The LSU football team suffered a rough 27-20 loss to USC on Sunday in Las Vegas, and after the game, LSU head coach Brian Kelly did not hold back on his players, particularly quarterback Garrett Nussmeier, saying that he got out-played by Miller Moss. When discussing the game on ESPN's First Take, Shannon Sharpe criticized Kelly, saying that he is showing a lack of accountability, and that those comments should be saved for behind closed doors.

“I think it's BS, I think he should have led with what he finished with, ‘I'm not doing a good enough job,'” Shannon Sharpe said on First Take. “He did the exact same thing last year Molly, when Florida State thumped them. ‘Clearly we're not the team that I thought we were.' No, you're not the coach that you thought you were. At some point in time, it comes down to coaching, it comes down to accountability. Now, you had 10 penalties for basically 100 yards, you either coach that behavior, or you condone that type of behavior. Oh, and ‘their quarterback outplayed ours.' Lincoln Riley out-coached you.”

Each year at LSU football since leaving Notre Dame, Brian Kelly has started the season 0-1. Each of the losses have been disappointing, and this would have been a big win to get LSU on the right track when it comes to making the College Football Playoff. There were some positives to take away, but Sharpe continued to say that this is not the way for Kelly to handle things with the media after losses.

The really great coaches, look at Dabo (Swinney), when he got thumped by Georgia, he said ‘that's coaching. That's on me.' Coach Saban used to do it all the time. The really, really good coaches, the coaches that can get to their players and get them to understand even if a player makes a mistake or does something repeatedly, they'll take it and they'll get behind closed doors. If he wanted to have this type of conversation, ‘Guys we talked about this all summer. We had this problem a lot last year. We start to feel good about ourselves, and we let teams back into the ballgame. And that came back to bite us.' If you wanted to do that behind closed doors, I got no problem with it. But Brian Kelly has a repeated behavior of doing this publicly, chastising his players and obfuscating himself of responsibility.”

Reasons for optimism for LSU football

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Despite Kelly's comments about Garrett Nussmeier being out-played by Miller Moss of USC, there was a lot to like when it came to the quarterback's performance. It is not easy replacing a Heisman Trophy winner like Jayden Daniels, and Nussmeier showed his ability, particularly in the first half.

Nussmeier completed 29-of-38 passes for two touchdowns and one interception, and the interception came on the final drive of the game, when the Tigers got the ball with just eight seconds left on the clock.

Some ridiculed LSU's play calling in the second half, saying that the Tigers ran the ball too much given Nussmeier's success through the air. Regardless, there is something to build off of offensively for LSU.