Can Brian Kelly and LSU win it all?

BATON ROUGE, La. -- There is a quiet anticipation inside the newly expanded LSU football operations center, even though the season is still months away. In the weight room, players go through the summer conditioning program, hollering encouragement and straining to hit unique benchmarks assigned to them. They have a singular focus taking hold.

On the screens around them, when they break down the end of a workout or when they text each other in group chats, all they see is "1-0." Everyone in the building knows what that means: Beat Clemson in the season opener.

Upstairs, Ya'el Lofton bustles about her desk, waiting for coach Brian Kelly to arrive. Lofton has worked at LSU for more than 35 years -- including nearly 25 as the executive assistant to the head coach. "You know," she says with a big smile, "every head coach I have worked for has won a national championship."

Her quiet anticipation, of course, is for Kelly to join Nick Saban, Les Miles and Ed Orgeron as a national champion. LSU went into the transfer portal, flush with more money to spend, and brought in one of the top classes in the country. Veteran quarterback Garrett Nussmeier returns, along with a more experienced defensive staff.

Every move has been calculated and points to this being a championship-or-bust season. But that all starts Aug. 30. LSU has never won an opener under Kelly. In fact, the Tigers have begun each of their past five seasons with a loss. So Kelly isn't talking about the end of the season. He is just talking about the beginning.

"I've never really been, 'It's all or nothing,'" Kelly says. "This year is a change in our philosophy, in that we have to focus on Clemson. Our focus has to be playing our very best in that first week."

WHEN KELLY HELD his first team meeting in January, he had the newcomers -- transfers and early enrollee freshmen -- introduce themselves and explain why they wanted to come to LSU. Kelly says every transfer said the same thing: "I'm here to win a championship."

As Kelly sees it, this is the first time since his surprise move from Notre Dame to LSU four years ago that he has had everything in place to compete for a championship: more financial support, university alignment, a more experienced staff, a culture built by players he has helped develop and transfers ready to fill the obvious holes.

When asked whether the roster and staff he has assembled for this year is one that can win a title, Kelly says yes. But he also throws in a caveat or two.

"It's been a process, right?" Kelly says. "It's like anything else. It takes a little bit of time. This state relies on success. The governor told me the other night their best Mondays are after a win. We all know what that means and the expectations of it. But I stay focused on the process of building it."

Kelly contended for an SEC title in Year 1 in 2022 with young upstart quarterback (and future Heisman Trophy winner) Jayden Daniels, but he thinks that might have created unreasonable outside expectations for his program. Kelly says that season did not change the trajectory of the program under his leadership.

"Those are the people that don't have enough information," Kelly says. "They're just reacting emotionally, and you're going to have that, and that's great. We love that passion. With that passion comes unrealistic thoughts."

LSU won 10 games again in 2023, but despite Daniels' best efforts, the Tigers fell short of another SEC championship game appearance due to its poor defense. LSU ranked No. 105 in the country in total defense that season, allowing a whopping 6.14 yards per play and 28 points per game. Kelly revamped the entire defensive staff but saw mixed results in 2024 under Blake Baker.

That, combined with inconsistent play from Nussmeier, led to a 9-4 season and questions about whether Kelly was inching closer to hot seat territory. The low point came in a 42-13 home loss to Alabama in November, when a smattering of fans booed Kelly off the field and shouted for him to find a way out of Baton Rouge.

Afterward, Kelly said his team "didn't play to the standard of LSU football."

Baker returns, more seasoned and experienced. But there are other reasons Kelly feels LSU might meet that high historical standard this season. First, he believes the roster and culture are in much better shape. Second, LSU was far more aggressive in the transfer portal.

"We weren't committed to going into the portal in the manner that we were this year, and that commitment is in all areas," Kelly says. "It's a financial commitment. ... Quite frankly, we weren't ready as a program to immerse ourselves deeply into the portal up until this year.

"The foundation was still being built, and you need a strong culture. When you go into the portal and you bring in 13, 14 guys, they immediately immerse themselves into something that's established. We still needed another coat of paint, and so the timing was right, the commitment was better, and we clearly knew where our holes were that we needed to address. This was much more about fitting the culture."

The financial commitment is a significant one. Kelly and his wife, Paqui, decided to match donations up to $1 million for the football team's name, image and likeness efforts. Kelly says after he made that announcement in March, 1,600 donors gave money to LSU.

As a result of a more aggressive approach to the portal, LSU landed one of the best transfer classes in the country: two top-five wide receivers (Barion Brown and Nic Anderson), the No. 1 cornerback (Mansoor Delane), the No. 1 defensive end (Pat Payton), two of the best interior linemen (Braelin Moore, Josh Thompson) and one of the top tight ends in Oklahoma transfer Bauer Sharp.

LSU also signed anticipated defensive difference-makers Jack Pyburn, Jimari Butler and defensive tackle Sydir Mitchell. In addition, they had 13 early enrollees, including No. 1 cornerback DJ Pickett. Harold Perkins Jr., a Freshman All-American in 2022 who missed much of last season with a torn ACL, is expected to be healthy for the opener.

But even given all the moves LSU has made, Kelly says he does not feel any more pressure to deliver a championship in 2025.

"What it really means is that LSU football is among the elite," Kelly says. "Only one team goes home with that championship. [The fans] want to do it every year. But they want an elite football team. They want one that is competing for a championship. 9-4 is not competing for a championship. You're out of the discussion when you lose your third game. And so it's my job to put this program back in elite status."

Kelly is asked whether the program is at elite status now.

"We'll go find out," he says.

THAT BRINGS US back to Clemson. LSU has not won a season opener since 2019, the year Joe Burrow led the Tigers to their last national championship. The past three opening losses, under Kelly, came in neutral site, marquee national spotlight games -- two to Florida State and one to USC last season, when the Trojans scored the winning touchdown with eight seconds remaining.

Nussmeier was the quarterback then, and he will be the quarterback again when LSU plays Clemson for the first time since ... the national title game in 2020. He returned for a final season with the Tigers to bring a national championship back to LSU. But if that is the end goal, beating Clemson is the first goal.

"In the past, we maybe have looked too far forward at the season, so I think that's been a very good mind switch for us," Nussmeier said. "Coach Kelly has made it very clear what our mindset is going into Week 1.

"I haven't seen that since I've been here. When you're at LSU, you have expectations. Everybody talks about, 'Can LSU win the national championship?' It's not, 'Can LSU make a bowl game?' So while we acknowledge, yes, our goal is to win a national championship, it starts with beating Clemson Week 1."

Given the 12-team College Football Playoff, a loss to Clemson would not automatically eliminate LSU from championship contention. But the program does not want to start the season with doubts. Getting out of the gate with a win would be huge.

"Once we accomplish that goal, that momentum that we're going to get from that win, who knows where it leads us," Sharp said.

For his part, Kelly has his own quiet confidence about the season. As Kelly has pointed out, he has won everywhere he has been, from Division II Grand Valley State to Notre Dame. When he left the Irish, he was the program's all-time winningest coach.

When he got to LSU, he told The Associated Press, "I want to be in an environment where I have the resources to win a national championship," a statement that resurfaced this past season after Notre Dame made it to the national title game, while Kelly has yet to get there with the Tigers.

The resources now seem to be in place. In addition to the renewed financial commitment and aggressive portal push, LSU expanded its operations center last year with a new recovery suite that includes everything from nutrition and fueling stations, a reimagined athletic training and rehab area, plus a hydrotherapy suite and float tanks designed to help players "achieve deep relaxation and mental clarity."

Whether that translates into a championship is still to be determined. In a few weeks, the quiet anticipation will grow more urgent as practices begin and the season inches closer to that very first goal: Beat Clemson and get to 1-0.