| What's wrong with the LSU Tigers? That's the question sweeping across not only Louisiana but the college football landscape after the way LSU fell from College Football Playoff contention with two straight demoralizing losses. In just the past 5 1/2 quarters, it seems the Tigers fell apart. Dominating Texas A&M 17-7 midway through the third quarter on the road, the Tigers were outscored 31-6 the rest of the way and lost 38-23 after LSU started turning the ball over and the Aggies put in dual threat Marcel Reed at quarterback. Saturday against Alabama, the Tigers got a full-immersion in the running abilities of Crimson Tide quaterback Jalen Milroe. He earned AP national player of the week honors for his performance in which he only threw for 109 yards but ran for 185 and four touchdowns on just 12 carries in a 42-13 demolition of LSU. That's 15.4 yards per carry, people. That means the Tigers, now 6-3 and 3-2 in SEC play heading to Florida on Saturday (2:30 p.m., ABC) have been outscored 73-19 since leading by double digits at A&M. That also means LSU will have at least three losses in Brian Kelly's first three seasons at the helm in Baton Rouge (he's now 26-10 overall). That has prompted all the usual calls for his ouster and/or sweeping changes from disgruntled fans. There were a lot of ways I could have gone with my column from Monday, but I focused on Kelly and his future at LSU. My contention is, the school has no choice but to go forward with him and try to make this thing work, just shy of three years into his 10-year, $100 million deal. Any other talk is simply preposterous. Our Koki Riley has the main story from Kelly's Monday news conference, in which the coach faced a lot of tough questions but nonetheless maintained his positive outlook for the program overall. Here's the report: -------------------------------- LSU coach Brian Kelly has plenty of reasons to feel confident about his program. He mentioned the Tigers' success in home night games, their elite 2025 recruiting class and compiling consecutive 10-win campaigns in his first two seasons in charge as reasons behind his faith. They're all factual statements. But after the Tigers' deflating 42-13 loss Saturday to Alabama, fans have begun to question the direction of Kelly's program. "I'm not in a position to worry about what people are saying about the overall health of the program," Kelly said during his weekly news conference Monday. Three seasons into Kelly's tenure and the Tigers are just 4-8 against ranked opponents. Saturday's loss essentially eliminated them from reaching the College Football Playoff and almost certainly means they will finish this season with no more than 10 victories. A trip to the Southeastern Conference championship game is still possible — LSU has a 16% chance of getting there, according to ESPN. But the Tigers would need to win their next three games and receive a lot of help from around the conference for that to happen. Kelly isn't pretending any of this isn't true. On the "Paul Finebaum Show" on Monday, he compared the spot the Tigers find themselves in now to the one they were in last season after losing to Alabama — having three losses and diminished CFP hopes but still needing to finish the year strong. The biggest difference between last season and now is that Jayden Daniels isn't mounting a case to become the Heisman Trophy winner. Garrett Nussmeier — LSU's quarterback of the present — has struggled lately, which is partially why the Tigers find themselves in this predicament. LSU has turned the ball over six times in the last two games. Nussmeier has been responsible for all of them in some form or fashion, throwing five interceptions and fumbling the ball away in the second quarter against Alabama. "If (you) told (me), 'You're going to turn over the ball six times against (Texas) A&M and Alabama, how do you feel about that?' I'd say not very good," Kelly said Saturday after the Alabama loss. The defense, although improved from a year ago, has failed to contain quarterbacks in the run game for two consecutive weeks. The Aggies scored 31 second-half points against LSU after replacing quarterback Conner Weigman with the faster and quicker Marcel Reed. Alabama's Jalen Milroe had more yards running the ball than throwing it on Saturday. "What can we do to help in the quarterback run game? Can we play more multiple coverage looks? Can we be in different fronts? I know, if you watched, we played some five-down defensive fronts to help in those situations," Kelly said. "So I think there's always the opportunity to grow and get better in the season." Turnovers and trouble against running quarterbacks haven't been the only issues. LSU has had problems running the ball on offense for most of the season, and the defense has allowed more than its fair share of explosive plays. But the solution to all of it, in Kelly's eyes, is consistency. LSU's inability to play well on a down-to-down basis is an issue he pins on himself and the coaching staff. "We had an opportunity to score a touchdown on the first drive (but) we weren't able to secure a catch. We turned the football over. We had chances to get off the field on third down. At times, we weren't in the right alignments," Kelly said. "So our guys were up for the fight. They were competitive (and) they played hard. But that's not good enough if you're not consistent. And as coaches, we've got to help our guys become more consistent." Greater consistency from here on out won't fix LSU's record against ranked teams and likely won't put it back into contention for this year's CFP. But Kelly believes it is this kind of approach — combined with an incoming recruiting class that, for now, is one of the five best in the nation, according to the 247Sports Composite — that'll get LSU back into national championship contention. "A championship program is what we're going to have here," Kelly said. "There's going to be some stumbles along the way, but we're going to get back up and we're going to keep building our program towards where it needs to be." -------------------------------- Kelly also had a semi update on the availability of injured guard Garrett Dellinger for the Florida game. And Florida coach Billy Napier also had an update on the health of injured starting quarterback, DJ Lagway. Another big home game, another fine for LSU from the SEC. This time it's for all the debris that was hurled onto the field during Saturday's game. Frankly, between the vulgar chants at "College Gameday" and the fake Mike the Tiger and the debris, LSU and its fans put out an ugly picture that was even worse than the way the Tigers played. LSU and its fans need to show more class than that. What did you, the readers, think of Omar the substitute tiger? Check out our poll results to find out. Don't want to give away the numbers, but if Gov. Landry (who was behind the tiger appearance) had these kinds of numbers there's no way he would get re-elected. The LSU men's basketball team ran its record to 2-0 Sunday beating Alabama A&M, but it was a shaky victory. By the way, the LSU women, who play Charleston Southern at 11 a.m. Tuesday in the annual "field trip game" held steady at No. 7 in the AP poll with their 2-0 record. Finally, our Wilson Alexander is back with his mailbag feature and he wants your questions. Just please, keep it clean. And it's postseason soccer time. See who, when and where LSU and Southern are playing in the NCAA Tournament. That's all for now. That's a lot for a Tuesday, really. Thanks for reading and subscribing and we'll see you next time. Scott Rabalais | 
