BATON ROUGE — LSU Head Coach Brian Kelly ecstatically announced that "it's football season" in an appearance before the Rotary Club of Baton Rouge at Tiger Stadium on Wednesday.

Kelly emphasized the last several months have been spent with a singular goal in mind: A win over Clemson in Week One in "Death Valley Junior" in South Carolina. 

Kelly praised the more than $3.3 million that he matched to the university's NIL fund with his family's foundation, tripling its expressed goal. 

He said that the 2025 Tigers team is driven with a little more than a month out from kick off. The former Notre Dame head coach also said this LSU team has the best transfer class in the country. 

"On paper, this is the best roster we will put out there since I have been here," Kelly said. "It's not just about names. It's about individuals, through the transfer portal process, to win a championship for LSU. They're not here for any other reason."

LSU has a record of 29-11 under Brian Kelly, ending last season with a 9-4 record.

Despite losing the three previous season openers under Kelly and the last five overall, LSU's head coach said that success is secondary to significance. Part of Kelly's vision for the team, he added, is to "graduate champions" both on and off the field.

"I wanna make an impact on the lives of the young men that are in my care," Kelly said. "It is a holistic approach to everything that we do."

The head coach said the traits he is instilling are transferable outside of football. 

"The LSU standard is about being elite," Kelly said. 

While Kelly and the rest of the team are singularly focused on winning against the Clemson Tigers, he has not forgotten the ultimate goal: A national championship, a feat the Tigers last accomplished in 2020.

"The question of when we're gonna win a national championship is not a question," he said. "It's when we're going to win a national championship, because we will. Because we have the players, we have the standards, we have the support."

Earlier this month at SEC Media Days, Kelly emphasized that starting 1-0 is a top priority for the Tigers in the Saturday, Aug. 30, opener, a game that will air live on WBRZ.