LSU's Brian Kelly says South Carolina punt-block illegal, asking SEC to review

South Carolina was penalized 13 times for 123 yards Saturday in its come-from-way-ahead loss at home against visiting LSU.

But Tigers coach Brian Kelly, even after his team erased deficits of 17-0 and 24-10 to win 36-33, made clear he felt the Gamecocks should have had at least one more penalty.

Kelly, too, is going to take it up with the Southeastern Conference.

"The blocked punt, I'm going to have to take that up with our SEC office," Kelly said in a postgame assessment of LSU's special teams play. "We believe it was an illegal block, and we voiced our concern with it. 

"We will address it with the SEC officiating crew and with John McDaid (SEC's head of officiating). We believe, we believe we had an argument there."

Up 10-0, the Gamecocks crashed through the LSU wedge to block a punt that set up their offense with a short, 10-yard field. Raheim Sanders scampered in on the next play.

Here's the block that Kelly deemed illegal: 

Kelly praised his LSU team's resiliency to come back and win this contest, which featured a sold-out Williams-Brice Stadium and was host site of ESPN GameDay Saturday morning.

"This group is going to battle. They want to do so well for LSU," Kelly said. "They blocked out the noise. I don't think anybody picked us to win this game. 

"Everybody had South Carolina winning this game, and they blocked out that noise and focused on getting themselves ready to compete on the road against an SEC opponent."