LSU football head coach Brian Kelly broke down his NFSW lashing at Tigers holder/punter Peyton Todd. The junior was involved in a botch field goal attempt in the third quarter of Tigers’ 38-23 loss at Texas A&M.
The Aggies shortly took control of the SEC matchup after that shift in momentum, giving LSU football a very damaging first loss in the conference. Heading into a must-win game against the Alabama Crimson Tide on Saturday, Kelly explained what went wrong with the special teams’ unit.
“The battery is the snapper, the holder, and the kicker. We’ve got to get them together as one. It’s not one without the other, all three of those guys have to work in unison and they were out of sync. As well as they were working the week before, I don’t know what happened, but they were out of sync,” said Kelly according to On3 sports reporter Dan Morrison.
This mistake was not the only LSU special teams’ error
The third-year LSU football coach didn’t seem to be blaming a specific player for the errors. Kelly’s anger at Todd was more so reflective of his disappointment in the entire unit’s performance that night.
Kelly went on to say about the kicking team, “it was a bad night, and you can’t have a night like that. For me, to have a night like that when they were so good all year is really troubling.”
Up until LSU’s loss to the Aggies, the trio of placekicker Damien Ramos, long snapper Slade Roy, and holder Peyton Todd were 12/14 on field goal attempts for the season. The defeat at College Station saw the Tigers fail to score on two field goal attempts between 40 and 49 yards, a distance that Ramos was 5/6 from until then.
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Kelly and his team now have zero margin for error if they want to make the College Football Playoff. LSU football opened up their season with a loss to USC. A defeat which is not aging well as Lincoln Riley and USC football grapple with their own issues. The Trojans are currently 4-4 and 13th in the Big Ten.
Going forward, the Tigers play three out of their last four games at home against Alabama, Vanderbilt, and Oklahoma with a trip to Gainesville, Florida in the middle. Four games that are very winnable for Kelly and company.
If the Tigers didn’t have motivation before, Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko’s comments about LSU should add even more fuel to the fire for a program that is looking to return to the College Football Playoff for the first time since the 2019-2020 season.