LSU has a ‘national championship defense,’ Brian Kelly says

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A year ago, Brian Kelly was leading the LSU Tigers with national championship aspirations. Now, he’s serving as an analyst, breaking down the team’s national title chances. And based on what he saw on Saturday night, he thinks this is a championship-caliber team, at least on one side of the ball.

During a radio appearance this week, Kelly said that the Tigers have a “national championship defense” with defensive coordinator Blake Baker leading the way, whom he actually hired ahead of the 2024 college football season.

“I think what I walk away from in watching the game is, is some of the things that I struggled with in the last year is that we did not run the ball efficiently,” Kelly said on The Early Read with Danny Kanell and Roy Philpott on Sirius XM via On3. “I thought they (LSU) ran the ball extremely well. And I know Blake, I hired Blake Baker, the defensive coordinator. I thought their defense looked every bit as a national championship defense, in the pieces that he has. So I guess we all know this, right? We’ve been around it. If you have a great defense and you can run the football, everybody’s working on the other pieces, right?

“Nobody’s a complete football team. And I think those are the two things that I take away. I love what the defense looks like and the running game being really effective is really gonna bode well for this football team to be in it when we get down to the last few teams.”

The Tigers looked like a complete team in Saturday night’s absolute dismantling of Clemson, establishing themselves as a legitimate national title contender under new head coach Lane Kiffin.

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