O'Gara: Why the idea of Brian Kelly leaving LSU for Michigan never made sense
I scratched my head as the dots were connected.
Brian Kelly to Michigan? Really? Are we doing this again? Like, we’re predicting that an LSU coach is going to leave the Bayou for Michigan?
The last time that happened, in 2007, it was Kirk Herbstreit who sent shockwaves throughout college football when he reported on College GameDay that Les Miles was going to leave LSU for Michigan ahead of conference championship weekend. We know what happened after that. Miles stayed at LSU, which not only won the SEC Championship that day, but it snuck into the BCS National Championship as a 2-loss team and smoked Ohio State.
This time, plenty of respected people in the industry linked Kelly to the potential Michigan vacancy before and after Jim Harbaugh left for the Los Angeles Chargers.
Even as it became more and more likely that Sherrone Moore will be the internal replacement — Brett McMurphy reported that there’s a 99.9% chance that the Michigan OC would be promoted to head coach — I scratched my head.
Kelly to Michigan? Why?
Like, give me another reason besides “he spent 20 years coaching in the state of Michigan.” Can you? I don’t believe so.
I’m not saying that’s nothing, but that was from 1987-2006. Unless his love for the state of Michigan was just aching at him during these nearly 2 decades away from the state, why would Kelly drop everything at LSU to go to a program that just won its first outright national title since the Harry Truman administration?
Kelly left Notre Dame to win a national title at LSU. As in, the place that had its past 3 coaches all win a ring in the 21st century. Call me crazy, but that’s slightly different than that Truman administration stat.
As a non-Southerner — a well-documented but ultimately overblown storyline with Kelly and his pronunciation of “family” — there’s no denying where it’s easier to recruit.
That’s true at both the high school ranks, where LSU has had a higher-ranked class than Michigan all but once in the past decade, and with bringing in assistants. After having a woefully disappointing defensive staff, Kelly went out and poached Blake Baker and made him the highest-paid assistant in the country at $2.5 million annually. He also poached Bo Davis from Texas to take on the same defensive line coach role that he had for Playoff invitee Texas.
That’s alignment that you don’t get everywhere. Kelly would know. He had to watch Texas A&M poach Mike Elko. He had to deal with academic standards that other programs (LSU) didn’t have to overcome in the recruiting process. You know, like what he’d have to overcome at Michigan.
But let’s also remember the other elephant in the room. As in, the elephant in the room that made it feel inevitable that 2023 would be Harbaugh’s last season at Michigan.
Why would Kelly leave LSU for a place that’s about to get punished by the NCAA?
This isn’t like what Ohio State overcame in its courting of Urban Meyer ahead of its “TattooGate” punishment, which included a bowl ban for his first season. Meyer was a free agent. Kelly isn’t, in any world, a free agent. He’s at a place that isn’t about to take a step back. If anything, this is the time when Kelly should be taking a step forward on the heels of consecutive 10-win seasons to start his time at LSU.
So far, I’d argue that Kelly did what Scott Woodward hoped he’d do when he poached him from Notre Dame with that incentive-rich 10-year contract. You beat Nick Saban and won the SEC West in Year 1. You coached your first Heisman Trophy winner and had the nation’s top offense in Year 2. You now have a better chance than ever to have a path to Atlanta in a division-less, Saban-less SEC.
Timing is everything. The timing to bail on what Kelly has done at LSU would make about as much sense as moving into a new home, fixing it up, but then selling it a year later for the same price that you bought it.
Spare me the “but it’s Michigan.”
There are plenty of programs in this sport with rabid fan bases, elite atmospheres and a path to a national title. Kelly is already at one of them.
If Kelly were a Michigan Man and he was not living up to expectations after 5 or 6 years at LSU, fine. I’d get that. Shoot, at a place like LSU, they’d probably open the door on his way out. Maybe LSU isn’t the last job that Kelly will have and Moore will struggle, only to watch Kelly swoop in a few years from now. Crazier things have happened.
But in a strange change of events, I’m gonna listen to a 62-year-old coach when he says “this is my last stop.”
“I love it here. I’m not going anywhere. This is my last stop on the Coach Kelly caravan.”
The talk of @LSUfootball Brian Kelly leaving for another job has picked up zero steam in Baton Rouge. Regardless, Coach Kelly put any of those rumors to rest after Saturday’s win over… pic.twitter.com/XepY0oVEBR
— Jacques Doucet (@JacquesDoucet) November 25, 2023
I realize that was 2 months ago. We didn’t know for certain that Michigan would win a national title and that Harbaugh would ride off into the NFL sunset. Things have changed.
But what has really changed for Kelly? If anything, the alignment shown with those aforementioned staff hires is a sign that he and LSU are in sync more than ever.
The connecting of the dots to Kelly-to-Michigan will likely be just that. Maybe Kelly will get a raise out of it. Perhaps this conversation will officially die in a few short days when Moore is introduced as the Harbaugh replacement.
Anything other than that scenario playing out will leave me scratching my head.