LSU coach Brian Kelly: “We’ve lost our margin for error,” but still in Playoff hunt

A deflating second half Saturday night in College Station, Texas, shouldn’t necessarily sink LSU’s potential College Football Playoff hopes.

But coach Brian Kelly said his Tigers (6-2, 3-1) have clear issues to address with now a thin line to walk toward those postseason goals following their 38-23 loss to No. 14 Texas A&M (7-1, 5-0).

“I mean, we’ve lost our margin, right?” he said after the game. “We have no margin for error. We have to go back and look at some of the things I just talked about, right? We have to build balance within the offense. We have to be able to handle the running quarterback. The silliness of the field-goal stuff, that has got to end. That is just ridiculous. We’ll clean that up in short order. But those two things in particular.

“We played such good defense. The first half, it was so good to see our defense playing. And then we go to a running quarterback, and it just goes away from us. And so we know what we need to get better at there. And then we know what we need to continue to work on from an offensive standpoint. We need to build some balance so (quarterback) Garrett (Nussmeier) is not out there trying to make a play every flippin’ down. And that’s what we’re gonna work on.”

Nussmeier threw a career-high three interceptions, all in a five-possession span of the second half.

But Kelly pointed to the Tigers’ inability to help their quarterback with any semblance of a rushing attack as a major factor in that problem. LSU finished with 24 yards on 23 carries.

Meanwhile, Texas A&M pulled starting quarterback Conner Weigman in favor of dual-threat freshman Marcel Reed after the first interception.

And Reed proceeded to lead run-heavy touchdown drives on his first four possessions, including him personally finding the end zone on the first three.

The nightmare stretch for LSU also included a botched field-goal attempt on which Slade Roy’s snap drilled an unsuspecting holder Peyton Todd.

“We need to be really good at a few things, and that’s what we do, and let’s get really good at it,” Kelly said. “And we’ve got the bye week. We’ll clean some things up. We’ve got a good football team. Tonight was a bad half of football for us. And we’ll go back to work on ourselves, and we’ll get ourselves ready to play better football.”

The Tigers, who entered this weekend at No. 8 in AP Poll, returns to action at home Nov. 9 against No. 15 Alabama (6-2, 3-2).

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