BATON ROUGE — LSU head football coach Brian Kelly spoke to the media Monday about the time-consuming process of building a program at LSU, as well as what fans should expect to see from the Tigers in Saturday's season opener. 

Brian Kelly provided a lengthy answer when he was asked about any changes in his philosophy of building up a program through the high school ranks and supplementing with transfer players where needed. The head coach, entering his fourth season at LSU, said he felt he needed to build up his own players before bringing in outside guys.

"We weren't ready to bring in guys from the outside until our own program was in a really good space," Kelly said. "And so it took us a few years, and I felt like this year we were in a place where we could invite people into our locker room. Transfers, if you will."

Kelly said he understands the frustration from Tiger fans about the team's results in recent years, but that building a program is no easy task.

"Building a program, right, unfortunately takes some time. And the time element, nobody wants to hear about. I get it, I understand everybody's want to win the national championship this year. I want to win it as well. But the reality of it is we had some work to do, and that work was building a foundational piece in this program that was built on consistency and high standards on a day-to-day basis.”

The Tigers’ path to fulfilling Kelly’s desire of winning a national championship begins Saturday in a top 10 matchup against the Clemson Tigers. 

One of the biggest question marks on this LSU team is the offensive line. Kelly is planning to rotate a lot of guys in the trenches and said as many as eight offensive linemen could play Saturday. 

On the defensive side of the ball, Kelly is looking to improve on last year’s game plans against mobile quarterbacks. Marcel Reed, Jalen Milroe and LaNorris Sellers had field days against the Tigers last year, and Kelly wants to stop Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik from having a similar performance.

“We got to keep him in the pocket and make him operate from the pocket,” Kelly said.

No. 9 LSU opens the season against No. 4 Clemson on Saturday, Aug. 30 at 6:30 p.m. on WBRZ.

Watch Brian Kelly’s full Monday press conference here: