The Josh Innes Show - Brian Kelly Is Humbled

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

Brian Kelly is still the coach at LSU. But, this current losing streak has cost him a bit of his swagger. He's now at the point where he's apologizing to the fans for sucking. Once you start apologizing to fans, you know the clock is ticking. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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So the hottest story sports-wise, really, it feels like across the world as college football coach is getting fired. Like, hey, there's the World Series starting on Friday, and I don't get a sense that anybody cares. People are just so intrigued by talking about college football coaches getting fired, most notably because they're getting paid $30, $40, $50 million to not work, which is hard for anybody to truly fathom, but here we are. But I see this story, this is in the USA Today headline,

Big Money Got James Franklin and Billy Napier, is Brian Kelly next? It is interesting because I've talked to people that I know about stuff, about, you know, Baton Rouge and the likelihood that Brian Kelly gets fired. At this very moment, it doesn't seem like it's likely, but let's get into this story and talk about it. So we will do that after these words. All right, here we go. We will start here. Wasn't that long ago when it was just the outliers, Texas A&M and Auburn consistently throwing tens and millions of good money at bad coaches.

Then Penn State took a win at all cost and blew it. it up off the map. Now here we are, midway through the season, and I can't believe I'm writing this. The one coach who's running this program his way and doesn't give a flip what you think has been brought to heal. That was Brian Kelly earlier this week, standing at a podium during his weekly LSU news conference and apologizing to the fans. Quote, we want to do better for our fan base. We get that, Kelly said, and some are saying I'm not getting it done now. I get that. I recognize everybody's angst, okay? And I did see that earlier this week whenever Brian Kelly was apologizing. And once you start

really having to suck up to the fans, that's when you know that things have gone really south and you're trying to fix things. To give you an example, and I've talked about this a lot before, but when I was in Philadelphia, not too long before I got fired, I guess this would have been in maybe July or early August. I had built a plan to try to get back in the good graces of the fans. And part of that was, you know, consistently just talk about how great the fans are, blah, blah, blah. Because that's what you have to do. You have to pander to people. see Bryce Harper, see a lot of people that are just pandered. There are a lot of people who have to pander, and it makes the blow easier.

It makes it easier to survive whenever you pander, right? And I was kind of in that spot where I was like, well, I've done it the way I do it. Things aren't going very well right now. So maybe what I'll do is I'll stand up, you know, on the air and say, hey, I'm going to start kind of doing a little bit of the shit that I'm vehemently against, right? I'm against some of these things. So I'm going to do them anyway and to see if they help me get my numbers back up. So when I eventually leave, I can leave on a good note, whatever.

And obviously, it didn't really get to that point because I got fired not too long after that. So nothing never really came to fruition, never came to be. Now, so I get it. Whenever you start talking about how great the fans are, you know that you're really trying to win them back because they've turned on you. And I can speak on behalf of LSU fans because I am one and I see what LSU fans say all over social media, which isn't always the real world. But, I mean, you see it on social media a lot that people hate this guy. and they want him the fuck out of Dodge. Like, they are donezo.

They are finished with Brian Kelly, and they want nothing to do with him. Again, it's easy to be finished and done with someone when it's not your money, whenever you're not the one that has to foot the $50 million bill to get rid of him. But when you start saying, oh, sorry to the fans and we need to do better, you know shit's really hit a bad area. When Brian Kelly, who fought the most invasively meddling structure in college football at Notre Dame, and one walks into a news conference and begins to abolish. for the play of his team and how he's coached, we've arrived at a seminal moment in the sport.

If coaches thought they were losing control in the age of player empowerment, it reached another level when Penn State fired Coach James Franklin six games after leading the Nittany Lions to within one play of playing for the national championship. Before we get all the feels for Franklin or any other coach who significantly shorter leashes, they're walking away with millions upon millions of go away cash. Franklin got nearly 50 million in buyout money, and Billy Napier got to nearly 21 million from Florida. The days of only Texas A&M,

Hello Jimbo Fisher, Kevin Sumlin, Dennis Franchione, and Auburn, every coach ever, with the guts to pay ridiculous buyouts to move on and reset the program are long gone, and every coach knows it. That's why Kelly, who as recent as last month, was arguing with a media member after a win over Florida declaring, you're spoiled because LSU wasn't as efficient offensively as previous years under Kelly,

began a critical week of his tenure with a mea culpa. I hope our fan base understands that we're disappointed. We are committed to getting better every single day. And that kind of leads to the discussion. Like, when my buddy told me that LSU is not going to part ways with Kelly and that there's a large number of people who are just not in with that right now, what happens if they show up on Saturday in Baton Rouge at home, sold out crowd against Texas A&M, what happens if they go out and get pecker slapped in that game? Because you look at LSU's schedule, and there are, what are they currently,

five and two, is that LSU's record? So with five games to go, if you look at LSU's schedule, there are potentially four losses on there. They could lose to Oklahoma. They could lose at home to Arkansas. They will lose to Alabama, and they very well could lose to A&M. So let's say you lose four of those five games. And let's say you finish six and six in a year in which you said, hey, keep receipts.

We're all keeping receipts. We're going to the championship, whatever. If LSU finish a six and six, what do you think happens? It also depends on how they lose those games and how unraveled this becomes, but you spend $18 million on getting guys in the portal. What happens if you go out against A&M in this primetime game at home, Death Valley on Saturday, and just get fucking worked? Now, on the flip, what happens if you show up in Baton Rouge on Saturday and you upset? at the number three A&M team, which based on the spread doesn't seem like it's impossible, considering that LSU is, I want to say, only a one-point underdog.

LSU, let's see what the spread is right now, LSU A&M, point spread. Let's see what it currently is. LSU, at last check, at least on here, LSU was a two and a half point underdog. That's the number three team in the country. You're fresh off a losing to Vanderbilt. You got worked by Ole Miss. and you're only a two and a half point underdog at home. Now, part of that could be, hey, you're getting credit for playing in Baton Rouge,

it's Tiger Stadium, it's 100,000, it's at night. There's all these factors. But remember, LSU was the team that was A&M last year and then went into A&M and lost. So it's not impossible, but like I wouldn't take them to win that game, but they could. But what if they lose four out of five? What if the only win they have on their schedule remaining is Western Kentucky and they finish six and six? And at the end of the year, out of their six wins, none of them were against the quality teams they faced. They were against the three shitty out-of-conference teams, Clemson, South Carolina, and Florida, who's fired a coach.

And South Carolina may fire a coach still. And same can be said for Clemson. They probably won't, but they could. But once you get to that point where you're starting to kiss the ass of the fans, you know that shit has gone south. And when shit goes south, you totally abandoned who you are. You can treat a lady like shit or just kind of be your typical asshole self But then the second she decides to wisen up and leave your ass That's when you start oh baby I love you, I'm sorry

And you become a different person You become a little bit more desperate and a little bit sadder And you lose a bit of that edge that you used to have Because you had this cockiness about you that you no longer have I think Brian Kelly's feeling that right now And it's totally understandable Especially like you think you're untouchable until you see one school pay 50 million dollars another school pay $21 million to buy somebody out, and you know that more are coming.

So, we'll see. But it's certainly an interesting situation. And my buddy, again, continues to tell me that LSU currently, right now, has no interest in moving on from Kelly. But what happens if it goes really off the rails? Like, if they somehow pull out a nine-win season out of this, well, that would mean they'd win four or five, which means they would beat all the good teams remaining on their schedule, which is highly, means they'd beat everybody, so they'd win 10. So if LSU were to win 10 games, they'd go to the college football playoff, probably,

because they would have wins over Oklahoma and wins over Alabama and wins over Texas A&M. So that's a moot point. What if they go 8 and 4? And they just, you know, at this point, that means they would have to win one more good game on there, so they'd have to have one quality win and then probably beat Western Kentucky. What happens then? You know, 8 and 4 sucks, but 6 and 6, looking at 6 and 6, I mean, And now if they go five and seven, then he's fired because that means you would have lost at that point like seven of your last eight games or something like that.

And a loss against Western Kentucky, he'd be fired. But I don't know. It's funny to see how quickly the confidence and arrogance shifts whenever the heat's on and how different you become when the heat's on. It is interesting. I agree with this story, actually. All right, more to come.