LSU coach Brian Kelly had a half-hour press conference yesterday, looking ahead to the matchup. Here were the top takeaways -- including WR Chris Hilton (one of their top returning guys) being questionable with a bone bruise and starting right guard Miles Frazier is probable.
Who fills in if those guys are out?
"We've been moving that around. Tyree Adams has played a little bit of guard, Paul Mubenga has played a little bit of guard for us. So those two guys would be naturally moving into that position. I think that's how we've been managing it right now. Again, Miles [Frazier] should practice here tomorrow for us, so that's why we've got him listed as probable. Chris [Hilton] will move around today with our trainers. We'll get a better sense of his situation. That's why we have him listed as questionable, because we haven't seen him move around, we've seen Miles move around. Kyle Parker will be the next guy up in that situation. He's had a great camp. We feel really good about what he can do for us. And then we can start moving the pieces around a little bit -- Zavion Thomas gets a little bit more involved in what we're doing relative to playing out at the field. So we can move some guys around. Aaron Anderson gets called on a little bit more and then you can bump Kyren [Lacy] out to the X as well. So we've got a lot of moving pieces where some guys know multiple positions. But going back to my original comments, Kyle Parker would be the first guy that slides in."
Thoughts on USC:
"Certainly it's been a prolific offense. Lincoln Riley is an outstanding football coach. His pedigree in terms of winning at Oklahoma and at USC has been through the offense, and we've got to do a great job, obviously, in making them one-dimensional. IF they are balanced offensively, they are very difficult to defend. We've got to limit some of the big plays. Certainly, Zachariah Branch is an electrifying offensive player -- we've got to be able to tackle him. Not only offensively but in special teams. And then obviously prepare for a defense that we're not really certain about because they have so many new players on defense. We know the structure, we know that from a defensive standpoint they bring in a lot of talented players -- Bear Alexander, Ramsey, a lot of these guys are coming in as heralded transfers that certainly will impact their defense. Coach Lynn coming over from UCLA did a great job, and he will impact that defense as well. We've got our hands full, but from our perspective we'll be who we are from an offensive standpoint. Try to be as balanced as we can on offense. Defensively, we've got to be able to, as I mentioned, tackle in space, do a great job of stopping the run and prevent some of the big plays."
On Lincoln Riley's offense:
"Lincoln runs an Air Raid offense. It is predicated on attacking, playing fast. It's an offense that certainly has been prolific in the time that he has run it. I think they were top 5 in the country in terms of passing offense, and certainly with Caleb Williams running that offense it was elite. But again, that's what you're looking at -- an Air Raid offense that has its basic premise in pushing the tempo. Look, if they can spread you out and they can get numbers, they're going to run the football as well. So this is not just throw it all over the place -- if they can their numbers and run the football, they'd like to do that too."
On Miller Moss:
"He was the MVP of their bowl game and rightfully so. I thought he played extremely well. And so you're really taking a lot of what they did in the bowl game because you've got a couple of weeks to prepare and they had some time to really settle in on what they felt his comfort level is. Now, he's grown from there. He's had a spring practice, he's had another two and a half weeks, so there's going to be more to the offense. But you're going to take what Coach Riley has been successful with and then you're going to look at their offensive structure and begin to build your plan accordingly. He does some things a little bit different than Caleb. He's not as a freelance player. But so does Nussmeier -- he's not Jayden Daniels. I think they defend us in a similar fashion where they look at Nussmeier and what he did in the bowl game, and they kind of attack us the same way. I think we're both in a similar space in terms of how we build our defensive gameplans."
On what he's learned about his own new defense:
"This is all about how do they look against scripted plays and limited opportunities. Certainly, I know that our football team and the guys that we have feel really good about where they're at. But you have to go test yourself against somebody else to really be able to answer those questions. ... I know going in that we're prepared defensively, our guys are excited about playing for Blake. I know that they get the scheme very well, there's not a lot of confusion. There's not a lot of busts. There's guys that clearly understand what it is to play LSU football, and I'm excited to watch them play. ... I expect them to play the level of football on defense we've been accustomed to."
On what went into keeping this matchup on the schedule despite conference realignment:
"The conference realignment had not occurred when this conference realignment unfolded, and then we were so far down the line in terms of getting this done, in terms of Las Vegas being involved and the financial considerations being involved -- this is not about finances, we're not playing this game just because of money. We're playing because you've got two teams that shared a national championship. You've got two elite programs coming together. That's the reason why we wanted the matchup, and it was before the conference had obviously changed with them going into the Big Ten. And certainly, we felt like this was a great matchup. Moving forward, these may not be the kind of things that you see relative to openers. So again, I think we were too far down the line to want to make any changes with this opener. I think it's still an appealing opener even given the changes that have occurred. So I think that would be my answer is we were just too far down the road to make any changes, and moving forward we may or may not see something like this."
On D'Anton Lynn's defense:
"They had some really good players. Their defensive end was a first-round draft pick. Very active, play a lot of man coverage, very similar scheme in terms of getting after people. So I just think a very aggressive. Defensively, there's different ways to attack people, and I think Coach Lynn did a great job looking at matchups, utilizing his personnel in a great way at UCLA, and he's probably going to do the same thing here with the new personnel he has. We've evaluated what he's done at UCLA. He's got a new staff as well -- who knows what kind of influences the new staff [will have]. He's got some outstanding staff members they've assembled. So we just have to be prepared to handle three-down, four-down pressures, all those things and be who we are, but know that we have a great deal of respect for what he's done."
