LSU will not win a national title under coach Brian Kelly.
The school kicked the 2025 coaching carousel into a higher gear as sources told Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger that Kelly would be firedafter the team’s disastrous second-half performance in a 49-25 loss to Texas A&M.
Kelly, who signed a 10-year, $100 million contract when he was hired ahead of the 2022 season, has an official buyout of over $50 million that could eclipse the number Penn State will pay James Franklin after firing him earlier this season if it isn’t negotiated down.
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Only former Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher has received a bigger buyout than Franklin to date. LSU athletic director Scott Woodward hired Fisher when he was the athletic director at Texas A&M.
“Fire Kelly” chants rained down by the few LSU fans who were left at the conclusion of the Tigers’ loss to the Aggies. LSU led that game 18-14 at halftime as it blocked a punt for a safety and the offense looked better than it had for much of the season.
A switch immediately flipped in the third quarter. Texas A&M scored to open the second half and then, when LSU punted, KC Concepcion returned a punt 79 yards for a TD. What was a four-point lead had turned into a 10-point deficit and the rout was on from there.
The loss dropped the Tigers to 5-3 overall this season and 2-3 in the SEC. LSU has now lost at least three games in all four of Kelly’s seasons with the team.
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After the game, Kelly said he understood why fans would be upset.
“This is an extremely disappointing night, right? And the fan base, our fans, are disappointed like any fan base would be,” Kelly said. “Whether here at LSU or any other school. It stops with the head coach. And so that responsibility falls with me. But this is a proud tradition at LSU. They have a proud football team and the guys that represent us, and like I said, I was with them, they prepared their tails off this week. They expected to win. They did that by their actions in the first half. It didn’t show itself in the second half and so I have to look at the reasons why.”
Kelly famously said that he came to LSU from Notre Dame to be in an environment where he could win a national title. At Notre Dame, Kelly took the Fighting Irish to a BCS title game and two College Football Playoff appearances. Though none of those games were close. Notre Dame went 0-3 in those three games and lost by a combined 72 points.
That’s still closer to a national championship than he’s been at LSU. The Tigers have been to the SEC title game just once in the past three seasons, and that came in 2022 when LSU won the SEC West with a 6-2 conference record before losing to Georgia by 20 points in the conference championship game.
Kelly’s departure means that LSU is again searching for a coach who can replicate the magic of the team’s 2019 national title season. The Tigers had one of the best teams in college football history six years ago as they went 15-0, outscored teams by four touchdowns per game and had an NFL-record number of draft picks in 2020.
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But things quickly tailed off under coach Ed Orgeron after that season. With all the talent the Tigers lost to the NFL, Orgeron’s teams went just 11-11 over the next two seasons before he parted ways with the school.
Orgeron left with as many three-loss seasons (four) as Kelly’s teams. But he won a national championship.
Much like it was after Orgeron was fired, LSU will be in the conversation for nearly every available coach until the end of the season. The school’s three national titles in the 2000s and its willingness to devote financial resources to the football program make it one of the most enticing jobs in college football.
However, LSU has been a good but not great program far too often over the past 15 seasons. The 2019 season looks more and more like an aberration with each passing year.
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The Tigers have won 10 or more games in eight of 18 seasons since winning the BCS title at the end of 2007. However, just three of those seasons have included two or fewer losses. And 2019 is the only one of those to occur in the past 14 years.
As Alabama became the preeminent program in the country under former LSU coach Nick Saban and Georgia emerged as the Tide’s chief rival under former Alabama assistant Kirby Smart, LSU has been consistently a tier below the Crimson Tide and Bulldogs after Les Miles’ program lost the 2011 BCS title game to Saban’s Alabama.
Since that Alabama win, the Tide made another BCS championship and eight playoff appearances. Georgia has made the playoff three times and played for the national championship in every single one of those appearances.
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LSU, meanwhile, can only cling to that memorable 2019 season.
