BATON ROUGE, La. — As the LSU marching band began playing the alma mater in an empty student section, only a few dozen LSU players bothered to stick around to sing it, as is customary after every game. The head coach wasn’t there either, as Brian Kelly had briskly walked from the postgame handshake at midfield to the end zone tunnel, receiving boos from the few LSU remaining fans. He came back out for the song, then went back down the tunnel to a second round of boos in an unusual sequence.
Chants of “Fire Kelly” had come from the stands at various times throughout an embarrassing 49-25 loss to Texas A&M. One sign read “Kelly Gotta Geaux.”
As another once-promising season falls apart, this time stamped out in stunningly emphatic fashion, a conversation that had only begun to percolate is now steaming hot.
It may be time for LSU to fire Kelly and commit to the second-largest buyout in college football history. As monumental as that sounds, the team across the field from LSU on Saturday night showed why it can be worth the risk.
Not much of the LSU team stuck around for the alma mater (in front of an empty section). Brian Kelly had already gone done the tunnel, then came back out again for it, so he got booed going off the field twice. pic.twitter.com/qb5GjpPuDM
— Chris Vannini (@ChrisVannini) October 26, 2025
Kelly came to LSU four years ago to win a national championship. He couldn’t do it at Notre Dame, so he jumped to a job where the previous three head coaches had each won it all. If Les Miles and Ed Orgeron could do it, why couldn’t an accomplished coach like Kelly? But in his fourth season, an LSU team that began the season ranked in the top 10 is once again nowhere close, and Saturday’s loss effectively ended the Tigers’ College Football Playoff chances.
Kelly’s buyout if fired without cause is more than $52 million. That would be paid in monthly installments until 2031 and would be offset by Kelly’s next job. So it’s as manageable as a $52 million buyout can be. Certainly more so than the full $77 million Texas A&M guaranteed to Jimbo Fisher when it fired him two years ago.
“That’s out of my hands,” Kelly said after the game when asked about his future. “It’s impossible for the head coach who’s been here for four years and 35 years of doing this to think anything else but this is my responsibility.”
You know who feels pretty good about that ridiculous Fisher buyout right now? Texas A&M boosters, administrators and fans, watching their No. 3 team continue to march to a College Football Playoff berth, looking like the most complete and disciplined team in the SEC, something no one imagined they could say about the Aggies.
You can’t put a price tag on the value of hiring the right coach, even if Texas A&M nearly bungled it by trying to hire Mark Stoops before a quick revolt shifted the search to Mike Elko at Duke. In a coaching carousel that may become the busiest and most expensive in the history of the sport, an LSU change would send it into overdrive. There isn’t an obvious replacement, but fans are tired and want something else.
One has to wonder what LSU athletic director Scott Woodward was thinking Saturday night. Woodward was the one who hired Fisher at Texas A&M. It wasn’t Woodward who gave Fisher the ridiculous extension guarantee (when A&M feared Fisher might follow Woodward to LSU), but Elko’s success is a direct repudiation of his previous hire.
It’s well known in the industry that Woodward likes to take big swings and hire big names. It has worked in several sports (see LSU women’s basketball). But hiring Kelly, even with a good resume, always seemed like a bizarre fit at a place that is as culturally unique as any in college football.
The fans have never bought into his politician-like demeanor. One of the first things Kelly did was choose not to retain longtime strength coach Tommy Moffitt, which angered people around here at the time. Moffitt had been a part of three national title teams. But Kelly thought that he knew better, that he could win his way.
Where does Moffitt work now? That would be at Texas A&M, and Aggies quarterback Marcel Reed revealed after the game that Moffitt brought out a tackling dummy with Kelly’s face on it to practice on Thursday. A lot of LSU fans would love to take a run at that tackling dummy themselves.
As Kelly sulked off in defeat, on his 64th birthday, no less, Texas A&M fans on the other side of the field chanted “El-ko, El-ko,” the name of Kelly’s former Notre Dame defensive coordinator bouncing off the empty bleachers. Saturday marked two consecutive losses by Kelly to his former defensive coordinators, the other being Vanderbilt’s Clark Lea. Meanwhile, another coordinator — and the person who replaced Kelly in South Bend — Marcus Freeman, took Notre Dame to the national title game last season.
Kelly could’ve gotten past the cultural misfit if he’d won games — Elko is from New Jersey, after all. But Kelly has failed in the biggest games at LSU. He’s just 5-11 against ranked opponents here. LSU was run out of its own building by Alabama a year ago and now by oft-forgotten Texas A&M, letting the opposing fans sing their songs unchallenged in an empty Death Valley. On Saturday, a group of Texas A&M fans gathered in a hole in the LSU student section and did some of LSU’s cheers after the Tigers scored a meaningless touchdown in the final moments. That’s as bad as it gets for a proud fan base like this.
LSU went all-in for this season. The Tigers significantly increased their roster spending and signed a lot of defensive talent. It hasn’t mattered. That defense was left grasping at air with its inability to tackle Reed, who ran for 108 yards and two touchdowns, along with 202 more yards and two more scores in the air. The dreadful LSU offense has yet to score 25 points against a Power 4 team this year.
This home thrashing also came just a day after LSU’s board voted to increase ticket prices for 2026. Saturday’s loss led the state’s governor to tweet that LSU should rethink that.
I think @LSUsports and the LSU Board of Supervisors needs to rethink their actions to raise ticket prices for next year after tonight’s showing!
— Governor Jeff Landry (@LAGovJeffLandry) October 26, 2025
Everyone in Louisiana is checked out on Brian Kelly, and when a fan base is out, that’s when change happens, as costly as it may be.
Kelly afterward sounded like a coach out of answers. He may soon be out of time.