Does Brian Kelly have that sense of urgency? Why it finally feels like it in an all-important Year 4
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ATLANTA — In the first SEC coach press conference at SEC Media Days, Brian Kelly made sure to mention the $1 million gift that he and his wife donated this year to fund LSU’s NIL efforts, but he offered up a disclaimer later on.
“I’m not going to give $1 million every year,” he joked.
Kelly’s funds helped LSU land 247Sports’ No. 1 class in the transfer portal. Lord knows 7-figure funds made a difference in taking care of certain high-level talent — Kelly also referenced the $3.5 million in additional fundraising from the 1,600 supporters — most notably LSU quarterback/preseason Heisman Trophy favorite Garrett Nussmeier and linebacker Harold Perkins Jr., both of whom opted to return for another season in Baton Rouge instead of leaving for the NFL.
What Kelly didn’t bring up was the elephant in the room. That is, he’s entering Year 4 at LSU, AKA the school where its 3 coaches in the 21st century all won national titles by the end of … Year 4.
In Kelly’s defense, he didn’t have to comment on that. Everything about his press conference in Atlanta made it quite clear what the focus was.
Championship, championship, championship.
Kelly said that word 12 times. If you drank every time that Kelly said the word “championship,” well, you would’ve had yourself a Louisiana Saturday Night. There’ll be a time and a place for that come fall, especially if this team is indeed in an SEC Championship hunt or, dare I say, reaching the Playoff for the first time in the 2020s.
Monday wasn’t the time and place to discuss whether Kelly can get over that hump in a place where you’re evaluated based on championships, and not on whether you’re graduating players. By the way, Kelly is doing that. He mentioned how 2025 will be the first year that LSU will have a perfect Graduation Success Rate (GSR) since he’s been there. It also might the first year in which he’ll have a returning starting quarterback with a defense that can play at a championship level.
Yes, that was a dig at the 2023 LSU squad.
“Clearly the 2023 offensive football team we had was good enough to win a national championship,” Kelly said. “We weren’t good enough as a team. A lot of that had to do with addressing some shortcomings we had on defense. We think we’ve done that.”
Doing that began after 2023 with the well-documented arrival of Blake Baker as defensive coordinator, which yielded some mixed results last season. Improvement? Sure, LSU did that by allowing a touchdown less per conference game than it did last year. But depth was an issue in Year 1. In Year 2, that sense of urgency was acknowledged via the transfer portal.
“We needed to give him some more tools,” Kelly said. “Look, I’ve been the head football coach at LSU and I know that we have not played the kind of defense necessary to win a national championship. I think we put a roster together in this offseason, along with young players that have taken lumps along the way as they’ve developed, and given Blake now the tools to play championship level defense.”
Yep. That’s it.
Kelly did his best to rattle off all the transfers that LSU brought in — listing 18 players would be a bit much — but said that he planned to mention all of them during his various media appearances throughout the day.
But perhaps as important as anyone that Kelly brought in for 2025 will be the player who emerged in 2024 — Whit Weeks. The All-SEC selection suffered a broken fibula in the bowl game, but he was in Atlanta to represent LSU at SEC Media Days. As Kelly said, “he’s our driver.” So naturally, it was a question worth asking the driver of LSU.
Is there a different sense of urgency in 2025?
“There’s always a sense of urgency. We play at LSU. LSU needs to be in the Playoff and we need to be national champions at the end of this year,” Weeks said.
Weeks admitted he wasn’t aware of the elephant-in-the-room-stat about the LSU coaches in the 21st century all having national championships by the end of Year 4, but he’s the last person who probably needs to be aware of such a stat. Far more important is Kelly. All signs point to him acknowledging that it’s all there. Shoot, even Kelly adding 3 new personnel assistants — Kelvin Bolden, Jeff Martin and Sam Petitto — to work under general manager Austin Thomas suggests that the attention to detail is off the charts with Kelly heading into Year 4.
All the pieces are in place. Does that guarantee that a championship-level season is in store? Certainly not, but what can’t be knocked is the approach. If Kelly becomes the first LSU coach in the 21st century who fails to win a national title by the end of Year 4, it doesn’t feel like it’ll be because of decisions made in the preseason made, or a lack of focus.
Well, check that.
Kelly did have an incident before his main media area arrival that sidetracked him a touch. Apparently, Kelly got lost in the Omni Hotel for an hour. According to him, that was the result of some bad advice from a media member.
Even amid sky-high expectations, Kelly still has a sense of humor. But he knows the other reality all too well.
Getting lost on a championship path won’t fly in 2025.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
