By Rock Westfall
LSU Tigers head coach Brian Kelly has not had a good year. The Bayou Bengals finished 8-4 in Kelly’s third season at the helm. LSU athletic director Scott Woodward, a reputed “Big Game Hunter,” wooed Kelly away from Notre Dame with a 10-year, $95 million deal and the expectation that he would have an easier time winning a national championship. Instead, it has become increasingly difficult.
Kelly was supposed to be in the expanded College Football Playoff by his third season on the Bayou. Instead, he is lamenting the state of college football recruiting and its mercenary nature.
Of course, the problem is that Kelly is quite the mercenary himself. With his Notre Dame team still in the 2021 CFP hunt, Kelly bailed on his program with one game remaining. It’s bad enough that any coach would quit on his team with the season still very much alive, but to walk out on the most historic brand in the game is nearly unfathomable. Yet Kelly did it.
These days, Kelly is doing an about-face after making comments last spring that clearly stated that LSU was not about buying players.
“We’re not in the market of buying players,” said Kelly last May. “And unfortunately, right now, that’s what some guys are looking for. They want to be bought.”
But after falling short on signing day this week, Kelly is changing his tune. Brian Kelly has gotten religion and is crying out to LSU donors for salvation.
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LSU head coach Brian Kelly sounded off about the NIL era in recruiting😯
The Tigers lost two 5-star commits in the final two weeks before National Signing Day. https://t.co/M4qr3CLrH6 pic.twitter.com/3JmOz4DaEF
— Rivals (@Rivals) December 4, 2024
Slip Sliding Away
Kelly was poised to land an epic 2025 LSU recruiting class but was unable to close on some coveted prospects at the end.
Kelly’s problems began with Bryce Underwood when the five-star quarterback got involved in a high-profile, $10 million NIL decision to flip to Michigan. Underwood officially signed his letter to the Wolverines on National Signing Day. Underwood wasn’t the only major loss on the trail. Four-star cornerback Kade Phillips flipped to Texas, with NIL at the forefront there.
Kelly then offered a realistic, although ironic, assessment of the situation.
“It’s not just about finding the right fit…it’s about the most money I can get,” Kelly bluntly told reporters. “That’s unfortunate. But it’s the world we live in.”
For a coach who ran out on Sugar Bowl-bound Cincinnati after telling his players he was happy in the face of rumors he was leaving for Notre Dame and then bailed on Notre Dame for LSU, the comment came off as tone-deaf. But that is Brian Kelly in a nutshell.
LSU finished with the nation’s 8th-ranked class for 2025, dropping several notches from its peak earlier in November.
Kelly was not shy about calling out LSU donors to step it up.
“If you want to get in the portal and close some of these recruitments, you have to have active participation from a donor base, and it can’t just be one or two guys. It has to be from all of those that want to see their schools do well. They have to be involved. If LSU wants to be at the top of the food chain, then we have to be involved as well. That’s the reality of where we are today. Whether we like it or not, it’s where we are.”
“Early on it was educating the donors about what the landscape was in college football and making them understand what a collective was and what recruiting is. We’re going to recruit and put in the time for players that want to graduate and play for championships, but we also have to be able to provide them with the NIL resources in our collective so they actually come here because other schools are going to offer them too.”
“If you want to be in the big poker game, this is what the ante is. That was educational for our group and all across the country. We have donors that still don’t want to give to that, and I get it, but we are still in the big poker game. We still need support so we can continue to build our roster.”
Kelly has long had a reputation inside and outside of the coaching community and media as an alibi artist. His comments, while on point, come off as excuses and placing blame on others.
No chance Brian Kelly navigates a Sun Belt schedule undefeated https://t.co/PuJFlSRzCU
— Big Cat (@BarstoolBigCat) December 4, 2024
Kelly’s Credibility Gap
Everything Brian Kelly said is true—all of it. LSU will have to step up in NIL or forsake its dreams of a national championship. But he is the wrong messenger for the right message.
Kelly’s defenders will say that much of the media dislikes him and is always looking for a reason to criticize him. The problem is that Kelly makes it so easy, even for those who want to be fair. He has never been good at getting out of his own way, and his past job jumping to the highest bidder damages his credibility. Furthermore, Kelly’s habit of deflecting blame to other individuals or circumstances beyond his control has made him a tiresome lightning rod.
But there is some good news for Kelly. A donor base that does not meet the mark for NIL is unlikely to pass the hat to fire him anytime soon.
Brian Kelly thought it would be easier at LSU.
CFP-bound Notre Dame Nation is having a hearty holiday laugh.
"When I was playing for (Brian) Kelly the last two years, I didn’t talk to him. I started every game for him," said recent LSU center Charles Turner.
Quite a story from @ralphDrussoATH
and @BruceFeldmanCFB
on the issues at LSU.https://t.co/Ju3FocCKMM— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) November 25, 2024
