BATON ROUGE — As LSU football prepares for its season opener against the University of Southern California in Las Vegas, coach Brian Kelly outlined his plan for the game and season on Monday.

Sunday's game, Kelly said is a great showcase for both college football as a whole and a revamped Tiger ball team, one that he acknowledged has lost multiple major playmakers on both sides of the ball.

Temporary losses will also affect the team going into the Sunday kick-off, with wide receiver Chris Hilton and offensive guard Miles Frazier listed as questionable and probable, respectively. Kelly said that Hilton has a bone bruise and the team will adjust accordingly based on his condition.

Kelly also acknowledged the similarities the Trojan and Tiger teams have, having both lost Heisman Trophy quarterbacks—Jayden Daniels and Caleb Williams—and defenses built around new defensive coordinators.

Kelly's Tigers have been preparing for USC's newly laid-out defense over the past few weeks.

LSU is also contending against an oft-praised Lincoln Riley offense known for its unrelenting air raid playstyle, Kelly said. He acknowledged USC's new quarterback Miller Moss's strength in last year's bowl game. 

LSU is ranked No. 12 on the AP Coaches Poll and has revamped its defense with two new coaching hires in the off-season. The team has also experienced changes on the offensive side of the ball, with Kelly expressing his confidence in Garrett Nussmeier as the successor to Daniels. 

In his third year with the team, Kelly said he hopes his team has grown since 2022 and 2023's season-opening losses against Florida State.

"You have to execute on a high level in an opener," Kelly said.

He said he feels the young and inexperienced team that played against FSU has come into their own, taking the battle scars they carried with them from those openers into a mature performance on Sunday, particularly highlighting the successes of Harold Perkins and Will Campbell, who will both wear No. 7 in some form, continuing a legacy of homegrown excellence in the program. Campbell will wear a patch with the number since he cannot wear the actual No. 7 on offense.

Off the field, Kelly spoke proudly of the LSU Football Operations Center's new recovery wing as a "finishing piece" to a complex with amenities like a performance nutrition center. Kelly said that teams like the Tigers "can't be high-performance without all of these things."

"We're hoping to build elite habits...in other areas of life," Kelly said.

The Tigers kick off against the USC Trojans at 6:30 p.m. in Las Vegas on Sunday. The game will air on WBRZ.