Notre Dame is heading to the College Football Playoff National Championship after putting down Penn State 27-24 in an all-time classic. It’ll be their first title game appearance since their 1988 title win.
Marcus Freeman did that. Not Brian Kelly.
Following the Fighting Irish’s win, the LSU head football coach’s name was evoked. And it’s not hard to see why.
Kelly famously explained his exodus from South Bend to Baton Rouge as wanting to be in “an environment where I have the resources to win a national championship.”
“I felt like I did everything that I could at Notre Dame and they felt like they did everything they could for me,” Kelly said. “I felt like we had both got to a point where this is what they could do, right? This is what I did. And we couldn’t get past that. OK? And so here we are.”
Ipso facto, Kelly was the first person NBC Sports’ Nicole Auerbach thought of in the moments following Notre Dame’s championship appearance-clinching triumph.
“Notre Dame will play for a national championship in 11 days. LSU has not made the CFP since Kelly took over,” Auerbach.
The spotlight is now on Kelly to make his first College Football Playoff at LSU. While he came close in 2022, bringing the Tigers to the SEC Championship Game in his first year at the helm, he took steps back in the two years since.
LSU has had a masterful performance in the transfer portal after Kelly put his money where his mouth is with the “Million Dollar Match Challenge.” Kelly might’ve had to do that after the Tigers lost three straight games in late October and early November, culminating in a 27-16 loss to Florida.
Perhaps he can rise to the challenge. Until then, his famous last words on his Notre Dame tenure will be mocked in the wake of Freeman’s masterful coaching performance during the College Football Playoff.