Alabama football took control of the race for the SEC West on Saturday, beating LSU 42-28 at Bryant-Denny Stadium. The Crimson Tide moved to 8-1 on the season, 6-0 in the SEC play, while the Tigers fell to 6-3 (4-2 SEC).

After the game, LSU coach Brian Kelly said his team simply didn’t play well enough to beat the No. 8-ranked Tide.

“We were playing a top-10 team on the road,” Kelly said. “You can’t play good. We played good tonight. Good is not good enough, you have to play elite when you go on the road and play a top 10 team because it’s not good enough and we didn’t play at a high enough level.”

LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels was knocked out of the game with a possible concussion in the fourth quarter on a hit from Alabama’s Dallas Turner. Daniels was briefly allowed to return before exiting the contest for good.

Afterward, Kelly said the decision to let Daniels reenter the game after being injured was made by LSU’s medical staff. He also commented on whether he felt the play was targeting by Turner.

“We asked (the officials), they said that the replay booth was reviewing it for targeting,” Kelly said. “Obviously, I don’t have the ability to see that. But any time that there is contact to the head or neck area, you’re thinking that there must be some form of targeting. They reviewed it, didn’t feel there was, so we moved on.”

Kelly praised the effort of Daniels before he was injured, but noted that the quarterback could have played better, much like the rest of the Tigers.

“He was good tonight,” Kelly said. “He wasn’t great. He would like to be considered great every week. He was good. He was good. He was really good. And he’s tough, the runs that he had tonight were you know, outstanding runs that kept drives alive. I mean, if he’s not out there, we were not even in the game.”

Kelly also described how Alabama QB Jalen Milroe was able to give the Tigers fits with his legs. Milroe finished the game with four rushing touchdowns.

“You’re you’re in a very difficult situation there. If you’re dropping eight, you know, you’re rushing three, there’s big holes, if you’re spying, you’re short in coverage. We’re fighting our tails off to get stops out there. So it’s just a difficult situation when you have a quarterback that’s gifted like that.”

LSU will play Florida Saturday in Baton Rouge.