“That’s Who We Had”: LSU AD Hammers Brian Kelly While Defending Lane Kiffin’s Act
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Despite a 32-14 record, Brian Kelly couldn’t get LSU to a national championship. After a poor start to the 2025 campaign, the program fired him. However, it wasn’t just about on-field struggles. There was also a massive disconnect with LSU culture, which prevented Kelly from fitting in in Baton Rouge. At least, that’s what LSU’s AD signaled.
“It’s going back to the Saban model,” Verge Ausberry said about new head coach Lane Kiffin’s tenure. “(That means) running the whole program. Then, you have to go do some things with alumni, do things with boosters, and do things with fundraising. He’s (Kiffin) not one who’ll say, ‘OK, I don’t want people to contact me. I don’t want people to touch me.’ That’s who we had. That’s why we got what we got. There was no feel, there was no connection between the LSU football program, the coach, and the fans.”
Kelly wasn’t simply cut out for Cajun culture and tried hard to belong, which only irked the fans further. Right from his introductory speech at an LSU basketball game, where he pronounced “family” with a fake southern accent, to criticisms surrounding not knowing players’ names. Kelly never won over the LSU fans in his four years at Baton Rouge. Then there were criticisms about his hard-to-reach “make an appointment” persona.
“There was no connection and no building,” Ausberry said about Kelly’s tenure. “Not many employees connected. The former players didn’t connect. Now, former players live over there (at the facility). We welcome them over there; (they) work out over there. That’s who LSU used to be. Former players came into the weight room, and they worked out. There wasn’t signing no form to be able to work out, or, ‘Who are you? You can’t work out at this time.’”
There are numerous accounts describing Kelly as distant and failing to put in the effort his $95 million contract warranted. When former LSU safety Greg Brooks Jr. was diagnosed with a brain tumor, his father accused the former HC of not “reaching out” to his son during the whole medical ordeal. Although Kelly denied the accusations, another deceased LSU player’s father also described him similarly.
Kenny Lacy, father of former LSU WR Kyren Lacy, who died by suicide, criticized Kelly after LSU fired him. “I didn’t even get a call or text from that dude in the back. Must be nice to get paid millions to get your walking papers. Let’s get it, Coach Frank,” Kenny Lacy wrote, sharing Brian Kelly’s picture with Coach Frank Wilson standing at the front.
Another account from an LSU staffer highlighted glaring flaws in Kelly’s approach to recruiting. The staffer told The Athletic that Kelly would not even talk to recruits, even when the staffer was right next to him with the recruit on the phone. He also highlighted Kelly’s inability to connect with the recruits as the primary reason several schools outrecruited LSU. The issues grew over time, and frustration crossed its limit when on-field results were scarce. But now?
Now, Lane Kiffin is at the helm, and he is taking the program in an opposite direction both on the field and off the field.
Lane Kiffin is keeping Baton Rouge on his side from the start
Lane Kiffin ditched Ole Miss mid-season and joined LSU on a whopping $13 million annual deal. The move made him a villain in Oxford, Mississippi, and even he said that Ole Miss fans hate him “on a whole different level.“ But even as he blocks that noise, the new LSU head coach is building his program’s foundations, preparing for glory through aggressive roster construction. In doing that, though, he isn’t forgetting to emphasize ‘culture’ to keep fans on his side.
“The opportunity at LSU, as I said before, is just different. Someone very close to me reminded me this week, in this decision, that LSU is the best job in football,” Kiffin said. “Just different really entails a lot, and it’s why I just think it’s a really good phrase to use because it comes up a lot. You’re just trying to explain to outsiders like it’s just different, but that means a lot of things. That means Louisiana and the mindset of people here.”
Kiffin was the offensive coordinator at Alabama for three years under Nick Saban, a stint that effectively revived his then-controversial career. The 51-year-old has learned a lot from the 2003 natty winning LSU head coach and wants to implement the same ‘process’ Nick Saban used to dominate college football. Because, like Kelly, Saban was also an outsider from West Virginia, but that didn’t stop him from becoming beloved in the Deep South.
Saban stayed true to his roots, didn’t hide who he was, never used a fake southern accent to rile up the crowd, and it all paid off as LSU ended its 45-year national title drought under him. That’s exactly what Lane Kiffin aims to implement, and since he has experience working under Saban and a proven track record at Ole Miss, it won’t be far-fetched to assume that the program might reach the same heights it did under Nick Saban.
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