The low point of Brian Kelly’s 38 games as head coach at LSU came in Gainesville two weeks ago, with a third consecutive loss and two heated sideline exchanges with his players.
The first sideline interaction looked familiar: Kelly got in the face of wide receiver Chris Hilton with a stern lecture that featured a couple of expletives. The second was different: Kyren Lacy, the team’s leading receiver, seemingly startled Kelly when he yelled at his coach after another failed LSU possession.
The loss to Florida snapped Kelly’s string of seven straight seasons with at least 10 wins, dating back to his time with Notre Dame, and feels indicative of larger issues at LSU. It’s difficult to look toward 2025 and project a significant turnaround for the Tigers — especially after five-star quarterback Bryce Underwood flipped his verbal commitment from LSU to Michigan late last week.
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Kelly’s first season included an SEC West title and win over Alabama, and his second featured a Heisman Trophy winner and 10 victories. But the Tigers (7-4) head into their regular-season finale against Oklahoma playing out the string on a disappointing year.
“It’s just not up to the standard. It’s been patchwork,” a person long affiliated with LSU football said.
Almost three full seasons after Kelly made the audacious decision to leave Notre Dame to chase a national championship at one of the SEC’s most volatile superpowers, it remains to be seen whether he fits the job and can effectively recruit and coach the players the Tigers need to reach that goal.
The Athletic spoke with more than a half-dozen people who have ties to LSU and Kelly for this story. Most were granted anonymity to speak candidly about how Kelly’s tenure at LSU has gone and whether the marriage can be successful.
LSU’s last three coaches — Nick Saban, Les Miles and Ed Orgeron — had all won national championships by the end of their fourth seasons in Baton Rouge. Kelly ran toward, not away from, that standard upon his arrival.
“I want to be in an environment where I have the resources to win a national championship,” Kelly said in the spring of 2022. “And I came down here because I want to be in the American League East,” a reference to the hyper-competitive Major League Baseball division that features the Red Sox and Yankees.
Instead, Kelly will enter Year 4 still searching for the right combination of assistant coaches and with a roster that looks more like the early stages of a rebuild than one ready to contend in the toughest conference in the country.
From the moment LSU athletic director Scott Woodward made the surprising move to pull Kelly from Notre Dame on Dec. 1, 2021, with a 10-year, $95 million contract, the biggest question was: How would the Massachusetts native fit at the SEC school?
While some pointed to Kelly’s career spent coaching in the North and an awkward foray into a Southern accent — “my FAM-i-lee” — at an introductory appearance as signs that his long track record of success might not be transferrable to LSU, those familiar with the program and the coach say his hands-off and at times detached management style has not matched what’s needed at LSU.
“Brian Kelly’s trying to be the same guy he was at Notre Dame at LSU, and it ain’t working,” a former assistant said.
Last week on the SEC coaches’ teleconference, Kelly was asked by The Athletic to what extent he was still learning what works best at LSU. “I don’t know that it’s as much about me as much as it’s about us, and how we continue to build our program consistently,” Kelly said.
Cleaning house
With the full backing of Woodward, who felt the program lacked structure under Orgeron, Kelly cleaned house when he arrived at LSU. It was an unusually deep cleaning for a power-conference program just two years removed from a national championship. But Orgeron was seen by Woodward as running too loose a ship, and the volatility made it difficult to sustain success. The idea was to start anew and implement a more buttoned-up approach.
About 50 people were replaced, from assistant coaches to support staff, including longtime strength and conditioning coach Tommy Moffitt, now at Texas A&M.
“I think just that first (coaching) staff was not what the staff needed to be, and it probably was trying to be too clean of a break,” a former staffer said.
That appears to have been an overcorrection.
“You lose your way a little bit,” the source long affiliated with LSU said.
After pivoting hard away from Coach O’s regime, Kelly, again with input from Woodward, pivoted back after the 2023 season to try to fix an abysmal defense that undercut Heisman winner Jayden Daniels and a spectacular offense, and to fortify credibility on the recruiting trail close to home after Kelly’s first full signing class had only 10 in-state players.
Corey Raymond, a former LSU player who was part of the 2019 national champion staff, was brought back to coach the secondary. Raymond helped establish LSU’s reputation for elite defensive back play. Bo Davis, another former player who was part of the 2003 national title staff under Saban, returned as defensive line coach.
“I think to recruit Louisiana, you have to have Louisiana guys,” the former staffer said.
In addition, Blake Baker — who had a brief stint as linebackers coach at LSU in 2021, Orgeron’s final season — was brought back from Missouri as defensive coordinator at $2.5 million per year. The defense is better than last year’s version, which was maybe the worst in school history, but it still ranks near the bottom of the SEC.
It was expected for the offense to regress some from the best in the country with the departure of Daniels and two first-round NFL Draft pick receivers in Malik Nabers and Brian Thomas. Instead, the drop-off has been drastic for what appears to be LSU’s more talented side of the ball, led by two offensive tackles with first-round potential and quarterback Garrett Nussmeier.
The offensive coordinator transition from Mike Denbrock, who left LSU after last season to return to Notre Dame, to Joe Sloan, who was promoted from quarterbacks coach to replace Denbrock, has not gone well. The Tigers are ninth in the SEC in yards per play (6.11) and 11th in points per game (28.6).
“Scott Woodward and Brian Kelly made a personnel gamble when they decided to let Mike Denbrock out the door because they felt like Joe Sloan was the answer,” the former assistant said. “The data right now would tell you that that’s not the case.”
Woodward declined a request to be interviewed for this story through an LSU spokesman.
Kelly could very well be heading back into the market for an offensive coordinator after this season.
The BK Way
Kelly has always taken something of a 30,000-foot approach to running a program, and the results show he knows what he’s doing. Kelly has a .725 winning percentage over 21 years coaching in the FBS, which doesn’t include 118 victories in 13 seasons leading Division II Grand Valley State.
But even at Notre Dame, particularly after going 4-8 in 2016, Kelly conceded he needed to be more present for his players, acknowledging they wanted him to be more available and connected to the team.
Changes were made and the Fighting Irish took off on the best run the program had since its glory run under Lou Holtz, bulldozing to five consecutive double-digit win seasons and two College Football Playoff appearances.
“When Brian Kelly’s at Notre Dame, he can be his CEO self. He’s often surrounded by excellent staff members and business just goes on as usual,” the former assistant said.
Thirty years of being one of the most successful coaches in college football has made Kelly confident in his ability to build a winning program. At LSU, he seems to have underestimated the need to adjust.
Kelly brought with him from Notre Dame an accountability system for the players, which rewards and penalizes things such as timeliness, dress code, health and wellness check-ins and taking nutritional supplements. Players are either above the line or below the line, and being below can result in a loss of playing time.
“You can’t be late for meetings. You’ve got to take your vitamins every day. You have to do a wellness check-in app on your phone every day, and for (some of) these guys it’s a foreign language to them,” the former staffer said. “… Installing culture is a great idea, but now the way you’re installing culture is actually creating a culture problem.”
Charles Turner, who arrived at LSU in 2019 for the Tigers national title team and was the team’s starting center in 2022 and ‘23, said he had hardly any personal interactions in two seasons playing for Kelly.
Turner said players had to schedule appointments to visit Kelly, which was much different than Orgeron’s open-door policy.
“For Coach Kelly, I think this is a different dynamic for him. … When I was playing for Kelly the last two years, I didn’t talk to him. I started every game for him. Just, ‘Hey, hi. How you doing?’ And that was really it. We never talked Xs and Os. I never sat in his office and got personal with him. He really never got to know me.”
Turner said he hopes Kelly can get it turned around but added he “might not be the best fit” for LSU.
“He’s definitely a good coach, but as far as championships and all that other stuff, you gotta come a different way with your players,” Turner said. “You have to let your players know that you really got ’em.”
A second former assistant echoed Turner: “If you don’t really know the players, if you don’t know how to come at them, don’t know how to talk to them, don’t know how to build relationships with them — if you’re not involved with them, it’s not gonna work.”
Another source said Kelly makes an effort to try to connect with his players, though it doesn’t always seem to come naturally to the coach.
“I think the (players) that believe in him, believe in him,” the source long affiliated with LSU said. “He’s had to find his way when he first got here because it is a different animal.”
Of the two sideline dust-ups at Florida, Kelly chewing out Hilton drew the most attention.
“I do think he is held to a little bit of an unfair (standard) because people want to see him fail,” the former assistant said.
Kelly alluded to this during an interview with Paul Finebaum on the SEC Network last week.
“I find it kind of interesting that I am the only coach in the country that has conversations with their players on the sideline. But be that as it may, we were having a coaching moment with one of my wide receivers, you know, who is desperately wanting to make big plays for us,” Kelly said.
Lacy initiating an exchange with Kelly was more notable. Whether it was a red flag signaling deeper problems or an isolated incident, it was something not seen much at the college level between head coach and player. Kelly said during the interview he had no issue with Lacy expressing his frustration.
“Unfortunately sometimes the camera’s in our office where we’re working, and that comes with being the head coach at a high-profile institution like LSU,” he said.
Recruiting misses
It was one of the first questions Kelly faced after the move: Would he be able to recruit in the SEC against the likes of Georgia’s Kirby Smart and Alabama’s Nick Saban? Kelly and his initial staff were short on recruiting ties and institutional knowledge of a talent-rich state where battles can be fierce.
New Orleans native and longtime SEC assistant Frank Wilson was the one notable addition to the first staff to build those Louisiana connections, but Kelly put Brian Polian, who had been a key member of his staff at Notre Dame, in charge of recruiting.
Kelly himself has never been as hands-on and immersed in the recruiting process as might be necessary to compete with SEC machines, where a top-10 national class might rank closer to the middle of the conference than the top.
“You sit down with these parents and these guardians and these people that are around these kids, and a big part of their decision making is, ‘Who do I trust? Who gives off this vibe that, you know, I want my kid to be with?’ And I think BK probably struggles there a little bit. I think they bring him in as the closer, and I don’t know that that’s his specialty,” the former staff member said.
LSU’s recruiting classes under Kelly haven’t been poorly rated. The 2022 class he mostly inherited was ranked 12th in the country by 247Sports’ composite rankings, because it only had 15 players. The stars were offensive tackles Will Campbell and Emery Jones, tight end Mason Taylor and linebacker Harold Perkins Jr., all juniors who could jump to the NFL after this season.
Almost half that class, seven players, has already transferred out.
LSU’s first full recruiting class under Kelly in 2023 ranked sixth in the country in the 247Sports Composite. Only 10 of the 26 signees were from Louisiana high schools. Only 15 members of the class are still with the team. Most notably, five-star offensive lineman Lance Heard from Bonita, La., transferred to Tennessee, where he starts.
The class that should be the backbone of next year’s LSU team has so far produced four significant contributors, led by linebacker Whit Weeks. Instead, there is a glaring hole in the roster.
“We didn’t need to go to all those other places (outside LSU’s traditional footprint) to get guys. We’ve got guys right here. I think you had arrogance, and that’s what happened. It set us back. There’s no doubt,” the source long affiliated with the program said. “(Polian) was still recruiting like he had at Notre Dame.”
Of course high school recruiting isn’t the only way to improve a roster these days. LSU found a Heisman winner in Daniels in the transfer portal in 2022. Two of the team’s best players this season, edge rusher Bradyn Swinson and receiver Aaron Anderson, were portal additions in 2023. Still, LSU under Kelly has not shown the capacity to transform the roster through transfers the way SEC rival Ole Miss has done under Lane Kiffin. Though Kelly’s biggest win this season came against the Rebels, who have shown portaling to the championship can be a perilous path.
There are also questions about how well LSU is keeping up with the competition when it comes to name, image and likeness compensation for players.
“Some of it has been the misperception that this place is rolling in dough, when the reality of it is they are losing recruits because they’re simply being outbid,” one of the former assistants said.
That appears to be the case for what might turn out to be a bigger loss than anything that has happened on the field this season. Late last week, Underwood — who was primarily recruited by Sloan — decommitted from LSU after 10 months. Underwood is reportedly set to receive an NIL deal worth millions over multiple years for going to Michigan.
Back in May, Kelly lamented LSU coming up short when portal shopping: “We were in the market, in the transfer portal, looking for defensive linemen. It hasn’t fared very well, quite frankly, because we are selling something a little bit differently. And that is, we want to recruit. We want to engage, build relationships. We want to develop, retain, and have success. We’re not in the market of buying players. … And unfortunately, right now, that’s what some guys are looking for. They want to be bought. … We’re not going to go out and buy players.”
With revenue-sharing with players on the horizon, and possibly less emphasis on booster-funded NIL deals, the system might be moving in Kelly’s favor.
What’s next?
Despite dissatisfaction at LSU — there were some “Fire Kelly” chants coming from the student section early in Saturday’s 24-17 home victory against Vanderbilt — Kelly will not be ousted anytime soon.
“Nothing happens without him being the head coach because it is an economic problem that they cannot solve,” a second former LSU staffer said.
Woodward gave Kelly a 10-year guaranteed contract, and the buyout currently sits at $64.5 million. That goes down by $9.5 million annually.
It’s easy to look at the declining results and apparent trajectory of LSU football and conclude Kelly will enter Year 4 on a hot seat, with a roster unable to compete for a Playoff spot. Economics might force patience, and not everybody believes this situation is irreversible.
“I think where LSU’s in a good spot is BK is Scott’s guy. Scott is BK’s guy, they’re gonna work together. (LSU) President (William) Tate’s supportive. They do actually have the pieces in place right now, they just don’t have the roster in place,” the former staffer said.
A victory over the Commodores is no cause for celebration at LSU — more of a temporary respite after three weeks of mostly bad news and a little something to back up the signs of progress Kelly insists he sees.
“Based upon the feedback that I’m getting from (weekly meetings with) our leadership council here, we’re right on where we need to be in terms of building the foundation of our program,” Kelly said last week. “We have to continue to recruit. Our players are playing hard. They’re playing with the right kind of attitude. But this is the SEC. And the talent is real.”
(Top photo: Meech Robinson/ The Athletic; Photo: James Gilbert / Getty Images)
