After 12 games, this is just my opinion & my overall impressions as of right now. Of course I might be wrong. In 4-5 seasons we'll know. I don't see Kelly as a long term answer for LSU. I think we are currently between a decent/good coach & the potentially hiring a great coach. A crossroads of sorts Brian Kelly is a CEO coach. CEO coaches are 100% percent dependent on the assistants they hire. That's OK for some programs. CEO's have never worked out at LSU. Delegating, head office types, AKA "Hand Shakers". Not getting your hands too dirty coaching. Personally, I don't like this style of coaching. Too much reliance & too much turnover at OC & DC. Can't have any continuity without stability. No QB should have 4 different OC's. Recipe for failure. See what happened to Orgeron when his 2019 coordinators both left. Fell apart, lost the team overnight. I really wish we had hired a younger coach, who is still heavily involved in the actial coaching of the team & the game plan. Lots of energy, fun to talk to, etc. I'm talking about a hands on type coach, who can mix it up with & teach the players. @lsu-i-like is correct, imo. Half of Kelly's staff is questionable. I think Kelly's good for 8-10 win seasons. Thar's exactly where I believe we are. Last night he lived up to his rep: "Can't win the Big game". 5-7 Texas A&M removed us (#5) from any playoff chances. It doesn't get much bigger than that. We "Overachieved" this year. I say Beat Georgia & then we've overachieved. Otherwise, we're just a 9-4 team & maybe unranked. We have plenty of talent as the NFL will soon show us. Is the SEC West highly respected this year? Seems like Georgia & Tennessee have both grabbed a lot of the attention normally reserved for Saban teams. Another 8-10 win season next year? Seems about right. Everyone on this board would have crucified Les Miles if he had this exact season & that finale at Kyle field. But as times change & wins don't come as easily, we see some fans breaking out their defensive shields to defend a complete ass-kicking. Instantly they appear, sometimes before the damn game ends. Like nails on a chalk board. Are they passing out happy pills in da Parish? Losing a game that keeps us out of the Playoffs, badly at that, is supposed to feel Bad. Let us regular folk feel bad for a couple of days before pushing: "The Bright side of our ass-kicking is..". Remember when the Saints signed Earl Campbell, Kenny Stabler, etc, etc.too many former greats to name? In Brian Kelly, we bought a name. Not a great coach, but a good coach for $100M. But is 8-10 wins good enough every year? At 61, Kelly is not ancient, but not close to being young either. He's not 40- 45 & still learning. He's set in his ways. He is the most stoic coach I've seen at LSU. I don't know if this is a good or bad thing. Just stoic. What new ideas does he have to offer himself? I'm still not sure. Football is a young man's game, both Players & Coaches. Saban is the exception. My feeling is Kelly will always be remembered as a Notre Dame coach first, no matter what he does at LSU, fair or not. Kind of like Stabler being remembered as the Raiders QB, not a Saints QB. I didn't like the hire. But I don't hate Brian Kelly at all. I don't really know too much about him. Just what I hear & see. Do you really know "BK"? Seemed like a safe hire by Woodward. To me, the future is when we can find a young, great coach, with fresh, new ideas, better game plans etc., before some of us get too old to care anymore. I say that only half jokingly. I've seen it happen unfortunately. I honestly think Kelly has about 4 more seasons here to show his worth. If we don't improve, whoever is AD then, likely goes searching. *Unless Kelly's assistants win him a NC, like O in 2019. No, I'm not calling for Kelly's head. I know he's here for awhile & as always, will support the Tigers. Recruiting is now a money thing, legally. How much we spend is up to the LSU Athletic Department. Talent not really a problem at LSU, since Archer/Hallman, decades ago.
I preferred Aranda, who turned around and went 6-6. The Iowa St guy was high on my list - went 4-8. Maybe Rhule or PJ Fleck? I don’t know. I am not impressed with several guys on staff, but I think BK is more hands on than most CEO types. I’ve seen him in players faces after bad plays trying to talk through things. I’m a little concerned about recruiting/transfers. Polian better be lighting up the recruiting trails because STs has been terrible. Frank Wilson gives me some optimism but it seems like we’re struggling to finish this recruiting cycle. Really also interested to see if BK can improve on retention, something Miles and O struggled with. He was not my first choice, but I give him credit for rebounding from 39 scholarship players to at minimum 9 wins. I do think he’s won everywhere he’s been, and that he maximized what he could get out of ND. I think ND was what caused his teams to lose the big game, not vice versa. At least, I hope so.
All excellent points. I think Kelly did a herculean job to get the team to 9-3, considering what he was faced with when he took over. I mean, this team had only 39 scholarship players. BK and staff had the impossible task of coming and fill holes mainly from the transfer portal. Did we overperform this season? Probably so, when it appeared we would only be capable of winning maybe 6 games. At the very least, Kelly has restored what it means to play at LSU more quickly than any of us thought - Orgeron left this team at rock bottom. IMO, the future looks very bright. Was last night's result frustrating? Yes, absolutely. I think it showed that A&M was a hell of a lot better than its 4-7 record, and they were the better team last night. They were primed to play spoiler. This was their bowl game and they dominated right out of the gate. Other than that brief sequence in the 3rd quarter when we tied the game, we essentially had no chance to win. I think what's most frustrating is the fact we didn't adjust on defense. We let a freshman QB have his way with us and we had no answer for their RB. Also frustrating is the lack of a downfield passing game from Daniels. As for the SEC championship game, all of the pressure is now taken off of us. It will be tough to beat Georgia, but who knows... Without the pressure of the CFB, we have nothing to lose. I say let's shock the college football world and pull off the upset. Stranger things have happened. In closing, I think we should be proud of what our Tigers accomplished this season.
OMFG! Here we freaking go again. I would say I can't believe what I am reading but I have seen this feces before here at TF. We are headed for the SEC championship and here is a post already hoping for a coaching change. I am reading we need a young coach. I am reading half of Kelly's staff should go. We beat every freaking team in the SEC West except A&M. "Young" coaches old coaches legendary coaches alike. Kelly has not one recruiting year as an LSU coach yet is headed to the freaking SEC championship in his first freaking year. Oh well
LSU won National Championships with coaches who were inferior to BK’s resume coming in. half the time people didn’t understand what Coach O was saying. All the time people didn’t know what Les was trying to say. I guess if you don’t eat grass or rip your shirt as motivation, you can’t coach here.
