BATON ROUGE – LSU’s 2025 football season was pronounced officially dead Saturday night in Tiger Stadium.
Then, last rites were read Sunday night on Brian Kelly’s head coaching career at LSU after 3½ seasons.
Ah, the spectacle of a college football weekend in the fall.
Thirty-five straight nails-in-the-cof. ..uh. . .consecutive Texas A&M second-half points buried the Tigers 49-25 and subsequently turned Kelly’s final exit into a dead man walking out of Death Valley.
Somewhere between the time LSU’s 18-14 halftime lead over the No. 3-ranked Aggies morphed into the Tigers’ repeating display of ineptitude, one of LSU’s highfalutin’ muckety-mucks decided to round up the legal posse to negotiate a buyout of the remaining $53 million Kelly is owed on his contract.
LSU announced Kelly’s termination via a press release Sunday at 8:23 p.m.
Associate head coach/running backs coach Frank Wilson takes over as interim head coach for the rest of the season. It starts with this week’s open date, followed by a road game at Alabama, two straight home dates against Arkansas and Western Kentucky, and then a regular-season-ending first-time trip to Oklahoma.
Officially, college football’s current winningest head coach is now looking for a job. With an LSU record of 34-14, including 19-10 in the SEC, three bowl wins, and a Heisman Trophy winner to his credit, Kelly will have no problem finding a new gig.
His LSU record indicates that he was far from a failure, especially considering he took over a depleted roster from the previous head coach, Ed Orgeron, during a volatile era of college athletics that has turned college football into a cash grab.
But that was never taken into consideration by LSU’s provincial fanbase, most of which didn’t warm to Kelly.
They didn’t like that he was a stoic Northerner with a dry sense of humor. They thought he was overpaid (a 10-year, $95 million deal) from the jump.
To justify his salary, they expected LSU to be an immediate and annual national contender.
It didn’t happen.
Some of it was Kelly’s struggle adapting to the new world of college athletes being bought and sold every season like cattle.
Much of it was Kelly’s original, misguided staff hirings.
He failed to retain Corey Raymond as defensive backs coach and fired long-time strength coach Tommy Moffitt. Two pillars of LSU’s success through the decades – NFL-quality DB play and a tough, physical style of football – immediately vanished.
Kelly’s original player personnel director, Brian Polian, knew nothing about how to establish relationships with Louisiana high schools.
Kelly replaced his entire defensive staff before the 2024 season. Simultaneously, he promoted QB coach Joe Sloan to offensive coordinator without an extensive job search.
Sloan replaced Mike Denbrock, who returned to Notre Dame after developing Arizona State transfer Jayden Daniels into a Heisman Trophy-winning QB.
Kelly tried desperately to get his offense and defense on the same talent level and playing with high efficiency.
His first two seasons were marked by high-octane offense that mostly compensated for porous defenses.
The last two seasons, it flipped to better defense and worse offense. But it was rarely all on the same page at once.
Finally, in the last two months, after he spent $18 million in the transfer portal that supposedly filled deficiencies in the defensive and offensive lines, in the secondary, and at wide receiver, LSU’s 4-0 start was an anomaly.
Whether it was returning quarterback Garrett Nussmeier’s undisclosed lower torso injury, Sloan’s conservative, predictable play-calling for a plodding offense or offensive line injuries that caused the O-line to become more inexperienced than it originally was to start the season, LSU’s averaging 21.2 points in SEC play ultimately resulted in three losses in the last four games.
It certainly didn’t help Kelly to build a case to stay another year.
He already said last week he didn’t believe he should step in and call plays. It was clear as hell or high water he wasn’t going to give backup quarterback Michael Van Buren, who guided LSU on a 75-yard fourth-quarter TD drive vs. A&M, any consistent significant snaps.
Kelly was married to his “process,” whatever that is. He didn’t believe in drastic changes.
But someone with a mainline to LSU’s biggest donors did.
LSU’s news release contained a curious quote from Tigers’ athletic director Scott Woodward, who hired Kelly and also hired national championship-winning coaches in baseball’s Jay Johnson, women’s basketball’s Kim Mulkey, and gymnastics’ Jay Clark.
“We will immediately begin a national search for a new head football coach,” Woodward said. “I am confident in our ability to bring to Baton Rouge an outstanding leader, teacher and coach, who fits our culture and community and who embraces the excellence that we demand.”
West Virginia native and Michigan State coach Nick Saban proved in his five seasons as LSU’s head coach from 2000 to 2005 that cultural fit is inconsequential.
Only winning matters.
Win a national title like Nick did in 2003, and you’re one of us, cuz.
Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com