Swing Year: How Brian Kelly, Tigers’ 2025 will shift perception for LSU coach

Is LSU coach Brian Kelly on fraud watch entering the 2025 season? College football analyst Josh Pate certainly thinks so. At the very least, Kelly will be one of the most scrutinized coaches in the sport.

The former Notre Dame head man has been good at LSU so far. But only good. Greatness has thus far proved elusive.

“I think Brian Kelly will be the most talked about coach in this league this year,” Pate said on Josh Pate’s College Football Show on Sunday night. “I think Brian Kelly will be the most talked about head coach in the SEC because they are in a position where they should compete for the SEC championship, they should be a prime playoff team. They should be.”

LSU returns a veteran starting quarterback in Garrett Nussmeier. The defense has been retooled through the transfer portal.

And as Pate points out, there are few excuses on the bayou. Such is the nature of being a powerhouse program.

“They reconstructed the roster through the portal about as effectively as anyone in the country,” Pate said. “It’s LSU already, so they weren’t without pieces, it isn’t a poverty program. But they had backslid a little bit.

“You know if you watch this show I could not endorse any more strongly the defensive hires they made last year. This is the second year with Blake Baker at defensive coordinator. I expect quantum leaps of improvement there. You’ve got a returning quarterback in Garrett Nussmeier.

“They believe they’ve filled the holes, but you better be right because this is not a team that has started hot. And they play Clemson, Florida, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Vanderbilt and Texas A&M before Halloween. So they’ve got several loseable games before Halloween. They’ve got the ‘Bama game after that.”

All of that leads to an interesting position for Brian Kelly. He’s expected to compete for championships. And going into his fourth year, it’s time to start doing that.

“Brian Kelly is in the most unique kind of pressure spot,” Pate said. “It’s not like Hugh Freeze. It’s not like Brent Venables. They haven’t fallen off some cliff or anything like that. But it’s LSU and there’s no ‘yeah but.’ Sometimes teams struggle and it’s like ‘yeah but you don’t know about the limitation we’ve been dealing with.’

“There’s nothing like that. It’s not like they’re recovering from crippling NCAA sanctions. Any sanction LSU suffered from they self-imposed by poor hiring or by poor development. So I think they corrected all that. But here’s the follow-up: I’m right. I know I’m right when I say they corrected. And that means a lot of that staff, they’re really good. And that front office is really good. And people down there know it. So if you turn in another 8-4 year, I think there’s the kind of pressure that people look at you and say, ‘Um, this program entirely is not the problem. We think we’ve identified the problem. Maybe it’s just you.’ Is that fair? Maybe, maybe not. But that’s a unique kind of pressure that I don’t think anyone else in this league is under.”

Bottom line: Brian Kelly has a lot to prove this fall. He might not be as close to the hot seat right now as some other coaches in the league, but he’ll be under some of the heaviest scrutiny.

Can he survive it? Maybe even thrive?

“If it goes sideways he’ll be talked about every week,” Pate said. “What if they go pop Clemson 30-17 in Week 1 and they get off to a hot start and they’re like a one-loss team headed into Tuscaloosa in November? Then Brian Kelly’s the talk of the league as well for much different reasons.

“So this is not a glass-half-empty thing. No matter how full the glass is, Brian Kelly will be talked about all year long. And they play quality competition all year long. There’s not like a four-week stretch where they disappear from the public eye. So Brian Kelly and LSU will be in the spotlight. They’re expected to do big things.

“And if they do it will validate Brian Kelly’s existence as the LSU head coach. And if they don’t then it will validate people who think he’s a fraud. No matter what, he’s going to be talked about a lot.”