By Hunt Palmer
From heartbreaking to backbreaking, LSU’s season openers haven’t gone well for five years.
Brian Kelly is winless in three chances at LSU, and preseason goals become distant with an 0-1 start. That’s why Kelly has made some changes around the football operations building this summer.
“If you go through our weightroom, we’ve got a Clemson paw print on the bags we hit every day,” Kelly said. “It’s on every monitor in our building to go 1-0. And I think it was important for us to have a tangible, specific goal going into the season. And I think it’s important our kids want that. They can taste it.”
After 15 minutes of conversation at SEC Media Days, the national title and the Heisman Trophy came up. Those are the stakes LSU understands its playing for.
That all starts in the offseason with strength and conditioning. Junior linebacker Whit Weeks has added rehabilitation to that list as he recovers from a broken leg in the bowl game.
Weeks lit up when asked about getting the season started.
“We know what our goals are for this season and one of our goals is obviously to win that first game,” Weeks said. “So, every day we go into work, and we see that paw print, and it’s like, ‘alright, this is what we’re going to do right now is to go win that season opener.’”
Last year was Garrett Nussmeier’s first shot at a season opener. It fell flat with a disappointing loss to USC in Las Vegas. Nussmeier watched from the sidelines as LSU dropped openers to UCLA and Florida State.
It’s all he knows at this point.
“We accept and we understand that we’ve failed the last couple of years, and we haven’t risen to the occasion,” Nussmeier said. “I think it’s more of just understanding how important that Week 1 game is. It just happens to be Clemson this year, and so I think our focus is fully on Clemson. We want to start the season 1-0, and we know that’s what it takes to get us where we want to go.”
Under Kelly’s direction, the Tigers have wholly embraced the challenge of a primetime season opener. Many teams around the country will open with lopsided wins against inferior competition. LSU is one of just six SEC teams that will play a power conference opponent in Week 1.
“I’m excited to play Clemson,” Weeks said. “I would way rather play a top 10 team in the country than not play one of the top 10 teams in the country. To be the best, you’ve got to beat the best. Going into a hostile environment, it’s going to be awesome. I’ve never been in that stadium, but I’ve heard it’s cool. I think our whole team is looking forward to going to play in one of the best venues in the country.”
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