No. 16 LSU and UCLA had problems in their conference openers last week.
The Tigers gave up touchdown runs of 75 and 66 yards and allowed a blocked punt. They trailed by 17 points to South Carolina before a rally to escape with a 36-33 victory.
LSU (2-1) faces UCLA (1-1) in Baton Rouge, La., on Saturday, one week after the Bruins made their debut as a member of the Big Ten in a 42-13 drubbing at Indiana.
Tigers coach Brian Kelly said he was pleased with his team’s resiliency in coming back, but admitted it has a lot of work to do.
“The reality of it is it’s hard to win on the road,” Kelly said. “And given the fact that we made a lot of mistakes, we still found a way to win that football game. That’s incredible resolve and resilience amidst your group.”
Kelly said he and his staff will continue to evaluate scheme and personnel for potential changes.
“I’m not saying we’re making wholesale changes,” Kelly said. “The big takeaway is when you’re making mistakes, are you putting your guys in the right position? Do you have the right guys there? And are you preparing them for those scenarios? Do we need to do things differently, relative to particular schemes?”
The Tigers opened the season against another Big Ten newcomer from Los Angeles, losing to USC, 27-20, in Las Vegas. They also had a more difficult time than expected in its home opener, leading FCS opponent Nicholls just 23-21 in the third quarter before scoring the final 21 points of the game.
“This is a lot about us and how we clean up the things we need to clean up to be a better football team playing now against a Big 10 opponent,” Kelly said. “As we’ve seen, everyone’s going to play their best against LSU.”
The Bruins will play marquee games against new conference opponents such as Penn State, Nebraska and Iowa, but it was a long-time Big Ten school known for its basketball program that handed UCLA its worst loss in a home opener since 2010.
“I just told them to keep that feeling that you had as soon as the game was over,” UCLA coach DeShaun Foster said Monday. “Bottle it up and have it out here every day this week and find a way to just not have that feeling.”
The Bruins, who struggled to a 16-13 victory at Hawaii in their season opener, is averaging just 14.5 points while struggling to run the ball with any consistency, averaging just 83.5 yards.
“The run game’s going to be fixed,” Foster said.
Foster added that he has “the right type of kids” to make the necessary improvement.
“We’ve got a big game this week on the road, so we can’t just hang our heads low about last game,” running back T.J. Harden said. “We just have to move on. It’s still early in the season, we still have a chance to redeem ourselves and move forward.”
