LSU's Brian Kelly has message for team as rough season winds down

It has been a quick fall from grace for the LSU Tigers. They started the season off with a tough loss to a then-ranked USC team, but quickly found their footing to win six games in a row, including a win over No. 9 Ole Miss.

That win over the Rebels seemed, at the time, to signal that Brian Kelly's squad was a sure-fire College Football Playoffs contender, but the Tigers have since lost three in a row.

They lost to No. 14 Texas A&M and No. 11 Alabama in back-to-back weeks. Those are tough to swallow but at least against that type of competition, you can understand it. The Tigers hit rock bottom this past weekend, though, with a loss to a Florida team that came into the contest barely holding onto relevancy at 4-5.

LSU lost, 27-16, and that loss caused Kelly to call his team out. The Tigers are 6-4 and out of the CFP race, but they still have two games left to play. At this point, they have a choice to keep working toward success, or frankly, they can give up.

“This is really a simple exercise of do you want to fight or not? Do you want to fight and take responsibility as coaches and players that we’re not playing well and we’re struggling right now? So it’s life. It’s a myriad of things, but it’s a reflection of what life’s about," Kelly said after the game, per On3.

College football is a big business, and Kelly is paid handsomely to bring wins and championships to LSU. In a three-game losing streak like this, it can be easy to forget that he is, indeed, a coach, and coaches teach their players not just about football but about life.  This season hasn't gone the way LSU would have wanted, but the Tigers do have an opportunity now to learn how to fight adversity.

“There’s a rough spot here that we have to fight through, and we have got to do it together,” Kelly said. “So if you’re a thumb-pointer, if you’re not somebody that’s saying, ‘I’m going to work and continue to work to be better’ then we don’t have a place for you in the last couple weeks. But if you want to fight and you want to keep working to get better then we’re going to be alongside of you.”

LSU's remaining games are against 6-4 Vanderbilt and 5-5 Oklahoma and the difference between finishing 8-4 and 6-6 makes all the difference in Baton Rouge for a coach who has had a ton of high expectations placed on him.