field; your alignment is right, and your assignment is right for you. All of those things go to execution and trusting that you’re going to do it the right way.”

For what it’s worth, Kelly has gotten the players to buy into his habits early and is doing much better than most anticipated to start the season. Aside from last week’s home loss against the Tennessee Volunteers, LSU has played some high-quality football. Had it not been for some less-than-stellar special teams play in Week 1, the Tigers could easily be sitting at 5-1 instead of 4-2. And that speaks to the job Kelly has done thus far.

Kelly believes his Tigers have the choice to be great on the field and in their everyday life. But a good amount of that will happen when nobody is looking. If LSU is to reclaim its spot among the elites of college football, players must buy into making the right choices there as well.

“Everything from what you eat late at night when no one’s watching you to what time you go to bed to the people you hang around with,” said Kelly. “All of those things are part of the process of making good choices that are championship habits. And championship teams have those habits.

“They have choices, right. They can choose to be average, or they can choose to be excellent and elite. And to be elite, to be excellent, you gotta do hard things. You gotta go to bed early and gotta turn your cell phone off. That’s kind of what I’m talking about more so than how they ran the route or what play was called.”