Late Saturday night, a question about the LSU offense led to a fiery retort from head coach Brian Kelly and one of the 2025 season’s early viral moments.
In the hours that followed, those moments apparently got a lot more reflective.
Kelly opened his weekly news conference on Monday with an apology for the rant following LSU’s grinding 20-10 victory over Florida, during which Kelly called WBRZ-TV sports director Michael Cauble “spoiled” and declared queries about a scuffling offense “out of line.”
Kelly said he’d texted Cauble and apologized personally prior to Monday’s appearance.
“I think it’s important to understand that my standards, relative to how we work with the media on a day-to-day basis, need to be higher,” Kelly said. “And I take responsibility for that and I’ll be better in the future.
“And understanding, also, the way I’m thinking after a game — we’ve mentioned this a couple times in here. The emotions of the game, right after it, I haven’t watched any film. It’s difficult to make those assessments of specifics. And I’m going to defend my team. I’m going to defend my players first and foremost. But having said that, I publicly apologize to Mike. He’s an outstanding reporter, he works hard and we’ll do better moving forward.”
Brian Kelly went off when the first question he got tonight was about LSU’s offensive issues. pic.twitter.com/eMTWQthgeR
— Wilson Alexander (@whalexander_) September 14, 2025
LSU scored just one offensive touchdown against Florida on Saturday, and its 316 yards of offense represented the third-lowest total of Kelly’s four-year tenure in Baton Rouge. This after the Tigers entered the game ranked 84th nationally in total offense, despite a Heisman Trophy hopeful in Garrett Nussmeier at quarterback. LSU’s 5.26 yards per play average is good for 105th in the 136-team Football Bowl Subdivision.
In his opening statement following the game, Kelly noted that LSU had to play to its defense to win. The first question from the assembled media came from Cauble, regarding the lack of offensive production, and it set Kelly off.
“What do you want me to tell you? I just laid it out for you — we played the game to win the game,” the LSU coach said then. “We played the game to win the game. … You’re looking at this from the wrong perspective. LSU won the football game. Won the game. I don’t know what you want from me. What do you want, for us to win 70-0 against Florida to keep you happy?
“That football team just worked their tail off to get an SEC win, and you want to know what’s wrong. You know what? You’re spoiled. You’re spoiled. This team is 17-1 at night. Seventeen and one. Give them some respect. How about that? Give them some respect instead of microanalyzing every little thing. This is ridiculous. For a group of seasoned reporters, that kind of question is so out of line.”
As it turns out, Nussmeier has been working through a torso injury since preseason camp that has limited his practice reps and how often LSU could work on its downfield passing attack — a nugget of news that Kelly revealed Monday. The expectation is that the senior will be fully healthy following LSU’s idle week.
In any event, Kelly’s reconsidered take on the offense Monday was this: Expectations for the Tigers’ attack indeed might have to be measured for now, but there is an urgency to improve. At some point.
“I guess what I was trying to say more than anything else was that, from an offensive standpoint, we know what we have as a team,” Kelly said Monday.
“I’ll give you an example — maybe I shouldn’t do this, but I’m going to do it anyway — I walked into the postgame locker room with our coaches. You can imagine our defensive coaches were pretty happy. Our offensive coaches were really reserved, maybe expecting they were going to get the paint peeled off the room. I said, ‘Listen, this is how you win games. You have to manage games.’
“This was about managing a game, and at the end of the day my job is to win football games for LSU. That’s how we had to win the game. And that’s what I was referring to more than anything else. Yeah, I know it didn’t look the way it’s (supposed) to be. But trust me, that offense is going to have to score a ton of points at some point during the year, and we’re going to have to turn that loose.”
(Photo: Chris Graythen / Getty Images)
