Exclusive: Brian Kelly on Notre Dame, LSU and what's next
"I want to be clear: I loved my time at Notre Dame. It was great for our family."
In an alternate history, Scott Woodward gets what he wants.
The ex-LSU athletic director landed Brian Kelly, the winningest coach in Notre Dame history, back in December of 2021. Usually when a head coach takes another job, he brings most of his staff with him. Kelly tried to do that with offensive coordinator Tommy Rees, only for the Irish to pay up to keep Rees. Then, Notre Dame promoted defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman to succeed Kelly.
That’s the same Freeman whom LSU was on the brink of bringing aboard the previous offseason as DC — with the seemingly inevitable bump up to (at least) interim head coach coming upon Ed Orgeron’s midseason dismissal.
Has Kelly pondered that alternate history?
You bet he has.
“Oh, I think it means a lot,” Kelly told Pete Sampson and me this week on The Independent podcast. “Looking at the things that may have made this process slower than they wanted it to be was coordinator hires. And I needed to do a better job there.”
He later added: “I think as I look at it, those two that you mentioned (Rees and Freeman), if they were able to make the move, it would have been an easier transition, no doubt.”
Kelly went three (and-a-half) and out in Death Valley, fired last October after a blowout home loss to Texas A&M that saw Aggies fans take over Baton Rouge, a showdown with Woodward take place the next day, and the Louisiana governor eventually insert himself into the mess.
Now Kelly is out of a coaching job for the first time in his career, after 35 straight years of running programs.
Does he regret the way things ended in South Bend?
