When Brian Kelly left Notre Dame for LSU after the 2021 season, the coach said he felt like he and the Fighting Irish were on different paths.
Nearly three seasons later, those divergent paths have Notre Dame on the brink of the College Football Playoff and Kelly and LSU spiraling.
The contrast between Kelly’s previous schedule and his current situation was never greater than in Week 12. Notre Dame improved to 9-1 with its eighth straight win and crushed Virginia in a 35-14 loss that was more lopsided than the final score suggests.
Quarterback Riley Leonard threw two of his three touchdown passes to Jayden Harrison and Mitchell Evans, which fit in perfectly with the Senior Day celebration during the Irish’s regular-season home finale.
The win boosts a Fighting Irish team already on the cusp of qualifying for the Playoff, evidenced by its No. 8 ranking in the Nov. 12 committee poll.
Around the same time Notre Dame was putting the finishing touches on its eighth straight victory, LSU was on its way to its third straight loss. And it wasn’t just that the Tigers fell 27-16 to mediocre Florida, a loss considered the worst of Kelly’s tenure at LSU.
His shouting matches on the sidelines with receivers Chris Hilton Jr. and Kyren Lacy gave the impression of a season that quickly spiraled out of control.
“Our inability to score touchdowns and points continues,” Kelly said after the game, LSU’s second consecutive game in which it failed to reach 20 points. “As coaches we have to take responsibility. Players must take responsibility.”
“Our team has to make a decision on how to proceed,” he added.
Kelly’s demeanor on Saturday conveyed far more frustration than dejection; dejection seems a more apt description of his postgame speech after the 2021 Rose Bowl Game.
In Notre Dame’s second College Football Playoff appearance during Kelly’s tenure — and the Fighting Irish’s third real pursuit of a national championship in Kelly’s eleven years at the helm of the Golden Domers — the team came up against a buzzsaw in Alabama in return for.
The 31-14 loss was the most competitive of Notre Dame’s three national title flirtations during the Kelly years, following a 30-3 loss to Clemson in the 2018 Cotton Bowl and the infamous BCS Championship Game defeat of 42–14 in 2013.
A dream third season that ended with a thud left Kelly seemingly at a loss. He spent another season in South Bend, but the end seemed inevitable after that Rose Bowl.
In the spring of 2022, when Kelly complained that he and Notre Dame “didn’t seem to be on the same page,” he described 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 tools to win a national championship,” Kelly said at the time. “And I came here because I want to play in the American League East.”
With the New York Yankees losing the most recent World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers, the AL East hasn’t claimed baseball’s top prize since 2018.
The college football landscape isn’t as drastically different as it was when the SEC monopolized seven consecutive national championships from 2006 through 2012 — the last of those consecutive titles coming at Kelly’s expense.
But with Michigan claiming its most recent championship, Oregon at No. 1 in 2024, and the usual SEC giants Alabama and Georgia showing rare vulnerability with two losses each, the road to the top may not have to go through the Southeast .
LSU is now 6-4. After falling to No. 22 in the most recent Playoff rankings, logic dictates that the Tigers will be completely out of the poll on Tuesday. Notre Dame, meanwhile, should climb, especially with No. 7 Tennessee losing at Georgia.
When Kelly complained that he and Notre Dame weren’t on the same path, he may have been right, just not in the way he meant.
