Did Japan Attack Pearl Arbor Again? No, Worse. LSU FIRED Coach Brian Kelly!

Supported by my trusty walking cane, I hobbled out on the front lawn this morning to retrieve my local newspaper.  I immediately saw a giant headline--the huge fonts reserved for reporting on major catastrophes.

I wasn't wearing my eyeglasses, so I couldn't read the momentous news. What happened? 

Did the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor again? Did Trump tear down the Washington Monument to make room for a new hotel?  Did Ireland reject Rachel Maddow's request for political asylum?

I stumbled back into my house, trembling with deep forboding, and retrieved my peepers. My god! The news was terrible--worse than a new world war. LSU fired Coach Brian Kelly less than 24 hours after the Texas Aggies whupped the Tigers 49 to 25.

Coach Kelly had promised LSU football fans too much--a run at the National Championship during the 2025 gridiron season. Kelly bragged that LSU had spent $18 million to assemble a fearsome roster of talented players, and a shot at the national title was in the bag.

More than that, LSU had landed the nation's most promising quarterback, Garrett Nussmeier. LSU reportedly paid Nussmeier $4 million in NIL compensation, a hell of a lot of money to give a college kid. However, LSU's athletic boosters must have thought the investment was worth it for an athlete who might win the Heisman trophy and be the next Joe Burrow.

Alas, as poet Robert Burns might have phrased it, the best laid plans of Yankee football coaches often go astray. The Tigers looked less than stellar throughout the 2025 football season. The humiliating loss to Texas A & M in LSU's own friggin' stadium was the final straw. Coach Kelly had to go.

Unfortunately for LSU, Coach Kelly's weekend firing is just the first chapter in a melodrama likely to last for months. The university will have to buy out Kelly's contract, which will cost over $50 million. Where will that money come from? 

The public will demand an accounting of the NIL money paid to LSU athletes. How much did each player get, and where did that money come from?

And LSU fans will be scrutinizing Scott Woodward, LSU's athletic director. Woodward is the guy who signed off on Coach Kelly's $100 million contract in 2021 and then fired Kelly yesterday evening. 

This is de ja vu all over again. Woodward was the athletic director at Texas A & M when that university bought out Coach Jumbo Fisher after a disappointing football season. That cost the Aggies $75 million!

With that track record, should Woodward be put in charge of hiring LSU's next football coach? And what will it cost LSU to entice a new coach into the viper's nest of LSU athletics? Kelly's contract promised him $10 million a year for ten years. The next coach may demand $15 million. 

The LSU-Coach Kelly fiasco will reverberate throughout the world of higher education. The cost of a college degree has reached an obscene level--even at public universities like LSU. 

Should colleges spend millions of dollars a year entertaining football fans on a dozen Saturdays every autumn while asking parents to take out college loans so their child can get a worthless degree in sociology? What the hell are we doing?

Texas Aggies annihilate LSU in Tiger Stadium, and Coach Brian Kelly Becomes the Naked Prey

In a Death Valley spectacle, Texas A & M annihilated LSU's beleaguered football team last night by scoring 49 to 25 in Tiger Stadium. The Tigers led the Aggies at halftime, a minor miracle, but early in the third quarter, LSU's team folded like a cheap suit.

LSU fans turned on Coach Brian Kelly as their team collapsed before the Aggies' relentless, almost robotic onslaught. Thousands joined a chant to fire Kelly, and disgusted LSU students streamed out of the stadium by the thousands early in the fourth quarter. 

What a debacle! Even the supposedly objective television commentators began speculating about Coach Kelly being cashiered in mid-season.  

 Watching the tragic drama on television from my home in southern Mississippi, I was reminded of the movie Naked Prey, in which an African explorer played by Cornel Wilde is doggedly pursued through the jungle by spear-chucking native tribesmen. No mercy!

Coach Kelly displayed remarkable composure during the post-game press conference, humbly taking full responsibility for his team's humiliating loss. He knows he will be fired.

Here's the problem. Coach Kelly makes $10 million a year as LSU's football coach, and the LSU Athletic Department will have to pay him more than $50 million to buy him out! 

And that's not all. Some of Kelly's coaching staff may also be let go, requiring more buyouts. 

And LSU will need to hire Kelly's replacement. What will that cost? Conceivably, the university will need to match Kelly's $10 million salary to entice a new coach to move to Baton Rouge.

My sympathies are entirely with Coach Kelly. What was LSU athletic director Scott Woodward thinking when he agreed to pay Kelly $100 million to coach the Tigers for ten years? Based on past experiences (coaches Les Miles, Ed Orgeron, Coach Gerry DiNardo, etc), he surely knew the day would come when LSU's fans and donors would turn on Kelly like howling spectators in the ancient Roman coliseum, and LSU would be forced to buy out his contract. 

Now you know why a beer costs almost a tenner at LSU home games and tickets sell for over a hundred bucks. 

But you can watch future LSU games with me at my home on Lake Mary Road, where the popcorn is free and there are three La-Z-Boy recliners. Just bring along your favorite beer and a six-pack of Shiner for me.

Go Tigers!

LSU fans have turned on Coach Kelly.

LSU Football Coach Brian Kelly: Can a Guy from Notre Dame Sell Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers?

 Brian Kelly hasn't even started work yet as LSU's new football coach, and people are already making fun of him for trying to speak with a southern accent. Even Jeff Foxworthy ("You might be a redneck") got in on the fun. 

Hey, give the guy a break. Until he was in the hunt for the LSU football coach's job, Brian Kelly had never even been to Louisiana. So give him points for trying.  

But here's my advice to Coach Kelly. Louisianians have a multitude of accents, and Kelly needs to carefully choose a particular accent and then stick with it. 

His new contract includes 50 free hours on the LSU private jet. I suggest that he fly around the state and choose an accent that works for him.

First, he should fly up to Shreveport and then drive east to Claiborne Parish--on the Arkansas border. 

Those North Louisianians have an accent all their own.  But here's a warning: Don't poke fun at the way they talk, or they'll kill you.

Then take a leisurely drive through Acadiana.  Talk with people from Pierre Part, Galliano, Bayou Pigeon, or Grosse Tete.  Accents in that part of Louisiana vary from town to town, but they all fall under the broad heading of Cajun. Coach Brian might want to choose one of the Acadian accents.

Or he might explore the Irish Channel in New Orleans. Now that's a distinctive accent.

But Coach Brian shouldn't worry about getting his southern accent right. A southern accent is the easiest thing in the world to pick up. Even Hillary Clinton can do it. No need to sign up for Rosetta Stone. Just pop a couple of quaaludes and wash them down with a 40, and you're on your way.

No, Coach Kelly should worry about losing his southern accent after he acquires it. Six months from now, Coach Kelly may sound like Senator Lindsey Graham. But if he goes back to South Bend, Indiana, to visit old friends, they'll all laugh at him.

So Tiger fans shouldn't fret. Kelly will get the southern accent down within a few months. 

No, my biggest worry is whether Coach Kelly can hawk Raising Cane's chicken fingers with enthusiasm and conviction. Coach O could do it. Coach Miles could do it. Can Coach Kelly do it?

I say we give Coach Kelly a tryout to see if he can credibly do a Raising Cane's chicken fingers commercial. If he can't get that right, let's buy out his contract!

Coach O could sell those chicken fingers!