Brian Kelly is set to open the 2025 season with high pressure. If there was ever a Week 1 game that felt like a full-blown playoff, it’s this one. Well, there’s that Ohio State vs Texas opener too but LSU’s opener against Clemson on August 30th is tinged with a sense of urgency for the Tigers. Greg McElroy even called this game “the second-best non-conference game of the 2025 schedule.” And for the HC, this is his chance to cool down that pressure cooker that’s been simmering since he stepped foot in Baton Rouge in 2022.
The hard truth is that Brian Kelly is 0-3 in season openers losing twice to Florida State and last season’s opener against USC. As of now, LSU is on a 5-loss streak in Week 1 games. The last time they won was in 2019 when Joe Burrow led the Tigers to a national championship after going undefeated. Since then, it’s been nothing but early heartbreak which prompted a former legendary CFB coach to drop advice.
When Rob Stone dug into the importance of LSU winning the season opener against Clemson on The Triple Option on June 11, Urban Meyer kept it real. While he maintained that players might not care about winning or losing the opener, he dropped a valuable piece of advice for Brian Kelly. “What I would do is evaluate everything that you do over and over and over again from preseason where you’re doing it,” he said. “I’d change everything. Whatever we practice last year, I’d move. Whatever time we practice at, I’d change it just because that’s the way my mind worked.” Well, change is necessary to break a cycle right?
For now, LSU holds the ninth-best odds to win the national title in 2025. And Paul Finebaum thinks the hype surrounding Brian Kelly is real. “The hype for LSU football is not hype. I think it’s real,” he said. “The question I have is how does coach Kelly navigate that schedule is daunting.” Aside from Florida, South Carolina, and Texas A&M games at home, Brian Kelly’s squad will hit the road for crucial games against Ole Miss, Alabama, and a regular season stopper at Ohio State. And it starts with Dabo Swinney and a Clemson team that went 10-4 last year and returns quarterback Cade Klubnik.
Co-host Mark Ingram also chimed in with a dose of logic. “When you play top teams that are ranked high, you have the potential to take a L in the first game,” he said. “So when you play that first game, it’s all about who makes the least amount of mistakes.” The Week 1 expectation is nothing less than a win. “Expectations are sky high at LSU,” Joel Klatt said. “Every coach this century has won a national championship at LSU. It’s why Brian Kelly went to LSU. Kelly needs a great start to the season, and that’s exactly where the pressure point is.” And for Brian Kelly who’s yet to bring home a Natty, the pressure’s even higher, and he’s aware.
The stakes are high and Brian Kelly knows it
Brian Kelly isn’t brushing the Week 1 game off as just another opener. During his appearance on ESPN College Football alongside Rece Davis and Pete Thamel, he flat-out made a confession. “I’m not going to make any other statements other than the fact we need to win the opener because we’re 0 and 3,” he said. “We’ve circled the game and I’ve never done that before in openers you know it’s all over our weight room it’s all over our workouts. We’re wearing shirts. We’re doing the kumbaya of we’re playing Clemson and we need to beat Clemson.”This is self-preservation because as they say, well begun is half done.
LSU is all in too. The Tigers went aggressive in their portal hunt to rank No. 1 nationally while returning 14 starters from the Texas Bowl win over Baylor, including QB Garrett Nussmeier who also received advice. Add in a top-10 recruiting class and the roster screams Playoff potential. But such preparation only heightens expectations and if they fall short, the seat burns hotter than ever. Still Brian Kelly feels good about the offseason prep. “We think we have a legitimate roster that has been supported over time and the transfer portal so a good combination,” he said. “I’ve been in enough of these games. You go on the road, you better bring a defense and I think this is the first year where I believe defensively you know we have the pieces in place to go into a very difficult place to play and come out victorious.”
This will be the first rematch since LSU stomped Clemson 42-25 in the 2020 national title game. It’s going to be a measuring stick. And for Brian Kelly, it’s a career-defining one.
The post Urban Meyer Demands Major Change from Brian Kelly After Surprising Clemson Confession appeared first on EssentiallySports.
