BATON ROUGE – Year 3 of the Brian Kelly tenure with LSU football officially gets underway in the coming days as the team will report and open preseason practice.

The Tigers will have a month to prep for their 2024 season opener against the USC Trojans Sunday, Sept. 1 in Las Vegas as part of the Vegas Kickoff Classic. Kickoff is set for 6:30 p.m. (ABC).

LSU has won at least 10 games in each of Kelly's first two seasons as head coach and will enter the new season off a 10-3 campaign that was headlined by quarterback Jayden Daniels winning the Heisman Trophy as well as an historically bad defense for the program. Kelly overhauled the defensive staff, bringing in Blake Baker as defensive coordinator from Missouri.

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He also hired back cornerbacks coach Corey Raymond from Florida and hired Bo Davis to coach the defensive line from Texas.

While Daniels has moved on the NFL, there's no shortage of expectations for LSU this season with junior Garrett Nussmeier, who has been with the program for three years, at quarterback and a defense that really can only get better.

Here are the three most important games for the Tigers in 2024, as picked by The Daily Advertiser.

USC Trojans (Sept. 1) in Las Vegas

Season-openers have not been kind to LSU for the last four years. It has lost two straight to Florida State, one in New Orleans two years ago and last year in Orlando, on the road at UCLA in 2022 and to Mississippi State to kick off the COVID season

If LSU is going to accomplish national title aspirations, getting off to a good start will be key. In each of the last four seasons when it has dropped the opener, it has not made the College Football Playoff field, but did win the SEC West in 2022.

Kelly and LSU will need to beat USC in Vegas.

Ole Miss (Oct. 12)

First major conference test for LSU and it sits right smack in the middle of the season.

The Tigers get the Rebels at home, a Lane Kiffin-coached squad that many analysts this offseason have said are in prime position to do some things that Oxford hadn't seen in a quite some time. Jaxson Dart is a top-two signal-caller in the SEC and his wide receiving corps just may be the best in the league with Tre Harris and Antwane "Juice" Wells and LSU's revamped defense will undoubtedly see its toughest matchup to date.

By this point in the season, LSU could be 5-0 at best or 4-1 at worst. If the worst-case scenario plays itself out in the first half of 2024, dropping two of the first six games is not a good look for the Tigers.

Oklahoma (Nov. 30)

Oklahoma is the only newcomer to the SEC that LSU will tangle with this season – Texas is the other new member. Aside from that story line, the regular season finale contest with the Sooners could have major postseason ramifications to it.

LSU could be looking for its 10th win of the season, with presumable losses to Ole Miss and Alabama earlier in the year. Win No. 10 could be key in possibly earning an at-large spot in the newly expanded 12-team CFP Playoff.

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Cory Diaz covers the LSU Tigers for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his Tigers coverage on Twitter: @ByCoryDiaz. Got questions regarding LSU athletics? Send them to Cory Diaz atbdiaz@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: LSU football's three most important games in 2024 season