LSU pounds Clemson, looks like a playoff team

CLEMSON, S.C. – There wasn’t any fist-pounding this time by Brian Kelly.

Instead, his LSU football team did the pounding, as in physically delivering a pounding, in what was the most important win of Kelly’s career to this point on the Bayou. It wasn’t just that LSU beat No. 4 Clemson 17-10 on a muggy Saturday night at the “other” Death Valley, which went from rock concert decibels to a murmur once LSU took command in the fourth quarter.

It’s the way LSU won. The Tigers won the line of scrimmage battle on both sides. They were the more physical team. They showed poise in a tough environment, even after some costly turnovers. They have a veteran quarterback, Garrett Nussmeier, who made every big play he needed to and never once looked rattled.

And here’s the clincher: They won on defense, sealing the game with a healthy Harold Perkins Jr. looking like a track star and forcing a scrambling Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnick into a fourth-down incompletion from the LSU 15-yard line in the final minute.

Defense had been a dirty word at LSU under Kelly and so had season openers. They had lost three in row on his watch until Saturday’s win, and afterward, it was a far cry from a year ago when an angry Kelly slammed his fist on the table following a 27-20 loss to USC and called it unacceptable.

This time, he called it what his players echoed outside a victorious LSU locker room – the standard.

“I mean, we’re the fighting LSU Tigers. We’re going to play with a swagger,” LSU linebacker Whit Weeks said. “We know the dudes we have on this roster.”

We college football junkies are the worst in the world when it comes to overreaction after Week 1, both good and bad. Don’t think so? Give a call to your closest Texas friend or Alabama friend, and here’s betting you hear at least once that Arch Manning is a bust and Alabama is already looking around for replacements for Kalen DeBoer.

So this is more an observation than a proclamation: There’s no reason this LSU team shouldn’t be in the College Football Playoff this season. The Tigers improved on defense a year ago under first-year coordinator Blake Baker, but they took it to another level Saturday – thanks in large part to at least eight new additions via the transfer portal – and held Clemson to 31 rushing yards, only 12 in the second half. Klubnik had very few clean pockets to throw from, and the speed of the LSU defense was especially noticeable.

“We’ve said from day one that we’ve had offenses here the last few years that could move the football,” Kelly said. “We needed to complement it with a defense that could stand the test. You go on the road and play a top-5 team, you better bring your defense. We knew that we were going to be that defense that needed to step up and step up big.”

The mood outside the LSU locker room after the game was festive, but not over the top. Kelly made no secret this offseason how important this opener was going to be. The Tigers needed some momentum to start the 2025 season after having to dig out of a hole each of the past three years with a season-opening loss.

Plus, there was already growing restlessness among LSU fans, who weren’t enamored with nine-win or even 10-win seasons. This after all is a program that dominated college football as recently as 2019 with one of the most impressive seasons in recent memory and won a national championship under Ed Orgeron before firing Orgeron in 2021 and handing him a $17 million parting gift.

As we’ve gotten deeper into Kelly’s tenure at LSU without any championships or playoff appearances, the recurring question has become: Will he be able to get the Tigers back to a championship level? It’s a question that would have only grown louder and more demonstrative with another season-opening loss.

“Those narratives were never anything that we bought into as a program,” Kelly said. “Look, people build up the first game to a level of craziness. I mean, look at the quarterbacks that are under incredible scrutiny. So I just think that in this business, you have to stay focused on what your job is, and my job is to bring a football team on the road, play with great confidence and composure and compete their tails off for four quarters. That’s my job, not to worry about what other people say. I get it. It’s out there, but they didn’t put me in this position to worry about those things.”

Some might argue that Kelly’s 32-31 overtime win against Alabama his first season was his biggest at LSU. It was Nick Saban. The Crimson Tide were ranked No. 5, but that was the honeymoon phase for Kelly and the game was also in Baton Rouge.

The honeymoon phase is long gone now, and Kelly needed to prove that he could go on the road and beat an elite team, especially bloodying that team’s nose.

That’s what makes the Clemson win so vital, along with LSU playing at a championship level on defense. Baker’s blitzes came from all different angles and directions, keeping Klubnik off balance all night. This was the same Klubnik who’s being projected as an NFL first-round draft pick and accounted for 43 touchdowns last season. Clemson scored its only touchdown of the game with 4:36 to play in the second quarter Saturday and never scored again.

LSU spent handsomely in the transfer portal, and Kelly said it was important to give Baker the “tools” he needed to scheme and play the kind of attacking defense he prefers.

“We have the depth and the competitive depth that allows us to compete at a high level,” Kelly said.

LSU gets Louisiana Tech at home next week before the SEC opener against Florida at home on Sept. 13. In other words, the real season is just beginning.

“Beating Clemson is cool, but the goal is a national championship. This is just a step,” said cornerback Mansoor Delane, a transfer from Virginia Tech who received the game ball. “It’s on to the next one.”

The “next one” looks a little different than it did this time a year ago.

And moreover, this LSU team looks a little different. Make that a lot different.