LSU football did not get the outcome it wanted on Saturday as the Tigers fell 27-20 in a game that came down to the wire.

While there were several good moments for the team, one thing that cannot be ignored is how poorly the Tigers have fared in season-opening matchups over recent history, falling in now five consecutive games in that category. Those losses have come, in order, to Mississippi State, UCLA, Florida State on two occasions and now to USC.

Head coach Brian Kelly was asked in a recent appearance on The Paul Finebaum Show on his thoughts surrounding this subject. It doesn’t seem that Kelly would change anything, and sees the value in going up against a tough opponent in the first week of the season, as opposed to playing more of a cupcake, tune-up game.

“I want to develop our football team, and I would much rather do it with a win,” Kelly said. “However, winning a game 73 to nothing against an opponent that really (you’re an overmatch to) really does not tell you anything about your football team. We know a lot more about our team. We know what our strengths are, what our weaknesses are and we can now move forward and know where our personnel issues are, where we need to be better as coaches, what we need to do in everything as it relates to winning football games. This team prepared very well, but preparing to play the game and actually winning the game are two different things.”

The USC game serves as a solid measuring stick in Kelly’s eyes, and has exposed many of the issues that Tigers must address in order to be a consistently competitive football team in 2024.

“So now, what do we need to do to win games? Some of that’s in personnel, some of that is in play-calling. Some of it is in execution late in the game, and that was the case here. So, we can go to work on those things and know going into Week 2 that this is going to be a better football team.”