Or how about a fair first chance?
I don’t like Brian Kelly.
This doesn’t make me special. No one particularly likes Brian Kelly. When he got hired, the LSU fanbase reactions ranged from apoplexy to resigned support of the new coach. I definitely was in the latter group.
I was willing to give the new guy a shot, just because torpedoing his tenure seems like it would do more harm to LSU than him. But after three years, I had pretty much seen enough. I took to Bluesky (ooo… look at me! Adopting new social media!) to rip on the coach and essentially to argue that once you know, you know, and it was time to end things.
Things only got worse on Signing Day, as a mass of defections of high profile recruits damaged what could have been an epic class. Kelly responded the way you would expect, by whining to the media. And the media responded the way you’d expect, by largely making fun of him.
After Year Three, LSU finished in a six-way tie for the fourth place in conference, well out of the playoff race and on the outside of the top 25. You don’t write songs, or at least not happy ones, about this kind of year.
But now that the season is over, let’s take a more sober stock of where we are a program.
LSU finished the year 5-3 in the toughest conference in America. You can slag that all you want and complain that LSU was never a true contender for the SEC title, which is true, but finishing over 500 in SEC play is a real accomplishment.
Yeah, they kicked off the year by dropping a game to USC, which ended up being an uglier loss than we thought at the time, but LSU finished the year with the 10th most difficult schedule in the nation. Again, not making excuses, you are what you are, but providing context. LSU went 8-4 (5-3) against one of the hardest schedules in the nation.
That’s not where we want to be, but it’s also not nothing. It’s hardly a fireable offense to be pretty good against that kind of schedule.
And the underlying numbers have to improve. LSU averaged 5.60 YPP in SEC games, ranking 10th in conference, That’s not good enough. The rushing offense going for 3.59/rush in SEC play with an offensive line that was supposed to be among the nation’s best… instead ranked 12th in yards/rush in the SEC and dead last in total rushing yards.
The defense allowed 5.96 in SEC play, good for 11th in conference. Based on where we were a year ago, that’s almost a miracle. As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day. That’s real improvement from what was one of the worst units in the nation. But he better be building Rome, you know?
At the end of the day, LSU outscored teams in SEC play by a mere 26.5 to 26.3 per game. They are on the razor’s edge here. Everything points to a team that was decent, but excelled at nothing. There was no one thing it could leverage over its opponents, and that’s a problem.
But again… where are we as a program? Since taking over, Brian Kelly has guided LSU to two 6-2 SEC seasons and now a 5-3 season. We might want to complain about that, but that is excellent.
Only 7 SEC teams have had even one 6-win season over Kelly’s tenure. Two 6-win seasons? Just four: Georgia (with 3 of 3), Alabama, Tennessee, and LSU. In the past three years, LSU has gone 17-7 in SEC play. Only Georgia (22-2) and Bama (19-5) have been better. Tennessee is right behind at 16-8.
But LSU is in an enviable place. Brian Kelly has LSU as solidly the third best program in the SEC over his tenure, and Alabama is falling back to the pack. Really, its just Georgia who is lapping the field, and now maybe Texas, the newcomer.
And that is taking over a team that was in utter disarray. The school was reeling from Husch Blackwell Report, had just produced the worst defense in school history in consecutive years, posted their first losing record this century, and had only 38 players suit up for the bowl game which is even more catastrophic than it sounds, as only 25 of those players were on Kelly’s first roster and only 17 were in the two-deep. In effect, Brian Kelly inherited 17 players.
Simply stopping the bleeding was a win. Now, he doesn’t have that excuse anymore. It’s three years later and Kelly stands on his own merits. This is his team. But how about, you know, just a little bit of gratitude? Hasn’t he at least earned a fair chance to win?
I get that not winning the title is frustrating. And I don’t want to paper over very real issues with the roster and their underlying performance. But this is not a program in disarray. It’s a consistent winner. And there are few teams winning as much as LSU is.
History is littered with programs who panicked about going 9-3 only to discover that consistently going 9-3 is what success looks like.
Do they have to do better? Of course. We rate teams by titles around here. The mere fact the natives are restless over 5-3 says a lot about the expectations in Baton Rouge. And you know what? Expectations are good.
But high expectations should not mean turning a blind eye to the team’s actual accomplishments. LSU is behind the elite, but the margin is small. Kelly deserves criticism, but at the same time, calling for his job is premature. He needs to do better, but it is contrary to the actual evidence to argue that he has done poorly.
There are only a handful of programs in the country who would not willingly trade places with LSU, and its success under Kelly. He has earned more than being on the constant hot seat.
Everyone, including me, needs to chill out. Well, except Brian Kelly himself, who needs to lock himself in his office and figure out how to turn 5-3 into 7-1. But he has at least earned the right to expect our support in the endeavor.
As the Guide says, Don’t Panic!