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Far too often in life, people ascend along their career path to the point that they get a job precisely 1 rung higher than their talent deserves – simply because they’ve either been successful enough in their profession or are in the perfect place at just the right time.
Brian Kelly owns 310 on-field coaching victories and 2 national championship rings over his career, so to criticize his coaching acumen is tricky when looking only at the big picture. With the bona fides and resume that Kelly has, it is easy to draw an opinion that he is among the very best college football coaches walking Saban’s green Earth.
That lengthy disclaimer made, it feels more and more like the LSU Tigers have a problem with their football team.
A Brian Kelly problem.
As LSU problems go, of course, this ain’t a Curley Hallman problem by a fair stretch. Or even a Gerry DiNardo problem. But it is still a central issue for a Tigers program – an organization that literally lives on the short list of recruiting the nation’s best talent year after year – to turn in the kind of stinkers they have in 2024.
For starters, you simply can’t recruit the kind of talent, homegrown and outside the Louisiana border, that LSU does season after season and not maintain some sort of ownership of your conference – even if the conference is the SEC.
That’s a Brian Kelly problem.
LSU teams under the veteran coach have been good, don’t get it twisted. But they haven’t been great. Heck, in Kelly’s first year in 2022, the Tigers lost to unranked Florida State to begin Kelly’s tenure and dropped their last regular-season game – yet still had a shot at winning the SEC title before ending up in the Citrus Bowl.
Last season, the Tigers were again hopeful of big things only to again drop the opener to the Seminoles – who would end up going undefeated and win the ACC (so no shame there …). But 2 more regular-season losses again rendered LSU obsolete in the national picture by the time mid-November rolled around and only earned a spot in the ReliaQuest Bowl.
That’s a Brian Kelly problem.
And this season, now Year 3 of a 10-year, $95 million contract to lure their savior away from Notre Dame? A 3rd consecutive loss to open the season, this time to USC, tasted like week-old gumbo. (That loss looks worse every week, by the way, maybe the unexplainable loss of the season. USC is just 2-5 in the Big Ten and has changed quarterbacks.) But that setback was not nearly as nasty as back-to-back ugly losses to Texas A&M and Alabama – the latter a 42-13 embarrassment at Tiger Stadium last Saturday that saw most of the Tiger faithful storm the exits instead of sing “Touchdown for LSU” as the fourth quarter began.
That is definitely a Brian Kelly problem.
Then again, isn’t this kind of what LSU purchased when they brought Kelly in to replace Ed Orgeron? Yes, Kelly has those 2 national championship rings – but they are Division II rings encrusted with CZs from his time at Grand Valley State. Kelly might have turned in a 12-0 season in 2009 at Cincinnati to earn his shot at the Notre Dame gig, and he did take the Irish to the BCS National Championship Game and reach the Playoff twice, but his tenure in South Bend wasn’t exactly Hall of Fame material.
There were also some 8-5 seasons sprinkled in there, along with a disastrous 4-8 performance in 2016 that had the voluminous Notre Dame sidewalk alumni calling for his job. Because if you can’t recruit well and win big every year at Notre Dame, they’ll find someone who can quicker than you can say Charlie Weis or Tyrone Willingham.
Kelly righted the ship before getting out of South Bend while the getting was good, trading a premier job for another down south – citing “wanting to be with the best” and “the commitment to excellence, rich traditions, and unrivaled pride and passion of LSU Football.” Which, of course, means LSU threw a pile of money at Kelly while simultaneously catching onto this newfangled desire to utilize Name, Image and Likeness to the Tigers’ advantage.
But there is a difference between luring in talent via NIL riches and actually melding them into a championship contender. That facet is something Kelly didn’t bring with him – simply because he really hasn’t had it since his D-2 days at Grand Valley State. Kelly has proven himself to be a 9-4 coach over his 18-year Division I career, not only because career stats don’t lie but because we are seeing it manifest in real time.
No matter whom you ask in Red Stick, a 4-loss LSU coach doesn’t figure to stick around long enough to build much equity in his domicile. But the real Brian Kelly problem isn’t in that they hired a 4-loss coach thinking he would win championships. The real problem is that, if LSU wants to unload the 63-year-old Kelly after this season, it’ll cost a cool $60 million in buyout money.
There aren’t enough jambalaya joints in all the Bayou to come up with that kind of scratch, especially when LSU is also banging on doors trying to keep up with the NIL Jones’ of the SEC. Tiger fans, you can thank Kelly’s agent Trace Armstrong for that little poison pill.
Ultimately, as is the case with just about everything in the world these days, money is the problem at LSU. Kelly would be owed too much to be shown the exit, and he is still recruiting just well enough to produce the mirage of promise down the road.
That, LSU Nation, is the worst kind of Brian Kelly problem.
An APSE national award-winning writer and editor, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. He also hosts Gulfshore Sports with David Wasson, weekdays from 3-5 pm across Southwest Florida and on FoxSportsFM.com. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.
