BATON ROUGE, La. – Also as interim LSU While coach Frank Wilson called his promotion “something you would dream of,” he passed up the opportunity to discuss his chances of retaining the job beyond the rest of this season.
“I can’t,” Wilson said Tuesday after the Tigers’ first full padded practice since Brian Kelly’s firing on Sunday, the day after a 49-25 loss to No. 3 Texas A&M.
Wilson added, “We have to live in the moment so we can take care of our business right now.” “Doing anything other than that is a mistake.”
LSU (5-3, 2-3 SEC), which has lost three of four games, is inactive this week and next plays Nov. 8 at No. 4 Alabama (7-1, 5-0) — a first for Wilson, a New Orleans native who has a long history with the program he now leads.
Wilson is in his 10th season at LSU, which included six years from 2010 to 2015 before leaving to take the head coaching job at UTSA. He returned to the Tigers for Kelly’s first season in 2022.
“I’m a part of this state,” Wilson said. He said he was “extremely humbled and extremely honored to have this opportunity.”
He said, “It’s something you dream about, something you don’t know if it’ll ever come true, but something you prepare yourself for.” “I recognize that this moment, this opportunity, is much bigger than me. I just happen to be the caretaker in this moment.”
Wilson, who was twice named college football’s national recruiter of the year, said none of LSU’s current verbally committed recruits have decommitted since Kelly’s dismissal. Wilson said he hopes to keep it largely that way by worrying about the players on the roster now and stabilizing the program.
Wilson said tight ends coach and running game coordinator Alex Atkins will take over as offensive coordinator for Joe Sloan, who was fired on Monday.
As practice ended, sirens could be heard over the sound system in the football operations center. Wilson said its purpose was to sound a warning siren during the bombing of Pearl Harbor. When the sirens went off, players could be heard shouting excitedly from behind the wooden fence surrounding the practice field.
“As soon as the siren sounded to call for the rally, our team merged together at the 50-yard line,” Wilson said. “We held up all four fingers on both hands. We chanted, ‘Fourth quarter!’ We chanted, ‘Finish it!’
Wilson added, “Because we are fully prepared. We are fully prepared to finish what we started.” “Some of that celebration, some of that noise, if you will, was just our football team answering the rallying call, being there for each other in a difficult situation.”
