Brian Kelly and LSU fell short on the road against Alabama over the weekend, but Kelly liked the effort from his team.

The Tigers were in the game until the 4th quarter when Alabama took a 2-score lead. Kelly liked the way his team handled the road matchup, and he believes his team is continuing to get better.

“The fight, just the way our guys handled the moment, being in that environment, it’s another step that we want to get to,” Kelly said in his press conference Monday. “We want to win those games. But again, I was really proud of our football team in the compete level. We’ve gotta coach better in those situations and we’ve gotta make some more plays, certainly.”

Kelly believes that the next step his team has to take is to win big games on the road.

“But I told the team after the game, we did some really good things, but you have to be elite on the road,” Kelly said. “You have to be elite to beat teams like that. We’re certainly not there yet, but we’re closing the gap.”

He also reassured fans that LSU is moving in the right direction. While the Tigers aren’t at the level of competing for a championship just yet, playing a good game against Alabama on the road was a positive sign.

“I know nobody wants to hear that,” Kelly said. “They want to be elite right now, but that’s team 45-5 over the last 50 games, they won a national championship and were the runners up. Over the same 50 games, we don’t have the same record, but we’re gonna get there. We’re gonna get to elite and we’re gonna continue to build it to get to that.”