To say that Brian Kelly‘s 2025 season was a roller coaster would be like saying LSU fans can handle their alcohol. It doesn’t need to be said, but it’s reality.
Sunday night’s news that Kelly was fired at LSU brought that roller coaster to a screeching halt. The question won’t be whether LSU’s search covets some big-time names. Instead, it’ll be whether any of those big-time names get LSU back on the national championship track.
Who would make sense? Let’s remember that a list of candidates is a “make them say no.” It’s a way of outlining who would make sense for a program to hire, and why they need to at least need to be called. It doesn’t mean that they’re locks to get the job or even succeed if offered it. Keep that in mind for what’s going to be as juicy of a vacancy as there is in the 2025 cycle.
With that said, these 5 candidates would make a lot of sense:
1. Lane Kiffin, Ole Miss
It’s gotta start here, which has been said many a time. At the very least, you can all but guarantee that Kiffin’s interest in the job won’t hinge on an slideshow from Landry Kiffin, but obviously, any potential fit would go well beyond that. Shoot, it would even go beyond the fact that Kiffin got the ball rolling for LSU’s frustration with Kelly by handing the Tigers their first loss. He did that with a roster that ranked last in the SEC in percentage of returning production, and has since established itself as a likely Playoff team with Division II transfer Trinidad Chambliss at quarterback.
Kiffin’s contract will inevitably get a raise if he stays at Ole Miss, where he’s on a deal that pays him $9 million annually. Coming over the top of that would all but guarantee a deal similar to the one that Kelly just got bought out of. Whether LSU can actually afford such a steep price for Kiffin remains to be seen (more thoughts on that in a second). But if there’s any chance that LSU is one of the few jobs that Kiffin would be willing to leave Ole Miss for, well, let’s just say that’s a call Scott Woodward simply has to make.
2. Kenny Dillingham, Arizona State
I’m fully aware that Dillingham is at his alma mater, and there’s a good chance that he’s got no intentions of leaving anytime soon. He’s in the more favorable Big 12, which he saw last year had a clearer path to reach the Playoff than getting through the SEC gauntlet. It’s possible he stays there and he becomes a 15-year guy who wins a ton of games at a place that was starving for such a coach.
But you can’t tell me that Dillingham wouldn’t at least think about LSU. He’s only in Year 3 as an FBS head coach, and he’s already established himself as one of the top up-and-coming coaches in the sport after leading Arizona State to a Playoff berth. Unlike the 64-year-old Kelly, Dillingham would be a strong pivot as a 35-year-old coach who seems to have the pulse of this new generation of players. That matters. It also matters that while Arizona State is his alma mater, Dillingham held assistant jobs at Memphis, Auburn and Florida State. He understands the South and the type of recruiting that takes place at the high school level, so he wouldn’t be considered a geographical outsider, either. Dillingham is a darn good coach who should have athletic directors in this cycle gauging his interest to see if he’d be willing to leave Tempe.
3. Jon Sumrall, Tulane
If there’s a feeling that LSU would be walking with its tail between its legs to pay $53.8 million (perhaps that’ll get negotiated) to fire a coach, only to then poach from in-state Tulane, that would be foolish. Sumrall is 6-1 even after he had his quarterback poached, and he already beat a couple of Power Conference teams this year. In fact, his lone loss was to the aforementioned Kiffin. That’s hardly an indictment of someone who is 38-10 in Year 4 as an FBS head coach.
Sumrall has experience in the SEC having coached at Ole Miss and Kentucky, which will likely matter to LSU after how fish-out-of-water Kelly felt during his tenure in Baton Rouge. He’s considered one of the top up-and-coming minds in the sport. He’s not considered a splashy candidate, which would have some scratching their heads as to why LSU felt a move away from Kelly was so imminent. Last I checked, the same was said when Texas A&M fired Jimbo Fisher with his historic buyout and hired a defensive-minded head coach on a much cheaper deal. LSU knows all too well how that’s going.
4. Joe Brady, Buffalo Bills OC
I know, I know, I know. The scouting report on Brady has been that he wants to stay in the NFL and become a head coach. The ability to work with Josh Allen as long as he chooses could make him a long-shot candidate for LSU. But LSU has been chasing the high of that 2019 team since it walked out of the building, and Brady was largely responsible for that historically dominant offense. Giving him the keys to the LSU operation with the ability to develop quarterbacks would make him an obvious fit from the LSU side. It wouldn’t matter that he’s never run a college program. Plenty of those boosters would open up their wallets at the thought of getting back to the 2019 levels that we saw with Brady.
And while Brady still might covet NFL head coaching vacancies more than college ones, few people would truly scoff at that job to remain an NFL offensive coordinator. Brady would be a splashy, intriguing move that would be quite the pivot during a time in which it appears there’ll be a lack of elite candidates to fill elite jobs.
5. Jeff Brohm, Louisville
As mentioned with Dillingham, getting someone to leave their alma mater is no small feat. It shouldn’t be assumed that Brohm is locked in for life and that every other vacancy is off limits. LSU is one of the few jobs that could warrant his attention. He should warrant LSU’s attention having gone 42-18 overall and 27-11 in conference play since the start of 2021 at Purdue and Louisville, both of which were rebuilds when he arrived. Brohm has been excellent taking down elite competition with 5 top-10 wins since the start of 2017. Among coaches with 8 such games in that stretch, Brohm’s winning percentage vs. top-10 teams ranks No. 8 among active coaches. The only active coaches with more AP Top 25 wins in true road games than him since 2017 are Lincoln Riley, Kirby Smart, Ryan Day and Kalen DeBoer.
Maybe Brohm wouldn’t be an obvious fit at a place like LSU because he hasn’t necessarily been some juggernaut on the recruiting trail, but if the thinking is that he’ll have a General Manager — Vince Marrow is his GM at Louisville — and he’d be able to focus on building an offense with interchangeable pieces that’s similar to what Ole Miss has established with Kiffin, Brohm would make a lot of sense. He wouldn’t be Kiffin, but he’d also have the ability to establish a lethal offensive attack and the mindset that he can take down anybody on a given day. That wouldn’t be a bad fit at all.
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.
