LSU football: Brian Kelly is not homegrown Ed Orgeron, but the expectations are the same
By Les East
Published:
LSU’s new football coach couldn’t be more different from its last football coach.
The Tigers formally introduced Brian Kelly as the successor to Ed Orgeron on Wednesday.
Kelly, a native of Massachusetts whose 31 years as a college head coach have all been spent in the Midwest, doesn’t sound like Orgeron.
That’s obvious.
But it doesn’t really matter.
There are more substantial differences.
And they might matter. It sure sounds that way.
Kelly “knows that success in football requires success in the classroom and in the community,” athletic director Scott Woodward said. “He knows that high standards don’t confine themselves to the football field, that elite performances on Saturdays are the product of elite preparation in every walk of life.”
Kelly, who worked within a more confining structure of academic restrictions during 12 years at Notre Dame, also discussed academics.
“That’s what I’m about,” Kelly said, “excellence in academics and athletics. … I believe that I can make a significant difference here.”
The LSU football program, along with the men’s basketball program, remain under investigation by the NCAA.
The athletic department and the university at large have been widely criticized for apparently not taking allegations of sexual abuse by athletes, including football players, seriously.
Some of this happened under Les Miles. Some of it happened under Orgeron, a Miles assistant who succeeded him in 2016.
Kelly was hired to win a whole bunch of football games — just as Orgeron was. But he was also hired to confine the football program’s news-making to football stuff.
LSU is not Notre Dame.
The academic standards are not the same, but one of the elements of the mutual attraction between LSU and Kelly was his comfort level with restoring the Tigers program’s image.
LSU president William F. Tate IV described Kelly as “someone with character that translates, a leadership background that inspires, an attitude about academics that ignites our student-athletes and a winning tradition that solidifies our investment in the future of this program.”
And that gets us to the bottom line.
All of the platitudes about academics and character are nice — and refreshing at this moment in the Tigers’ history – but this hire is mostly about winning football games. Ultimately, that will be the primary gauge of whether Kelly succeeds.
Orgeron wasn’t fired because of the off-the-field stuff. That became unacceptable only after the won-loss record made it so.
Tate noted that it had been 114 years since a Notre Dame football coach, some guy named Thomas Barry, had left the Fighting Irish of his own volition to coach at another school. In Berry’s case, it was Wisconsin.
Tate also noted that Kelly arrived with 284 career victories — considerably more than the combined win total of every other LSU coach at the time of their arrival.
“Brian Kelly is the most accomplished football coach this university has ever hired,” the president said.
That’s primarily why he was hired.
Woodward said “LSU fans love a winner” and “all (Kelly) does is win.”
“He’s not just here to win,” Woodward said. “He’s here to win championships.”
Orgeron won championships — an SEC championship and a national championship in the 2019 season.
But that wasn’t enough — primarily because he had two .500 seasons after that 2019 title.
“You’re looked at in terms of championships here. I want that,” Kelly said. “I want to be under the bright lights. I want to be on the Broadway stage.”
The stage at Notre Dame was really big. The stage at LSU is different, but no smaller.
Orgeron was born on the bayou in Larose, La., and was a lifelong Louisianian, even when he lived elsewhere.
He could walk into a recruit’s home and whip up a pot of gumbo or a skillet of jambalaya while speaking to the parents or grandparents in Cajun French.
That was great. It was genuine. It worked — as long as the Tigers were winning.
Kelly can’t do any of that. But that’s okay.
The new coach said he’s “going to learn about Louisiana.”
He said his family is “going to immerse ourselves into the culture of Louisiana.”
“We’re not here to change anything,” Kelly said. “We’re here to get changed by it. That’s going to be fun. That’s exciting.”
Kelly seems to understand that the “culture” at LSU isn’t much different than the “culture” at Notre Dame.
“Culture for me is standards, right?” Kelly said. “To me it’s hard work. It’s standards. It’s habits. It’s a way of life. You know, we’re going to build that every single day. It’s going to be a grind.
“But we’re going to embrace it because it’s going to be who we are on a day-to-day basis. That’s going to be LSU football.”
Les East is a New Orleans-based football writer who covers LSU for SaturdayDownSouth.com. Follow him on Twitter @Les_East.
