Kelly's Words Miss Spot

By Jim Gazzolo

Brian Kelly continues to show just how out of touch he really is.

The head LSU football coach confused about everybody who heard his comments this week when he spoke to Jacques Doucet of WAFB.

The subject was how Kelly and his Tigers missed getting help along the defensive line when some transfer portal possibilities went elsewhere. In today’s college football that happens, so a simple answer like you win some and you lose some works.

Most LSU fans would have accepted that and moved on to the next question. Instead, Kelly had just about everybody in Tiger Nation scratching their heads.

“We're not in the market of buying players," Kelly said. “Unfortunately, right now, that's what some guys are looking for. They want to be bought.”

That’s more than a little confusing coming from the coach of one of the monster programs in America. LSU is all about paying for talent in every sport and on every level.

No transfers are going there to better their education.

If there is one school that can’t cry poor when it comes to the world of NIL payrolls it is LSU.

I don’t think Kelly got last year’s Heisman Trophy winner to come to Baton Rouge from Arizona because the coach had a history of developing great quarterbacks. Kelly had no Heisman winners while at his previous job as Notre Dame’s top guy.

So, we would have to assume Jayden Daniels didn’t go broke with his move to Tiger Town.

Yet here is Kelly giving us the old woe-is-me routine. 

Maybe he wants to turn LSU from a football factor to the Harvard of the South, or at least Tulane 2. If so, just convert LSU’s weight room into another study hall.

I don’t think Kelly is the right guy to proclaim he and his program are above all that in the first place. 

Kelly forgot the main reason he gave for leaving Notre Dame, a well-respected academic institution itself. He told us he bolted the Irish huddle because he could not win a national title there. 

It was strange considering at the time Notre Dame was fifth in the nation and still in the running for one of the four playoff spots. In his two years at LSU Kelly’s teams have been out of the title picture by the end of Labor Day, losing season openers to Florida State twice.

What Kelly was actually doing with his comments was setting the stage for when he fails once again. We have heard this before from him.

He might speak in code but it’s there. I can’t win a title here is code for Notre Dame’s academic standards are too tough for me to get great talent on campus.

Now it’s LSU’s unwillingness to pay will be the reason if Kelly’s team comes up short next fall. 

Funny, LSU found a way to pay enough to get Kelly to transfer while his Notre Dame team was still in the title hunt a few years back, so I’m pretty sure the fans could find the right amount for a defensive tackle or two. 

After all, it’s LSU, it practically prints its own NIL cash. 

Jim Gazzolo is a freelance writer who covers McNeese athletics. He is the host of Poke Nation on CBS-Lake Charles