Penn State has one more option for its coaching search if it wants him.
With LSU firing Brian Kelly Sunday night, Kelly is now a free agent.
Penn State needs a football coach, and Kelly is an experienced one.
He’s won everywhere from the DII level (Grand Valley State), to the group of five (Central Michigan) and, finally, to major D1 (Cincinnati, Notre Dame).
Kelly even had some success in the SEC with LSU, winning double-digit games in 2023 and ‘24, which led to the Tigers being pegged as national title favorites in ‘25.
The season didn’t go as planned, and as a result, LSU fired Kelly.
Would he make sense for Penn State?
WHY KELLY WOULD MAKE SENSE
Brian Kelly meets with the media following Texas A&M loss – WBRZ Baton Rogue
Love Kelly or hate him, he’s a winner. At Grand Valley State, he won two national titles. At Central Michigan, he took over a program that had been 3-9 the year before he got there and turned it into a nine-game winner by the time he left.
At Cincinnati, he only lost six games over four seasons.
At Notre Dame, he made it to a national title game and got to the College Football Playoff twice.
Before this season, he had LSU in position to make a run, and falling short of those expectations intimately got him fired. Kelly has his faults— and we’ll get to them right now.
WHY PENN STATE SHOULD STAY AWAY FROM BRIAN KELLY
There are plenty of reasons for Penn State to stay away from Brian Kelly. For one, he’s not a young guy in the profession. He’s 64 years old, which means where at the point where it’s fair to wonder how much longer he has as head coach.
Kelly’s shortcomings are also similar to the man Penn State fired earlier this month, James Franklin. Franklin ended his Penn State career with a 4-21 record against Top 10 teams. Kelly is 4-11.
Franklin has also been criticized for not taking a historic program to the top of the mountain.
Kelly had 12 seasons to win a national championship at Notre Dame and didn’t deliver.
At LSU, he didn’t win a national championship by the end of year four, which is a feat accomplished by each of his three predecessors (Nick Saban, Les Miles, Ed Orgeron).
Kelly was also clearly not a good culture fit for LSU, and it’s fair to question if he would be at Penn State
FINAL VERDICT
The final verdict is that Penn State should stay far, far away from Brian Kelly.
What sense would it make for Penn State to replace a coach who got fired mid season with another coach who got fired mid season in a similar situation?
James Franklin is 12 years younger than Kelly.
If Penn State wants Kelly, it should have just kept Franklin and thus never started this coaching search.
