The matchup of No. 13 LSU and No. 23 USC morphed into a dogfight as the Trojans handed the Tigers their fifth consecutive loss in season openers by a 27-20 margin, Sunday night in Las Vegas.
USC quarterback Miller Moss engineered the game-winning drive by completing pinpoint passes against the LSU defense.
Moss was 27 of 36 passing for 378 yards and 1 touchdown in the victory.
LSU's Garret Nussmeier completed 76 percent of his passes for 304 yards and 2 touchdowns, with one INT coming on his final pass attempt.
The LSU defense could not prevent the explosive plays down the stretch and 10 penalties killed all momentum for the Tigers.
An angry Brian Kelly addressed the media after LSU’s disappointing loss.
“What is most concerning for me are the personal fouls. The penalties that are selfish. Both of them led to scores," Kelly said. "They’re undisciplined penalties and effectively they fall back on me. We take pride in running a disciplined program, but clearly we have not done a good enough job there, because it impacted the game.”
Kelly continued to rant about the fact his team could get get the win,
“The other thing is, unfortunately, it’s clear that when we get up in games, we don’t know how to handle ourselves. You have to have a killer instinct in this game, you have to put teams away," Kelly said. "We had opportunities to put this team away and we get complacent and we make more mistakes when we’re ahead, instead of having better focus and a steely-eyed killer instinct and that’s disappointing. I’m angry at those things and I have to do a better job at shaping that,”