Brian Kelly left Notre Dame to become LSU’s head coach last year in a move that caused shockwaves around college football. Kelly was at Notre Dame for 12 years, and as the program’s all-time wins leader with 113, he had a chance to be in South Bend until he retired.
However, Kelly has a reason for leaving. Despite making the College Football Playoff twice in South Bend, Kelly told Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger that LSU gives him a better chance to win a national thampionship.
“I never went into the office saying we can’t [win a title],” Kelly said. “I went into the office every day looking for the reason we could. But part of the lure of this job is there are many more avenues toward that. There are not as many paths at Notre Dame. I’m not trying to skirt the answer as much as I really believed, for me, it wasn’t ‘I’m done here.’”
An SEC team has won the College Football Playoff in each of the last three seasons, and six times in the eight years of the CFP’s existence. Additionally, an SEC team has been in the title game in seven straight seasons.
Notre Dame reached the Playoff twice under Kelly, losing in the semifinals each year.
Kelly appears excited to be in the SEC, a conference he called the “the best conference in the country.” It also helps that Kelly will make at least $10 million per year for the next 10 years, as Dellenger reported last December.
Kelly defended his timing of leaving Notre Dame in November in his conversation with Dellenger. The former Irish coach left Notre Dame before the team’s Fiesta Bowl appearance.
“Everybody is like, ‘How can you leave your team?!’ LSU controlled the timeline,” Kellu said. “It wasn’t the Brian Kelly timeline. The Brian Kelly timeline would have been, ‘Hey, can you wait for me? Hold the job open? Because I’d like to hang around Notre Dame until we know what’s going on [with the rankings].’’’
Notre Dame ultimately promoted defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman to head coach, who led the team in the Fiesta Bowl.
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