How are you doing, LSU fans? Are you okay? Because the team you root for is just okay, but okay is not good enough when fans are asked to invest more than ever for a championship product on the field.
The Brian Kelly era saw its worst defeat on Saturday, falling to the Vanderbilt Commodores 31-24. It was only a seven-point win for Vandy, but they outplayed LSU for most of the game. What was thought to be an elite defense couldn’t get off the field, and the offense failed to do anything when the defense got a couple of stops in the fourth quarter.
But that’s the problem with the Kelly era. If it isn’t the special teams messing up, the defense is bad. When the defense gets good, the offense can’t score more than 24 points.
LSU and North Carolina are the only Power 4 schools that have yet to score 25 or more points in a game. When you are being mentioned in the same breath as Bill Belichick, that’s not good.
How can that be when you have a fifth-year senior quarterback, a matchup nightmare in Trey’Dez Green, a plethora of wide receivers, and a couple of highly recruited running backs?
You can point to the offensive line, and that unit has had its moments since Kelly arrived, but it’s far from elite.
The defense has been good this season, but without two starters on Saturday, linebacker Whit Weeks and defensive tackle Bernard Gooden, it was a very pedestrian group that failed to follow the game plan.
“When you play an offense like this, it’s the details, and being in the right place, and having eye discipline, making the plays when they come your way is paramount to slowing them down, and we just didn’t do a good enough job on the details,” Kelly said.
Even special teams failed to come through. Damian Ramos missed a 52-yard field goal early in the second quarter. And when Grant Chadwick needed a big punt to flip the field in the fourth quarter, he only had a punt that went 39 yards.
It all seems to be falling apart for Kelly. Last November, Kelly boldly said the team was “Keeping Receipts, and we’ll see you at the national championship.”
Fans are saying we want our 18-million dollars back that was invested in NIL efforts to attract the best players in the transfer portal.
With a loss this Saturday to undefeated Texas A&M, the Tigers' season would be over before we flip the calendar to November when it comes to College Football Playoff chances. That’s a harsh reality.
A season filled with so much promise has turned into LSU fans googling to find out what Kelly’s buyout.
In case you are wondering, LSU would owe Kelly $52,380,000 if they fired him after this season. That’s similar to the buyout fired Penn State coach James Franklin received, and ex-Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher is getting more than $ 75 million.
LSU likely doesn’t have that kind of cash to send Kelly packing, so the Tigers are in a tough spot.
They have a head coach who has won a lot of games, but is nearing the end of his coaching career, and a team that will need to be completely rebuilt after going all in 2025.
So no, LSU fans are not okay, and it might be a while until they are feeling really good about their football program.
Related
