Notre Dame fan here. Here’s my take on Brian Kelly, for what it’s worth.
Brian Kelly is simply continuing at LSU the rather better than average mediocrity that he displayed at Notre Dame. He has a way of doing fairly well, then doing poorly, and then doing quite well the next year, sort of as an “I’ll show you” middle-finger response to his detractors.
If he stays true to pattern, he will manage to hold onto his job, and he will get you in the playoffs next year. Then he will lose in the first game, and will have a laundry list of excuses as to why he didn’t go further.
His favorite excuse at Notre Dame when we got blown out in the playoffs every time we got in was that Notre Dame‘s academic requirements were too stringent to allow him to recruit the kind of players that he needed to win a national championship. (Indeed, that’s the main reason he gave for leaving the Notre Dame.) Some people bought it and some didn’t. And of course, Marcus Freeman has pretty well disproved that notion in a short while. (Perhaps it’s just that Kelly really is the lazy recruiter that he was often accused of being at Notre Dame. I don’t know what your experience has been at LSU, but it does look like your recruiting rankings have been slipping.)
As I see it, Kelly’s problem is that he can’t get out of his own way. He is stubborn and defensive, very quick to clap back at any hint of criticism. For all his “the buck stops here“ talk, he tends to hold other people to blame for his problems.
Although I’m sorry that LSU fans are feeling the sort of pain that we felt during Kelly’s tenure, I can’t say that I’m sorry that he stole out of South Bend in the dark of night a few years ago. Notre Dame’s fortunes have been much better under Freeman.
If you do manage the fire Kelly this year, maybe a DC at a high end program with no coaching experience would be a better gamble than a head coach with an uneven track record. Freeman was a DC with no head coaching experience, and he is doing very well at Notre Dame. Mike Elko was a DC who did very well right away at Duke before coming to Texas A&M. Clark Lea was a DC at Notre Dame before leaving for Vanderbilt, and of course he’s doing very well there too. So it’s a gamble, but maybe worth a try. It would probably cost less!
Anyway, best of luck going forward. I hope the problems work out. I was a big LSU fan the year Ed Orgeron and Co. won it all for you. Teams like those are what makes college football exciting to watch.
Brian Kelly is simply continuing at LSU the rather better than average mediocrity that he displayed at Notre Dame. He has a way of doing fairly well, then doing poorly, and then doing quite well the next year, sort of as an “I’ll show you” middle-finger response to his detractors.
If he stays true to pattern, he will manage to hold onto his job, and he will get you in the playoffs next year. Then he will lose in the first game, and will have a laundry list of excuses as to why he didn’t go further.
His favorite excuse at Notre Dame when we got blown out in the playoffs every time we got in was that Notre Dame‘s academic requirements were too stringent to allow him to recruit the kind of players that he needed to win a national championship. (Indeed, that’s the main reason he gave for leaving the Notre Dame.) Some people bought it and some didn’t. And of course, Marcus Freeman has pretty well disproved that notion in a short while. (Perhaps it’s just that Kelly really is the lazy recruiter that he was often accused of being at Notre Dame. I don’t know what your experience has been at LSU, but it does look like your recruiting rankings have been slipping.)
As I see it, Kelly’s problem is that he can’t get out of his own way. He is stubborn and defensive, very quick to clap back at any hint of criticism. For all his “the buck stops here“ talk, he tends to hold other people to blame for his problems.
Although I’m sorry that LSU fans are feeling the sort of pain that we felt during Kelly’s tenure, I can’t say that I’m sorry that he stole out of South Bend in the dark of night a few years ago. Notre Dame’s fortunes have been much better under Freeman.
If you do manage the fire Kelly this year, maybe a DC at a high end program with no coaching experience would be a better gamble than a head coach with an uneven track record. Freeman was a DC with no head coaching experience, and he is doing very well at Notre Dame. Mike Elko was a DC who did very well right away at Duke before coming to Texas A&M. Clark Lea was a DC at Notre Dame before leaving for Vanderbilt, and of course he’s doing very well there too. So it’s a gamble, but maybe worth a try. It would probably cost less!
Anyway, best of luck going forward. I hope the problems work out. I was a big LSU fan the year Ed Orgeron and Co. won it all for you. Teams like those are what makes college football exciting to watch.
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