For LSU head coach Brian Kelly, it wasn’t about what he said or when he said it — really not even a question of whether he said it.

He said it. It’s right there on tape. A packed Baton Rouge restaurant heard it.

A little more confusing is the matter of whether he later said he did not say that LSU was going to “go beat the heck out of Florida State” on his radio show last Thursday.

He didn’t fake a Southern accent in uttering it and most coaches would have chosen stronger profanity for such a strong statement.

But the prediction — if it was one — obviously didn’t age well, and Florida State fans are having a blast with it in the wake of the Seminoles’ 45-21 drubbing of the Tigers.

Kelly, to his credit, owned up to the embarrassing loss, blaming himself and his coaches for just about every misstep along the way after FSU overcame a three-point deficit and demolished the Tigers in the second half.

He was a little murkier at his weekly news conference when asked about the pregame prediction that came back to haunt him.

“I think you all know me, I’m pretty careful with what I say and how I say it,” Kelly said Tuesday. “Never have I been cavalier or disrespectful to an opponent in my 33 years.”

Later, he added, “It’s just not in my background or nature to make those kinds of comments.”

OK, so maybe he didn’t mean to say it. Or maybe it was taken out of context. Maybe he got caught up in the moment in feeding his festive on-site audience what it wanted to hear. Or perhaps it was another North-South language foul-up, although it was said in fairly plain English.

But he certainly did say it.

It was in response to a question from LSU play-by-play announcer, Chris Blair, who hosts the radio show.

Kelly was explaining that LSU still had some question marks, with a lot of players who’d never traveled with the team before.

Then he said, “That’s not a disclaimer of any kind. We’re going to go beat the heck out of Florida State. But what I’m saying is, we’re still developing our football team.”

Tuesday he explained, sort of, that, “If somebody wants to prop up a comment like that and inflate it into something that it is not, that’s what social media is about today.

“Like I said, the position of head coach or any leadership position, you’re going to get things thrown out there that are absolutely untrue and you have no way to come back.

“But that’s not something I would ever say.”

Maybe he meant that it was not something he ever meant to say.