Brian Kelly Would Be a HORRIBLE Fit For Penn State Football
Penn State’s athletic director Pat Kraft is looking for a new head coach for the Nittany Lions football program during the craziest coaching carousel in recent memory.
After Penn State fired James Franklin earlier this month, Florida fired Billy Napier and LSU fired Brian Kelly, giving the Nittany Lions plenty of competition looking for an elite coaching candidate this cycle.
While many names have been passed around for the open Penn State job, one of the names that should not even be considered is former LSU head coach Brian Kelly.
Kelly would be a horrendous fit in Happy Valley and would be a disastrous hire for Pat Kraft.
Why Penn State Football Should Stay Far Away From Brian Kelly
Culture Fit
This one is tough because it is not clear what Brian Kelly’s culture is.
Once he left Notre Dame in the middle of the night without even saying goodbye in person to his team before heading to LSU, Kelly adopted a fake southern accent once entering Louisiana to try to fit into the culture of the south.
I am sure if Kelly were somehow to get the Penn State job, he would show up with a Pennsylvania accent and have a cow outside of his house to try to fit in with the State College community.
Penn State has always been a blue-collar, hard-working team that fit with the blue-collar, rural Pennsylvania setting that a lot of their fans hail from.
Many Penn State fans have been die-hard fans for generations in Pennsylvania and would immediately see through Kelly’s fake accent and fake persona. As demonstrated through the years, recruiting in central Pennsylvania is not as easy as it is in a major city or in warmer, college towns.
Kelly’s brash attitude and fake behavior could make it even harder to recruit elite athletes to Penn State, even in the NIL era.
Bad Reviews From Former Players
In addition to his bad culture fit, Kelly has gotten horrendous reviews from his former players (and former players at LSU before Kelly’s tenure).
Some of the worst have come from former LSU defensive back Matthew Langlois and the family of Kyron Lacey. Langlois took to X (formerly known as Twitter) Monday to described how he was forced to medically retire by LSU under Kelly after an injury and was not even spoken to after the injury.
Langlois describes Kelly as “one of the worst humans I’ve ever been around, ever.” Langlois continued “unless you were producing positively for him on the field, he could care less about you….I hope people see the real Brian Kelly.”
This sentiment is echoed by the family of former LSU wide receiver the late Kyren Lacy.
After Lacy’s death earlier this year, Kenny Lacy, Kyren’s father, stated in a social media post under Kelly’s firing that Kelly never even reached out to the family after Lacy’s death.
Kenny Lacy mentioned that other coaches, including interim head coach Frank Wilson reached out, but Kelly did not even “call or text” the family.
Finally, there is still the issue of the Notre Dame student, Declan Sullivan, who was killed after the scissor lift that he was using to tape Notre Dame practice collapsed in a storm under Kelly in 2010.
After Penn State fans saw how caring James Franklin was with all of the players and families, current and former, on the Penn State roster, this would be a rude awakening to a coach who could not care less about players once they are not of use to the coach on the field.
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Bad Review from Former Coaches Who Worked with Kelly
Not only do former players have a bad opinion of Kelly, but current NFL coaches who coached under Kelly also have negative memories of him.
During their time at Central Michigan, current Packers’ head coach Matt LaFleur and 49ers’ defensive coordinator Robert Saleh and former graduate assistants under Kelly both told ESPN’s Rob Demovsky about a party that their boss, Central Michigan head coach Brian Kelly, threw at his house.
According to Demovsky, LeFleur and Saleh believed they were invited by Kelly to the party at his house, but instead, the pair was tasked with shoveling snow and parking cars all night for Kelly’s actual guests.
Brian Kelly’s 200 FBS wins are impressive for his lengthy 22-year career in college football. However, Kelly has too many issues to even garner consideration by Pat Kraft in the search to replace James Franklin.
Winning cures all, but even at LSU, Kelly proved that he isn’t the “elite” coach that he was seen as during part of his tenure at Notre Dame.
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