Brunch with Brian: USC

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Brian Kelly had his first official presser with Baton Rouge media of the 2024 season.The first thing Kelly did was sing the praises of his new No. 18s, Josh Williams and Greg Penn, and also his new No. 7 Harold Perkins, and said that the only injury of note is Chris Hilton battling a bone bruise. Kelly said that Hilton is "questionable." He also said that Miles Fraizer is going to be listed as "probable."After updating his team, Kelly laid out what makes Lincoln Riley one of the best offensive minds in college football."Certainly it's been a prolific offense," Kelly said. " pedigree in terms of winning at Oklahoma and again at USC has been through the offense. We've got to do a great job in making them one-dimensional. If they are balanced offensively they are very difficult to defend.""Defensively we've gotta be able to tackle in space, do a great job of stopping the run and prevent some of the big plays."Punting still seems to be a massive "hold on to your butts" position and Kelly laid out how they're planning on limiting the impact of https://www.lsusportsapparel.com dynamic return man Zachariah Branch."We certainly want to stress the returns by not kicking it straight down the middle of the field. I think we've got two talented kickers, I think they both have the ability to impact the game. I think we have some things that we can do that will allow them both of them to impact the game."LSU has infamously dropped four straight season opening games and Kelly points to this 2024 team's maturity to lead to better execution come Sunday."We're expecting much better execution with this group because of the maturity of the lot."Of course the only thing anyone who follows this team wants to know about is the defense and how much improvement the unit's made since last year's disaster. On the defense Kelly said this:"This is all about how do they look against scripted plays and limited opportunities? I know our team and the guys that we have feel really good about where they're at. But you gotta go test yourself against somebody else to really answer those questions. "I know that we are prepared defensively. They are excited to play for Blake, they know the scheme really well, there's not a lot of confusion, there's not a lot of busts, there's guys that clearly understand what it is to play LSU football."