Jayden Daniels on LSU's second half in Week 1: 'Everything falls back on me'
By the end of LSU‘s loss to Florida State, it was difficult to remember that the Tigers led the game at halftime. However, they did, and after the game quarterback Jayden Daniels took the blame for everything that happened in the second half.
Daniels explained that everything falls on his shoulders, including the leadership for LSU’s offense and the decisions that he makes as the quarterback.
“Everything falls on me,” Jayden Daniels said. “What Coach [Brian Kelly] was talking about, the urgency and the choices we make, he’s right. Everything falls back on me.”
Jayden Daniels noticed a difference between the two halves in how the LSU was operating. That’s because, according to Daniels, he wasn’t able to get the guys going in the second half.
“Being the leader and the quarterback on the team, I have to get the guys going. I have to set the tempo. First half, we had that. We’ve got to finish drives that we had in the red zone. You know that set us back a little bit,” Daniels said.
“But coming out of halftime, that starts with me and getting the guys going. First drive, I felt like we had urgency, but in critical moments I have to get going, and I have to set the tempo and I have to be able to push the guys.”
On the day, Jayden Daniels put up solid numbers. He threw for 347 yards and a touchdown with an interception. Daniels also led LSU in rushing with 64 yards.
“Because everybody is looking at me and how I maneuver on a daily basis, and I have to go back to the drawing board and look to what I can do to get the team more prepared on a day-to-day basis.”
Jayden Daniels says LSU isn’t the team it thought it was
In the press conference after the game, Jayden Daniels explained that one issue LSU had was that the Tigers aren’t who they thought they were.
“It’s just something we have to prove to him [Brian Kelly]. We have a long season ahead. I agree with him. We’re not the team we thought we were. We thought we were somebody else that we weren’t. And, you know, I feel like just as a whole team, we got ahead of ourselves. We thought we were going to come out and it was going to be easy. We have to step back and look back at ourselves in the mirror and how we are going to respond to this at the end of the day,” Daniels said.
“We have a short week coming up, and we don’t really have time to sit back and think about the loss. We have to get ready for Grambling. It’s how do we respond to that. If I know how the team is every day when I’m in the locker room with them, and I know that they’re going to find the right way, but it’s on myself as a leader and a captain of the team to be able to go out there and prepare my guys mentally and physically on the practice field to be ready on Saturdays.”