New LSU head football coach Brian Kelly’s first goal Saturday night in his Tiger Stadium debut against Southern is simple.

“We need to start fast,” said Kelly in his weekly in-season Thursday night post-practice press conference.

LSU lost its season opener 24-23 to Florida State last Sunday, scoring all three of its touchdowns in the game’s final 19:04.

“From a coaching standpoint, we needed to put our practice schedules together this week where early in practice we were starting faster,” Kelly said. “We didn’t go right to individual (drills). We went to some teamwork to get our guys going.

“We have to understand our personnel and how they play in an uptempo situation. We have to coach better, we have to play better. We have to look at our start. That sense of urgency is that every play matters. We can't wait until the last 13 minutes of the game where we go, `Okay, we’ve got to turn it on.’ We’ve got to turn it on from the very beginning.”

Here's Kelly on other subjects:

On helping Malik Nabers overcome his two fumbled punts vs. FSU

“Having done this for three decades and having had great players that have had ups and downs, you just show confidence in them. And by doing so, they build confidence. They're great players. The worst thing you can do is you do not continue to show confidence and a belief.

“He (Nabers) wanted to excel. He didn't catch punts in high school but he wanted to do that. I give him great credit for wanting to do that. So, we just supported him.

“You're gonna have those kinds of days where nothing seems to be positive. My role is to just be positive with him and know that we trust him and go back and work. We have to spend more time and put him in pressure situations. He was great this week wanting to do that.”

On Mehki Wingo replacing Mason Smith at defensive tackle following Smith’s torn ACL vs. FSU

“I wish we had Mason Smith but we don't. It’s an unfortunate injury but we've moved past that. Now we've got Mehki starting in his place and then we're going to have to have other guys step up as well.

“Tygee (Hill, true freshman Tygee Hill), will get some playing time there. We’re thin, quite frankly, at the position. So, we're going to have to be creative. You might some other fronts that give us a little bit more versatility instead of just four down all the time just to give us a little bit more of a rotation.”

On true freshman left offensive tackle Will Campbell playing virtually every snap vs. Florida State

“We have to do a better job maybe rotating the tackles a little bit more and getting some more guys in the game because that's a lot, especially for a true freshman. He battled, but then you lose some of your technique. He's a warrior. He was out there battling every play.”

On getting wide receiver Jack Bech more involved in the offense after he had just one reception vs. FSU

“We've been very, very careful with him. He had the stress fracture of his leg and we didn't want to put too much on him early in camp. As we begin to ramp up the season, he's going to get more and more playing time. A lot of it was just being really careful with him so we didn't have any major setbacks.”