Here's the worst part about the LSU's loss to Vandy: It wasn’t as close as the score, LSU got outcoached and in the end none of it was a surprise. That's why the Tigers are leading the Misery Index this week.
Scott Woodward, the athletics director at LSU, earned a larger-than-life reputation within the college athletics community for one reason.
He’s a certified star chaser.
When he had to hire a football coach at Washington, he went and got Chris Petersen out of Boise State.
When he had to hire a football coach at Texas A&M, he wanted a coach with a national championship and paid big to hire Jimbo Fisher.
And when it was time to do that dance again at LSU, Woodward didn’t waste any time shocking the world, pulling Brian Kelly out of Notre Dame even though it wasn’t well known he had interest in leaving.
The Woodward formula has had plenty of successes. Notably, hiring women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey from Baylor and baseball coach Jay Johnson from Arizona has paid off with national championships.
But when you become so enamored with big names that you don’t account for program fit, it can be a disaster.
And Kelly’s tenure at LSU — a place where fit really, really matters — is hurtling toward a career-altering disaster.
Beyond the obvious, here’s the really bad part about LSU’s 31-24 loss at Vanderbilt: It wasn’t as close as the score, LSU got outcoached pretty badly on offense and defense, and in the end none of it was a surprise.
In fact, Vanderbilt — a program that isn’t exactly in position to take top-10 wins for granted — didn’t even experience a field rush because anyone who watched the game could reasonably conclude that it was business as usual.
And that’s ultimately what’s going to get Kelly run out of town.
We are now more than halfway through Kelly’s fourth season, and LSU’s identity as a program is a big pile of meh.
If the standard was winning nine or 10 games every year but never winning the right games to even contend for the national title, Kelly would be in fine shape. But that’s not the standard at LSU, where the three coaches before Kelly all won a national title.
LSU’s problems have been exposed this year before they even hit the meat of their schedule, with Texas A&M, LSU and Oklahoma still looming. With two losses already, one more will officially eliminate the Tigers from College Football Playoff contention. One more after that could have even greater consequences in an era where even $50 million buyouts don’t seem to encourage patience, as Penn State and James Franklin can attest.
Kelly is not a bad coach. He did a lot of great stuff at Notre Dame, but nobody could argue he’s doing great stuff at LSU. For the last couple years, LSU was slow to buy into spending big in the transfer portal. This year, they went all-in but the results haven’t improved because they are fighting against a toxic combo of mediocre offensive line play with a quarterback in Garrett Nussmeier who isn’t exactly the most mobile.
So what exactly happened here?
We have to come back to fit. Like many places around the SEC, the culture of the football program is woven into the state’s everyday life. But LSU is unique even within that paradigm for reasons that are hard to explain: The Cajun accents, the gumbo simmering at tailgates, the night atmosphere at Tiger Stadium, the pipeline of elite talent that flows from New Orleans and towns throughout the boot to Baton Rouge.
You kind of know it when you see it.
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And Brian Kelly, the erudite New Englander via South Bend, fits that culture like Gordon Ramsay working the grill at Waffle House.
As former LSU center T-Bob Herbert put it on X/Twitter: “I have never seen a softer culture at LSU than what we are witnessing right now. Everyone is overpaid, and underperforming, satisfied to go home to their bank accounts.”
Ouch.
But don’t forget to point the finger at Woodward, too. Because Kelly was his hire, his choice, his guy. He wanted a star above all else. It appears he got a lemon, which is why LSU reigns as America’s most miserable fan base in Week 8.
Conference Champions of Misery
ACC: There are only a small handful of coaches in the country you’d rather have leading your program six days a week than Mario Cristobal. And then on the seventh day, when you have to show your work to the world, well let’s just say he’s probably somewhere among the top 100 coaches you’d want leading your program. In a sport where you can’t afford too many bad days, it’s a stone-cold lock that Miami is going to have at least one no-show or sideline calamity every year. This year it happened in the Canes’ sixth game, a 24-21 loss at home to Louisville. And while Louisville is a fine team, and Miami is still in really good shape to make the College Football Playoff — banking that Notre Dame win in Week 1 may really come in handy by the end — the drama just feels so unnecessary when you’ve got this much talent on the field. And Miami’s slow-developing final drive, which ended when Carson Beck threw his fourth interception, certainly felt the whole way like Cristobal playing for overtime rather than trying to go win the game. If that’s the case, Miami got what it deserved.
Big Ten: It was a strange week at Nebraska. After James Franklin’s firing at Penn State, the attention immediately went to Nittany Lions alum Matt Rhule, who professed love for both Penn State and his situation at Nebraska. He also left plenty of room for conjecture before cleaning it up a bit later in the week on Pat McAfee’s show, where he more firmly suggested he would stay at Nebraska. But by Friday night, after the Huskers suffered a lifeless 24-6 loss at Minnesota, it became sort of the worst of all worlds for Nebraska and Rhule. No matter how much you believe in his track record, it’s the kind of bad loss that both repels Penn State fans while also making Nebraska fans question whether they’ve got the right guy. It also points directly to the biggest flaw in Rhule’s rebuilding project so far. What is Nebraska’s identity on offense? Rhule’s first offensive coordinator, Marcus Satterfield, was a flop. And the pivot to Dana Holgorsen last season has not been accompanied by good enough offensive line play to make it work. The Huskers are way too soft up front, and Nebraska can’t truly be back unless they git that fixed.
Big 12: West Virginia made a coaching change after last season because it seemed reasonable to conclude that six years of living near the bowl-eligibility line under Neal Brown had run its course and someone else could come in and give the Mountaineers a jolt of life. That someone, of course, was Rich Rodriguez returning home nearly two decades after leaving for Michigan. But it’s safe to say the second honeymoon is over because West Virginia is headed for its worst season since 2001 — which happened to be Rodriguez’s first season after taking over from Don Nehlen. The good news is that things got better quickly and Rodriguez went on to win four Big East titles, including three straight 11-win seasons to end his tenure. But this is a different era, and it’s hard to find much hope in losing 45-13 to UCF. West Virginia will be a significant underdog in its final five games and is in danger of going 2-10 (including, oddly enough, a win over a pretty decent Pitt team). Sure, West Virginia has major quarterback issues and started freshman Scotty Fox against UCF, but even Rodriguez admitted they “stunk in every phase” and didn’t do anything well in Orlando.
Group of Five: The last eight years of Colorado State football have been pretty brutal. After Mike Bobo’s flameout in 2019, the school brought in Steve Addazio, who was both a disaster on the field (4-12) and off, with allegations over a wide range of misconduct issues that the school was forced to investigate. When Jay Norvell was hired to replace him, it was hailed as a big win to pull a coach from fellow Mountain West member Nevada after four straight winning seasons. But the Norvell magic hasn’t translated in Fort Collins. Though it looked like the Rams finally had some momentum last season at 8-5, they’ve backslid this year and are now 2-5 after a 31-19 home loss to Hawaii. If this season continues to go the way it’s been going, it’ll be seven out of eight losing seasons at CSU — a shocking statistic given that the Rams stand above most of the Mountain West in facility, fan base and resources. It may be time for another change.
Headset Misery
Steve Sarkisian: After Texas dominated Oklahoma last week, Sark made it very clear that the media members piling on Texas and Arch Manning for their mediocre start to this season had fired them up and contributed to the energy they played with against the Sooners. So what does it say that Texas came back just a week later, with its season once again on the line, and the offense laid another egg at Kentucky? Granted, nobody will ever apologize for winning a road game in the SEC, but the Longhorns’ performance in a 16-13 overtime win at Kentucky leads us to conclude they are what they are. Two first downs in the second half? A ridiculous 47 rushing yards on 28 attempts? Another game where Manning makes no real impact with his arm, completing 12-of-27 passes for 132 yards? Texas is too talented to be this inept offensively, and Sarkisian doesn’t seem to have a lot of answers.
Dabo Swinney: When you own a home, it’s about the 10-year mark where stuff starts to fall apart. An appliance breaks. Maybe you need a new HVAC. The wood floors get a little scuffed up. At that point, you have a choice. You can either address the problems head-on as they come, or you let them pile up and wreck the value of your home when it’s time to sell. That’s a little like Clemson football right now. Because of his refusal to see reality the last few years, Swinney has let a lot of little issues pile up. Now the place is in disrepair. But in Swinney’s press conference after a 35-24 loss to SMU — Clemson’s third home loss in four games this season — the defiance was finally gone. He knows that things have fundamentally slipped. “There’s been a lot of great years, but this is a tough one,” he said. How much is Swinney willing to tear this thing down to the studs and start over? That’s the only question that matters at Clemson for the rest of 2025.
Jeff Lebby: You’ve got to win an SEC game at some point, big guy. Sure, as Mississippi State’s head coach you’ve been close on a few occasions — including Saturday’s 23-21 loss at Florida when Blake Shapen threw an interception with 21 seconds left when you were moments away from trying a field goal to win. But the bottom line is that Lebby is 0-for-11 in SEC games to start his tenure, and given that Mississippi State still must play four highly ranked teams down the stretch, his best shot may be Nov. 1 at Arkansas. If they can’t find one somewhere, Mississippi State will join an ignominious group that includes Kentucky in 2012-13, Arkansas in 2018-19 and Vanderbilt in 2020-21 to go winless in SEC games in back-to-back years.
Shane Beamer: Not known as the sport’s most gracious loser in the first place, it’s getting pretty testy around South Carolina as this season has gone from disappointing to calamitous. After a 26-7 loss to Oklahoma, dropping the preseason No. 13 Gamecocks to 3-4, Beamer was asked about the continual offensive struggles under first-year offensive coordinator Mike Shula and whether a change is needed. Beamer seemed perturbed by the suggestion, ultimately saying, “We’re continuing to look at how to be better.” But when the questioner tried to ask a follow up about what gives him hope that things will turn around with this offensive staff, Beamer cut him off and said, “Next question,” before doubling back to admit that “I ... I ... am not getting the most out of our team right now.” Beamer is a fiery guy and has had some pretty viral press conference moments after losses, but this is one of those rare exchanges where the fans will come down on the side of the reporter. After all, he was just asking a question the fan base wants answered.
GJ Kinne: Another week, another result where the Texas State coach is forced to answer questions about his game management. It’s been a theme this season, and remarkably a 40-37 overtime loss to Marshall was the third time this season he’s made a questionable call that backfired in a big way. This time it came late in the third quarter when Texas State, leading 17-13, had fourth-and-2 inside the 10-yard line. Instead of taking the points and a seven-point lead with a defense that was playing great all day, Kinne elected to go. It resulted in an interception, and in retrospect, those were points Texas State desperately needed when the game got wild at the end. Kinne told reporters that “the book” told him to go for it. Maybe coaches should stop relying on “the book” and start using better situational awareness.
Moments of Misery
Washington State lost on a bizarre safety: Here’s something you don’t see every day. After Virginia tied the game at 20-20 with 2:55 remaining, Washington State ended up with the ball on its own 2-yard line due to a somewhat obscure rule. Though a Washington State player signaled for a fair catch on the kickoff, Leyton Smithson — the player who actually caught the ball — did not make the signal. As a result, the referees ruled that Washington State had to start its drive at the 2. Three plays later, with a false start backing the ball up to the 1, Virginia’s defense blew up a handoff five yards deep in the end zone and got the go-ahead safety to win, 22-20. That’s a brutal beat for the Cougars, who led 20-10 and were completely controlling the game until imploding in the fourth quarter.
Arkansas lost the game and the social media war: After an entertaining 45-42 loss to Texas A&M where the Razorbacks stayed close but never felt like a real threat to win, the Aggies’ social media team went to a place few would dare to go. Under the banner “Went Hog Wild,” Texas A&M’s official account posted a graphic of a player wearing No. 12 while riding a motorcycle. This is, of course, an obvious reference to Arkansas interim coach Bobby Petrino’s 2012 motorcycle accident that cost him the Razorbacks job the first time because it led to revelations of an extramarital affair with an athletic department staffer.
Memphis had an all-time goal-line screw up: It’s one thing to lose a game because you couldn’t punch it in from first-and-goal at the 1-yard line. It happens. It’s rare, but it happens. The end of Memphis’ 31-24 loss to UAB, though, had to be seen to be believed. First, Memphis got up to the line of scrimmage and tried to milk some clock but committed a false-start penalty. The Tigers got back to the 1-yard line on the next snap but then committed another false start. After two incompletions, it came down to fourth-and-goal from the 6. But then, inexplicably, the Tigers got flagged for delay of game, turning an almost certain score when the series of downs started into fourth-and-11. Memphis couldn’t convert and now has a truly awful loss on its record to a team that fired its coach last week.
Army lost on a fluky double-deflection touchdown: Sometimes you can play good defense and still have a bad result. That’s what happened with fewer than 30 seconds remaining when Tulane scored the winning touchdown on a 26-yard pass that had little chance of being caught except for the fact that Army cornerback Jabril Williams deflected it up in the air just high enough for Tulane’s Shazz Preston to run under it, have it deflect off his own hands and then catch it in the end zone.
James Franklin got a wet, sloppy kiss: The redemption tour began on a truly nauseating note, with CAA/Jimmy Sexton client Nick Saban telling CAA/Sexton client Franklin on the ESPN's "College GameDay" set it was “unfair as hell” that he got fired from Penn State while being visibly irritated that the school did “not show enough appreciation … and gratitude for all the hard work you did.” Meanwhile, the rest of the substance-free appearance (we wouldn’t dare call it an interview) never dug into the administrative tensions that led to his firing, ignored the losses to UCLA and Northwestern that unraveled his tenure and framed Penn State’s spiral this season as something that happened to him as opposed to a football calamity in which he was an active participant. Whether you agree or disagree with Penn State’s decision, it’s not necessary to go out of your way to make him a sympathetic figure here —especially given the $49 million buyout coming his way.
Category: General Sports
