Brian Kelly enjoys first SEC win as LSU knocks off Mississippi State: ‘We’re fighters’
By Keith Farner
Published:
Brian Kelly enjoyed his first SEC win as LSU’s coach on Saturday as the Tigers knocked off the Bulldogs.
LSU scored 21 points in the fourth quarter to pull away for a 31-16 victory after Mississippi State took a 16-10 lead with 6:31 left in the third quarter.
“It’s really nice,” Kelly told ESPN’s Katie George. “Anytime you can win a game in the SEC, it’s an accomplishment especially against a really quality team. That’s a veteran team. We started two freshmen on the offensive line and they managed to hang in there. We’ll just keep building it, we’ll enjoy this one and get ready for next week.”
After the uneven start, Kelly was proud with how LSU finished the game.
“We’re fighters,” Kelly said. “We showed that in Week 1, we just didn’t execute at the end. But that’s what we know about this team. They’ll fight. We executed so much better in the second half. Our defense played great. This is a really difficult team to defend. They played very well. I thought their defense was very difficult.
“But we got into a rhythm, and I think quite frankly, up front, our guys did a great job in the second half. We were able to run the football, we had the big runs and we could control the line of scrimmage late. In the SEC, you’ve got to run the football. We were able to run the football late and that was the difference.”
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
