Brian Kelly has coached for two of the biggest programs in college football, if not in American sports as a whole.
He spent 12 seasons as the head coach of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. He then spent three seasons as head coach of the LSU Tigers before getting fired near the end of his fourth.
The Tigers brought Kelly in to bring them into national championship contention. The issue is, he couldn’t even get them into the College Football Playoff.
Kelly was a disappointment at LSU, even though he was fired with a 34-14 overall record.
And yet, he’s still one of the biggest names in the sport, and he could easily find himself coaching big-time college football again in the next year or two.
You get the sense that he’s not quite over getting fired by LSU, though. Kelly recently interviewed on “Dusty and Danny in the Morning,” and he sounded like someone who was still trying to process how he got to where he currently is.
“Let’s put it in perspective. You know, I’ve had 33 years in this business, over 300 wins. You know, had two losing seasons in 33 years. So, you know, my entire career has been built upon, you know, having some kind of success,” Kelly said (h/t On3). “And when you get fired, you’re told that you’re not the guy for the job. And so, that’s probably the first thing you start thinking about, the things that you’ve done for three decades … You look carefully about why this happened, and look, the easy answer is, I didn’t win enough games. You know, that’s the bottom line, right?”
