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 \u2013 simply because they\u2019ve either been successful enough in their profession or are in the perfect place at just the right time.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s green Earth.<\/p>\n
That lengthy disclaimer made, it feels more and more like the LSU Tigers have a problem with their football team.<\/p>\n
A Brian Kelly problem.<\/p>\n
As LSU problems go, of course, this ain\u2019t 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 \u2013 an organization that literally lives on the short list of recruiting the nation\u2019s best talent year after year \u2013 to turn in the kind of stinkers they have in 2024.<\/p>\n
For starters, you simply can\u2019t 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 \u2013 even if the conference is the SEC.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a Brian Kelly problem.<\/p>\n
LSU teams under the veteran coach have been good, don\u2019t get it twisted. But they haven\u2019t been great. Heck, in Kelly’s first year in 2022, the Tigers lost to unranked Florida State to begin Kelly’s tenure and<\/em> dropped their last regular-season game \u2013 yet still had a shot at winning the SEC title before ending up in the Citrus Bowl.<\/p>\n Last season, the Tigers were again hopeful of big things only to again drop the opener to the Seminoles \u2013 who would end up going undefeated and win the ACC (so no shame there \u2026). 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.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a Brian Kelly problem.<\/p>\n 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 \u2013 the latter a 42-13 embarrassment at Tiger Stadium last Saturday that saw most of the Tiger faithful storm the exits instead of sing \u201cTouchdown for LSU\u201d as the fourth quarter began.<\/p>\n That is definitely a Brian Kelly problem.<\/p>\n Then again, isn\u2019t this kind of what LSU purchased when they brought Kelly in to replace Ed Orgeron? Yes, Kelly has those 2 national championship rings \u2013 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\u2019t exactly Hall of Fame material.<\/p>\n 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\u2019t recruit well and win big every year at Notre Dame, they\u2019ll find someone who can quicker than you can say Charlie Weis or Tyrone Willingham.<\/p>\n Kelly righted the ship before getting out of South Bend while the getting was good, trading a premier job for another down south \u2013 citing \u201cwanting to be with the best\u201d and \u201cthe commitment to excellence, rich traditions, and unrivaled pride and passion of LSU Football.\u201d 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\u2019 advantage.<\/p>\n 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\u2019t bring with him \u2013 simply because he really hasn\u2019t 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\u2019t lie but because we are seeing it manifest in real time.<\/p>\n No matter whom you ask in Red Stick, a 4-loss LSU coach doesn\u2019t figure to stick around long enough to build much equity in his domicile. But the real Brian Kelly problem isn\u2019t 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\u2019ll cost a cool $60 million in buyout money.<\/p>\n There aren\u2019t 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\u2019 of the SEC. Tiger fans, you can thank Kelly\u2019s agent Trace Armstrong for that little poison pill.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n That, LSU Nation, is the worst kind of Brian Kelly problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Brian Kelly arrived wanting to deliver championships. He hasn’t yet and won’t again in 2024. That’s 1 problem. The other? His buyout means there isn’t much LSU can do about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":440759,"featured_media":398276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","tags":[],"class_list":["post-435027","article","type-article","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","article_types-scheduled","teams-lsu-football"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/435027"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/440759"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435027"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}