Inside Brian Kelly's plan to beat Nick Saban, his LSU 'dream,' and that accent | Toppmeyer

BATON ROUGE, La. – Two days before Brian Kelly coached in his first LSU-Alabama game, he decided what he'd call if his Tigers needed one play to beat Nick Saban.

One play to gain 3 yards, to score two points, to beat the one bitter rival that had tormented LSU for the better part of 15 years.

He’d call Snake.

Earlier in Kelly’s career, emotions would influence his late-game decisions to kick an extra point or go for 2. Now, he makes his choice two days before kickoff, during a meeting dubbed 48 Hours, when LSU’s staff plans for possible game situations.

Kelly’s been running some version of the play he calls Snake since his tenure at Division II Grand Valley State. Two receivers run routes that shield defenders and create space for a third receiver, who runs into the flat.

EXCLUSIVE:LSU football's Brian Kelly explains what really happened with infamous accent | Toppmeyer

Kelly called the play late in Notre Dame’s 2014 game against Florida State. An offensive pass interference penalty negated the Irish’s would-be winning score. Notre Dame lost.

Eight years later, Kelly cued Snake again.

Deciding the play two days before kickoff reduces the chance for in-game confusion or indecision. Still, doubts can creep in. That night against Alabama, Kelly’s staff asked him what he wanted to do.

“As you can imagine, when I said, ‘We’re going for 2,’ everyone was like, ‘No, (expletive), what are you talking about? Kick the (expletive) extra point!’” Kelly said.

Kelly didn’t budge.

“I was like, ‘We’re running it. Call Snake. We’re running it. That’s the play we practiced. Run the damn play,’” Kelly said.

Preparation, meet execution.

Jayden Daniels rolled right and zipped a completion to Mason Taylor, who tumbled into the end zone, just before LSU fans rushed the field.

Final score: LSU 32, Alabama 31.

Maybe, you wondered how this Bostonian who had never coached south of Cincinnati would fit on the Bayou after he left Notre Dame for a premium 10-year contract to recalibrate LSU. I wondered.

Folks are wired differently down here.

The Irish wear golden domes, and Touchdown Jesus watches over Notre Dame Stadium, situated on a private campus that attracts Catholic highbrows and intellects. LSU fans sing NSFW lyrics to “Neck” and break records for Jello shot consumption.

More than geographic fit or personal background, I questioned how Kelly would fare in key games. His Notre Dame teams too often shrank on the biggest stage. His best postseason win came in the Citrus Bowl. He arrived at LSU 0-2 against Saban. That wouldn't do at LSU.

With one play call, Kelly quieted doubts, and LSU conquered Alabama, the SEC’s longtime bully.

“That’s why I came to LSU,” Kelly says. “No disrespect for the not-big games, but I’ve been doing this for 32 years. I’ve coached in hundreds and hundreds of games. I want to play the big games, and Alabama is a big game.”

Why LSU is Brian Kelly’s ‘dream situation,’ complete with khaki shorts and boat shoes

Kelly, 61, is at ease in an armchair inside his LSU office during our 45-minute conversation that ranges from NIL to LSU’s national championship prospects to the much-debated authenticity of his Southern-sounding pronunciation of “family” during an early public appearance at LSU. (More on FAM-uh-lee later.)

Kelly looks and sounds comfortable and confident entering his second LSU season. Asked about this, he responds, in essence: Why wouldn’t he be comfortable?

“This is the dream situation for a head coach that wants to provide resources to his student-athletes and actually has all those resources,” Kelly says. “So, yeah, it’s comfortable.”

While Kelly downplays any perceived hurdles to his SEC assimilation, I notice his attire on what’s quickly become a 91-degree scorcher of a June day. He wears a purple polo, khaki shorts that stop well above the knee and gray boat shoes.

Kelly concedes: He would not have worn this to work at Notre Dame.

“And maybe that’s a really good point, right? You don’t feel as though you’re buttoned up every day,” he says. “There’s much more of a relaxed feeling here – but it still doesn’t mean it’s sloppy or not thoughtful or insincere.”

What’s not to like about wearing resort-wear to work while coaching a well-resourced program in a state teeming with blue-chip recruits who grow up wanting to play for LSU?

“He just loves it down here and loves what’s going on and is fitting great,” LSU athletics director Scott Woodward told me, “with not only our community but our season-ticket holders, our donors and especially the kids and high school coaches. This is what I expected, but I guess most people didn’t.”

On leaving Notre Dame, ‘a magical place’

Asked what he would have thought if someone told him 40 years ago he’d be sitting here now, Kelly answers quickly: “Cool, that sounds great.”

After graduating from Division II Assumption in Worcester, Massachusetts, Kelly, whose father was an alderman, tried his hand in politics. Kelly staffed for state senator Gerry D'Amico. Kelly says the quid-pro-quo side of politics didn’t suit him. He left politics and coached at his alma mater, doubling as a football assistant and the softball coach. From Assumption, he ascended to Grand Valley, then Central Michigan, Cincinnati and Notre Dame.

Blue-blooded Notre Dame ranks as a destination job. Kelly departed after 12 seasons as the program’s all-time wins leader.

Woodward, while Washington’s AD, had interviewed Kelly in 2008. Kelly would lead Cincinnati to the Orange Bowl that season, but Woodward hired Steve Sarkisian for UW’s job.

Thirteen years later, while searching for Ed Orgeron’s replacement, Woodward’s interest in Kelly rekindled. He kicked the tires with Kelly’s agent, Trace Armstrong.

“I (told Armstrong), ‘Absolutely not. No way,’” Kelly said.

Kelly says he reconsidered about a month later.

“As things progressed later in the season, and we couldn’t come together on an agreement (at Notre Dame) relative to providing the resources for the student-athletes, then that’s how I became interested,” Kelly said.

A Notre Dame helmet with a shamrock on the side resides on an office shelf behind Kelly’s shoulder as he tells this story. He describes Notre Dame as “a magical place.” His Irish finished the 2012 season as national runner-up. They were ranked No. 6 in late November 2021 and retained a chance for College Football Playoff qualification when Kelly accepted LSU’s job.

Leaks are common with college football hires, and news of LSU’s hire broke while Kelly was out recruiting, before he’d informed Notre Dame players he’d accepted another job. This frustrates Kelly. He says he trusted a staff member with the news, and he believes the leak can be traced to this staffer, whom Kelly wouldn’t name.

“When you trust somebody and you tell them you’re taking the job and he’s one of the guys who, you want that guy to go with you, and he tells somebody and it gets out, you just wish that that trust (had) held,” Kelly said.

“I went on the road recruiting with every intention that that information was not going to get out until I got back to South Bend and talked to my team. So, that’s the way I wanted it go. I didn’t think that trust would be broken.”

Upon returning to South Bend, Kelly briefly met with his players. Notre Dame’s best coach since Lou Holtz became viewed as a turncoat by some in the Irish community.

That’s the past. The future is this: LSU ranks among college football’s programs best positioned for success, and it employs a future Hall of Fame coach – a coach who wants to play the big dogs and thinks he’s resourced to beat them.

“It’s now taking those resources and providing a high-performance environment for your players to succeed,” Kelly said. “What’s not fun about that to a guy that’s spent his entire career doing that and now having that (resourcing)? That’s what’s been great.”

Brian Kelly’s eye for a national championship

Orgeron won a national championship in his third LSU season before his tenure soured. Les Miles also won a national title in Year 3, after Saban took LSU to the throne in Year 4.

Kelly is a more accomplished coach than any of those three were when they arrived at LSU.

Hype soars for Kelly’s second season, fueled in part by the November upset of Alabama. In a time when the transfer portal calls to backup quarterbacks like a siren, LSU possesses two of the SEC’s best quarterbacks in Daniels and Garrett Nussmeier. They headline an offense that returned eight starters after hanging 63 points on Purdue in the Citrus Bowl to cap a 9-4 season.

LSU hired Kelly to achieve at the highest level.

So, about that national championship missing from Kelly’s résumé?

“We need another year of recruiting – one more really good year on both sides of the ball, I think, puts us in a position … to compete for a championship,” he says.

“Year 2, the foundation is in place. I think there’s a really good confidence within the group. We’ve got good players. There’s some holes. There’s a little air coming out of the tire here and there. I think we’ve kind of patched most of it, but I think Year 3 is probably the year where I’ll feel, in terms of building a program, we’ve had enough time to really put the pieces together.”

Improvement will hinge on developing more consistency and depth and whether LSU’s transfer haul fortifies the secondary, an area of vulnerability last year.

I don’t interpret Kelly’s assessment as a call for patience. Rather, it’s the perspective of a coach who inherited a roster that included only 39 scholarship players for LSU’s bowl game two seasons ago.

Kelly’s contract and LSU’s expectations set a high bar, but Kelly has had a hand in placing it where it is. He’s open about his desire to continue playing Alabama annually after the SEC eliminates divisions and reconfigures its schedule upon expanding to 16 teams in 2024.

In what could be interpreted as a peek at his political roots, Kelly whipped fans into applause after taking the mic at an LSU basketball game shortly after his hire.

“I haven't even won all my games yet!” Kelly said, to the crowd’s delight.

That comment got overshadowed by Kelly's ensuing words.

Sounding a bit like a Southern-born evangelist, Kelly said: “I’m here with my family, and we are so excited to be in the great state of Louisiana.”

Family came out as FAM-uh-lee. Critics turned amateur linguistics experts questioned the authenticity of Kelly’s accent, in what became the epitome of a much-ado-about-nothing moment blown up by social media.

Kelly maintains his pronunciation was not contrived.

“I do actually say FAM-uh-lee, and I think it’s got to be a cross-section of some Boston, Midwestern (accent). I’m a mutt, you know?” Kelly says.

“I would have to be really calculating to come up with a Southern accent on my own.”

Whether you believe Kelly doesn’t matter. How he pronounced a word while working a room never mattered. Neither did a rival SEC coach’s mockery of a video showing Kelly awkwardly dancing to gain a recruit’s approval.

Kelly will fit at LSU and succeed as long as he signs and develops Louisiana’s coveted prospects and wins the big games.

“It’s worked out very well so far,” Woodward says.

The scene after Alabama-LSU last November became proof of concept.

Kelly removed his headset during opportune moments that night so he could soak up the crowd noise. By the end, fans were on the field celebrating, while Kelly shook Saban’s hand.

The Tigers believe they hired the right coach. Any contrary ideas dissipated shortly after Kelly called Snake.

Blake Toppmeyer is the SEC Columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.

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