For all the football staff positions LSU employs to meet its young athletes’ every whim and need, maybe the Tigers still need to add another.

Call it: Director of Fun and Celebration Compliance.

Do it quickly, preferably before head coach Brian Kelly totally blows a gasket.

Wait. He already did that. Maybe Sunday’s postgame news conference was a little late for the biggest tirade he’s had into his third year as head coach — and his third consecutive season-opening loss, this time to Southern Cal.

Perhaps the red-faced, fist-bang on the podium will get through to his troops.

Simple common sense apparently didn’t work with some of these Tigers.

Kelly said he felt good going into Sunday’s game with Southern Cal. You could sense it. He thought he knew his team.

But fixing stupid is still a tricky, elusive chore.

It was the difference in what appeared to be an evenly matched game that the Tigers had every chance to win and a 27-20 loss to the Trojans.

There were 10 LSU penalties to choose from, but two unforced unsportsmanlike conduct calls stood out.

“Penalties that are selfish,” Kelly said, adding that the blame fell on him. “Both of them led to scores, and they’re discipline penalties.”

Stupid might have been the word he was looking for. Selfishly stupid.

You think you’ve covered everything as a coach.

But one thing we know about college guys, no matter how much they get paid these days, is that they’re going to act like high school kids with a substitute teacher and push the envelope to get away with as much as they can.

Really, did wide receiver Kyren Lacy spend all summer dreaming up what his reaction would be to his first touchdown of the season? It’s not like he’s never been in the end zone before — seven touchdowns last year.

But, in this day and age, on what planet in what parallel universe did Lacy think pantomiming a rifle shot at an opponent would be the appropriate taunt?

Remorse? He must have been proud of it. Moments later on the sideline he was reenacting the move for his teammates (just in case they missed it?). The 15-yard penalty for the ensuing kickoff indirectly set the Trojans up in LSU territory to answer with a field goal.

Major Burns’ reaction to his defense’s fourth-down stop was almost as costly. It’s not as offensive, but ripping your helmet off on the way off the field has been a 15- yard penalty almost since the helmets were leather.

Instead of taking over at their own 36, the Tigers were back at their own 21.

“Both led to scores,” Kelly said.

Do that math in a one-score loss.

And both offenders are seniors, Burns a team leader and Lacy the heir apparent to the Tigers’ long line of NFL wide receivers.

The offense puts the defense in a pickle, the defense answers with penalty mischief of its own.

“Big picture, we didn’t play complementary football,” Kelly said.

Kelly threw in the targeting call on Jardin Gilbert that set up USC’s winning touchdown to his gripe list, but at least that was a heat-of-the-moment aggressive move. It happens.

Anyway …

“We had some guys playing their butt off, and we’re sitting here again … talking about the same thing,” Kelly said, perhaps with the ghosts of two other season-openers prompting his fist slam to the podium.”

Over and over, he reminded everyone that he was “angry” about it.

“It’s about not finishing when you have an opponent in a position to put him away … what we’re doing on the sideline is feeling like the game’s over.

“I’m so angry about it. I got to do something about it. I’m not doing a good enough job as a coach, and I’ve got to coach him better, because it’s unacceptable for us not to have found a way to win this football game. It’s ridiculous and it’s crazy.”

LSU’s fifth consecutive season-opening loss overall was a little more complicated than just a pair of stupid penalties.

Garrett Nussmeier — 29 of 38, 304 yards — looked like he can be trusted with the offense in place of Heisman Trophy winner Jayden Daniels.

Considering the offense it was up against, the Tigers’ defense certainly took some strides from last year’s season-long disaster.

But the offense got only six points out of three trips inside the 15-yard line and, outside of a few bursts, the running didn’t come as advertised behind that veteran line.

“That’s going to come back and beat you,” Kelly said of the red-zone woes. “We left a lot of points out there.”

And the defense gave up a pair of scoring drives to end the game.

“When we get up in a game, we do not know how to handle ourselves,” Kelly said. “You gotta have a killer instinct in this game. You got to put teams away. We had an opportunity to put this team away and we get complacent. We make more mistakes when we’re ahead instead of having a steely-eyed killer instinct.”

Kelly may have more to fix than he imagined, mostly intangibles.

But at least he cleared the air.

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Scooter Hobbs covers LSU athletics. Email him at scooter.hobbs@americanpress.com