The name "Brian Kelly" has been floating around for the past 24 hours after LSU fired the veteran head coach following a 34-14 start to his coaching career in Baton Rouge.
While 34-14 may seem like a good record for any coach in the first four-plus seasons at a school, it just doesn't cut it at LSU where the expectations are national titles every year. They have fired several head coaches who had actually won the national title there, but just couldn't sustain that success over time -- just ask Ed Orgeron who fielded one of the best teams of all time.
Kelly's welcome wore out in Louisiana just as quickly as he picked up a southern accent. He was essentially shown the door on Saturday night after getting blown out at home by Texas A&M.
With Kelly back on the market and Michigan State potentially looking for a replacement for Jonathan Smith, it made sense to connect the two dots. Kelly began his college coaching career in Michigan at Grand Valley State where he won two Division II national titles, and then he was hired by Central Michigan and then Cincinnati to replace Mark Dantonio who left for Michigan State.
Fast forward to 2025 and Kelly is still coaching after stopping at Notre Dame and then LSU, but he's looking for a new job after the Tigers decided he wasn't the right guy for the job.
Michigan State fans began processing the "he knows the state of Michigan" narrative when trying to figure out if he would fit in East Lansing, and his recruiting prowess is also a positive. He would, at the very least, make the Spartans more talented and competitive.
However, his personality wouldn't be a cultural fit in East Lansing -- at all.
Don't believe me? Take this story about Kelly from his Central Michigan coaching days, for example.
According to a story by ESPN's Rob Demovsky back in 2019 that is somehow overlooked, current 49ers defensive coordinator (and former MSU grad assistant) Robert Saleh and Packers head coach Matt LaFleur were grad assistants at Central Michigan under then-head coach Brian Kelly. They thought they were invited to a party at their boss' house (Kelly), but they were actually on the worker list. They shoveled snow and parked cars all night before fetching the cars for the guests at the end of the night.
That led both Saleh and LeFleur to vow to never treat their staff members like this when they get bigger coaching jobs. Both have lived up to their promise while Kelly was probably doing the same weird stuff with his assistants at his other schools.
This is just one example of Kelly being just a not-so-good person off the field. There are countless stories about him, and this one sticks out as one of those stories that makes you realize just why he leaves every single job with people hating him.
If you want to diminish the culture and win 8-9 games every year with the occasional 10-win season but the players would hate the head coach and the roster turnover would be insane, Kelly is the guy.
If you actually want to build something sustainable, you look elsewhere.