When Brian Kelly left Notre Dame for LSU after the 2021 season, the coach said he felt he and the Fighting Irish were on different paths.
Almost three seasons later, those divergent paths have Notre Dame on the doorstep of the College Football Playoff and Kelly and LSU spiraling.
The contrast between Kelly’s former program and his current situation was never more stark than in Week 12. Notre Dame improved to 9-1 with its eighth straight victory, crushing Virginia in a 35-14 rout more lopsided than the final score suggests.
Quarterback Riley Leonard threw two of his three touchdown passes to Jayden Harrison and Mitchell Evans, fitting perfectly with the Senior Day celebration during the Irish’s regular-season home finale.
The win further nudges a Fighting Irish team already set to qualify for the Playoff, reflected in its No. 8 ranking in the November 12 committee poll.
Around the same time Notre Dame was putting the finishing touches on its eighth consecutive win, LSU was heading toward its third straight defeat. And it wasn’t just that the Tigers fell to middling Florida, 27-16, a defeat that rates as the worst of Kelly’s tenure at LSU.
His sideline shouting matches with receivers Chris Hilton Jr. and Kyren Lacy gave the impression of a season rapidly spiraling out of control.
“Our inability to score touchdowns and points continues to crop up,” Kelly said following the game, LSU’s second straight in which it failed to reach 20 points. “As coaches, we have to take responsibility. Players have to own their end of it.”
“Our team’s got to make a decision on how they move forward,” he added.
Kelly’s demeanor on Saturday exuded far more frustration than dejection; dejection seems a more apt description of his postgame address following the 2021 Rose Bowl Game.
In Notre Dame’s second College Football Playoff appearance of Kelly’s tenure—and the Fighting Irish’s third genuine pursuit of a national championship in the 11 years Kelly helmed the Golden Domers—the team ran into an Alabama buzzsaw.
The 31-14 loss was the most competitive of Notre Dame’s three national title flirtations during the Kelly years, coming after a 30-3 rout against Clemson in the 2018 Cotton Bowl and the notorious 42-14 BCS Championship Game beatdown in 2013.
A third dream season ending with a thud seemingly left Kelly at a loss. He spent another season in South Bend, but the end seemed inevitable after that Rose Bowl.
In spring 2022, when Kelly lamented that Notre Dame and he “didn’t seem to be on the same page,” he detailed his decision to take over at LSU as the necessary step to win a national championship.
“I want to be in an environment where I have the resources to win a national championship,” Kelly said at the time. “And I came down here because I want to be in the American League East.”
Well, with the New York Yankees losing the most recent World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers, the AL East has not claimed baseball’s top prize since 2018.
The college football landscape is not quite as drastically different as it was when the SEC monopolized seven straight national championships from 2006 through 2012—the last of those consecutive titles coming at Kelly’s expense.
However, with Michigan claiming the most recent championship, Oregon ranked No. 1 in 2024, and the usual SEC juggernauts, Alabama and Georgia, showing rare vulnerability with two losses each, the road to the top may not have to traverse the Southeast.
LSU now sits at 6-4. After falling to No. 22 in the most recent Playoff rankings, logic dictates the Tigers will be out of the poll altogether come Tuesday. Notre Dame, meanwhile, should climb, especially with No. 7 Tennessee losing at Georgia.
When Kelly lamented that he and Notre Dame were not on the same path, he may have been correct—just not in the way he intended.
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