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Brian Kelly hosts weekly press conference ahead of Saturday's top 15 matchup against Ole Miss
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BATON ROUGE — The LSU Tigers are back in action on Saturday after a bye week following its win against South Alabama, which brought the Tigers to a four-win streak.
Head coach Brian Kelly met with the media on Monday to preview this week's upcoming game against Ole Miss on Saturday at 6 p.m. in Death Valley.
Kelly said that he has a great deal of respect for Ole Miss, calling them "prolific offensively" as Ole Miss arrives as LSU's first home SEC opponent.
Keeping quarterback Jaxson Dart off the field is key to shutting coach Lane Kiffin's team down, something the University of Kentucky's win over the Rebels showed, Kelly said.
"(It's) a great challenge for us," Kelly said. "We know where we're at in terms of the next seven weeks."
Last season's game against Ole Miss, a close 49-55 Tigers loss in Oxford, was cited earlier in the season by Kelly as an example of the team's failings, particularly on defense.
"(Last year, we) didn't play fundamentally sound football," Kelly said, adding that the team has grown tremendously and is much further along. "We didn't finish that game off."
LSU's off-week after the South Alabama win has given them time to reset and realign with what needed improvement, Kelly said. Part of that is continuing to rebuild a defensive corps that is recovering from the loss of Harold Perkins Jr.
The off-week also allowed powerhouse players like Caden Durham to recover and get back to playing faster and more aggressively, Kelly added. The off-week was also dedicated to an assessment of personnel changes by the coaching staff.
"I think there's much more balance in our football team," Kelly said. "We wanna play good defense, keep the points down, and we want to score appropriately."
Kelly also praised Jayden Daniels' rookie performance in the NFL.
Daniels, playing for the Washington Commanders, recently set a single-game rookie record with a completion rate of 91.3% in a game against Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals. Kelly called this performance "remarkable," adding he was "incredibly impressed" with the Heisman Trophy winner and former Tiger.
The Tigers are 4-1 and are currently ranked No. 13 in the country in the latest Associated Press poll released on Sunday.
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