LSU's Brian Kelly reveals why he thinks recruiting is superior in the South, possible NFL plans

Perhaps it’s a bit of revisionist history, and perhaps it’s a bit of peering into the future for Brian Kelly.

Either way, LSU’s head Tiger, entering his second season on the Bayou after an ahead-of-schedule return of LSU to the Southeastern Conference’s Championship Game, again is dissecting his own decision to jettison Notre Dame in December 2021, months removed from breaking Knute Rockne’s wins record, and take over for the fired Ed Oregon.

While Kelly tackles those topics in his visit this week with Taylor Lewan and Will Compton on the ‘Bussin’ With the Boys,’ podcast, he also delivers a succinct answer to the pair of NFL veterans and former Tennessee Titans teammates about his own potential of coaching in the NFL.

Kelly dismissed the notion from the hosts that left the Fighting Irish during the thick of their potential College Football Playoff chances -- though they finished the season as one of four one-loss teams in the mix for an at-large CFP berth and became the highest-ranked team not invited into the CFP. 

Kelly, notably, was twice linked to NFL openings during his time atop the Fighting Irish program, including on the heels of the program’s breakthrough 2012 season and again a few seasons removed.

Asked by his hosts if he would contemplate an NFL head coaching post for at least a third time, Kelly shot down the question.

“No, I’m all in,” said Kelly, preparing for his 32^nd season as a collegiate head coach. “This is it. I love what I do because I re-found the relationships with the players and I enjoy that too much. Not being a play-caller anymore, I’m not in meetings, I don’t have to sit in those long meetings so I can be downstairs, I can be in the training room and I can eat with the guys. It just allows you that opportunity to be with the players more.”

Kelly emphasized his ability to have autonomy over his college roster but to also lean more on his coordinators trumped any lingering desire to coach in the NFL. Simply, Kelly said the NFL game has wildly changed.

“I think it was the decentralization of the pro game,” he said. “I’ve been used to my whole life of kind of the old Bill Parcells quote, ‘Shop for the groceries and cook the meal.’ You know, you don’t do that in the NFL. Especially the time that I would have been going. I would have been not handling the roster, I would not have been the GM, I would have been simply the football coach. I’ve been used to handling the scholarships and making final decisions on who is getting the final say relative to anything that happened in the program.

“When you go to the NFL, you lose a lot of that control. Not that I’m a control freak, as much as I just felt like I had all of those things at Notre Dame and I was going to give all that up and I just wasn’t ready to do that.”

Reiterating his belief that LSU affords him a better opportunity to win a national championship at college football’s top level, Kelly also issued his take on why recruiting in the South is both more convenient and featuring a greater depth of talent.

“Lack of distractions. They’re not sitting in front of PlayStations,” Kelly said. “There’s not a lot of other things that take them away from field sports; they’re outside playing for the most part.

“Whether it’s being involved in football or track and field or training, they’re involved in this game. It’s something that they can do year-round. The weather obviously has a lot to do with it, the ability to play spring football. All of those things, although they seem small, when you add them up, each one contributes to really good high school football, really good feeder systems relative to colleges that are down there. In particular, kids grow up wanting to play at the flagship school. There’s not a lot of state universities that have that. Maybe Ohio State and LSU benefit the most from in-state where (kids say), ‘I want to go play for the Buckeyes. I want to go play for the Tigers.’ Because of that, it makes for really good recruiting.”

LSU opens its 2023 season on the road against Florida State Sept. 3 and plays four Power-5 foes – three of them SEC rivals – in the season’s first month.