Brian Kelly didn’t dance around what he saw in LSU’s opener. After watching the Tigers roll Clemson 51-10 in Baton Rouge to launch the Lane Kiffin era, the former LSU coach said the defense he helped assemble is playing at a championship level.
Kelly, now working as a CBS Sports college football analyst, said on “The Early Read” with Danny Kanell and Roy Philpott on SiriusXM that the unit looked the part.
“I thought their defense looked every bit as a national championship defense, in the pieces that he has," Kelly said. "And I know Blake. I hired Blake Baker, the defensive coordinator."
That was a direct nod to Baker, whom Kelly brought over from Missouri in December 2024 and who stayed put despite outside interest. Baker interviewed at Tulane and Memphis last December before Kiffin gave him a three-year, $9.3 million deal to remain in Baton Rouge.
Clemson had no answers. The Tigers finished with just 145 total yards, including 40 on the ground, and went one-for-13 on third down.
They also had seven three-and-outs. Defensive end Jordan Ross, a Tennessee transfer, added to the rout with a 30-yard interception return for a touchdown in the first quarter and earned SEC Defensive Lineman of the Week honors.
Kelly also zeroed in on the part of LSU’s game that had been such a problem for him a year ago: the run game.
“What I walk away from in watching the game is some of the things that I struggled with in the last year, that we did not run the ball efficiently,” Kelly said. “I thought they ran the ball extremely well.”
That was a sharp turnaround from LSU’s 2025 season, when the Tigers averaged 106.2 rushing yards per game, last in the SEC. Against Clemson, they piled up 309 rushing yards. Quarterback Sam Leavitt, an Arizona State transfer, ran for 113 yards and two touchdowns, while running back Dilin Jones, who arrived from Wisconsin, matched him with 113 yards and two scores.
Kelly summed up the formula plainly.
“If you have a great defense and you can run the football, everybody’s working on the other pieces,” Kelly said. “Nobody’s a complete football team.”
The AP rewarded the performance by moving LSU from No. 11 to No. 8 in the Sept. 8 poll. The Tigers host Louisiana Tech on Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
ET on SEC Network+, with the Bulldogs coming in 1-0 after scoring 80 points against Northwestern State. A week later, Kiffin’s team heads to Oxford to face Ole Miss, the program he left in December.
Kelly said the opener wasn’t easy to watch from his new seat.
“I'll be honest, I had a hard time watching it," he said. "You've been doing it for 35 years, and not to be part of that process."
LSU still owes him most of a buyout that topped $50 million, with his CBS Sports salary covering only a small portion of it.
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Even with that threat eased, the issue is hardly settled because the SEC has since signaled it could still pursue other discipline. The debate has also spilled beyond the courtroom and into the media, where Paul Finebaum and Stephen A. Smith have weighed in on whether the conferences response was justified or whether LSU was being singled out for pushing the boundaries in a way others might eventually try too. [Read more 🡒]