LSU football coach Brian Kelly says Tigers ‘need’ to beat Clemson

Brian Kelly enters Year 4 at LSU having gone 0-3 in season openers, while Clemson has dropped three of its last four Week 1 contests. Here’s what Kelly said this week about facing Clemson.

LSU football coach Brian Kelly knows how big a win over Dabo Swinney and the Clemson Tigers would be in the 2025 season opener.

Set to enter his fourth season at LSU, Kelly appeared on ESPN’s ‘College GameDay Podcast’ with hosts Rece Davis and Pete Thamel earlier this week and was asked about his team’s Week 1 matchup at Clemson Memorial Stadium.

LSU has dropped each of its three season openers under Kelly, including two to Florida State. Last year, the Bayou Bengals fell to USC in Las Vegas. With quarterback Cade Klubnik leading one of the nation’s best offenses into 2025, winning in a hostile environment won’t be easy for any team, even one as talented as LSU.

Dating back to 2020, LSU has dropped five straight openers. Its last Week 1 win came in 2019, a season in which quarterback Joe Burrow led the Tigers on a 15-0 march to the national championship that culminated with a win over Clemson in the title game at the Superdome in New Orleans.

Clemson has scuffled a bit in its season openers of late, too. The Tigers were overtaken by Georgia in a 34-3 Week 1 loss last year at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. A year earlier, Clemson fell in a 28-7 upset at Duke on a Monday night in Durham on Labor Day Weekend. The Tigers have dropped three of their past four season openers.

Here’s everything Brian Kelly said on the ‘College GameDay Podcast’ this week about facing Clemson in Week 1 of the 2025 college football season.

Brian Kelly talks up LSU defense, says Tigers ‘need’ to beat Clemson

“Let me put in the caveat: I did not schedule these games. I just want to be clear. But the fact of the matter is they are exciting openers and…

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Publish date : 2025-06-13 22:27:00

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