Brian Kelly has been in a hot frying pan in his fourth year in Baton Rouge. Despite a safety net of a gargantuan buyout, he has a lot to prove in 2025. While for any other team, a mediocre 9-4 or 10-3 would be enough to call for a celebration or at least to be in peace, for a seasoned SEC giant, the ceiling his higher. Kelly’s 29 total wins across three seasons had just one trip to the SEC Championship Game to flaunt and no playoff appearances at all. Quite obviously, the $ 63 million seat is heavily shaking. Garret Nussmeier’s return for the final year, ditching the draft, can be the biggest silver lining for the Tigers, but only if they can make the best out of it.
And what is the definition of that ‘best’? Is it a playoff? Is it a SEC championship? Oh, don’t miss the moon! As per the former legendary Tigers’ head coach Ed Orgeron, it’s a high-way or no way. I mean, when you draw out a contract as heavy as $95 million, you are bound to pay back heavily as well, right? At least appeasing the passionate LSU fanbase can’t impose a lesser ultimatum than this.
“Expectations at LSU are No. 1 or nothing! I mean, that’s it! LSU expects you to win the national championship. They don’t expect you to win it every year, but Coach Saban won it in his third year, Les Miles won it in his third year, and I won it in my third year,” Ed Orgeron, veteran LSU head coach, over a telephonic conversation with Jax Sports Radio, set a straight and clear goal for his successor.
Of course, it’s easier said than done. But Kelly has the juice to make it a shake. The roster he has assembled showcases every skill to make it as high and jubilant as the flying confetti. The WR room is drifting hope with a couple of Kentucky workhorses in Barion Brown and Sooners’ Nic Anderson. Kelly bolstered his CB room by swooping No.9 Mansoor Delane from the Hokies as well. And who can ever ignore the potential that Garrett Nussmeier oozes out under the center?
“I think (Kelly) has a really good team, a really good quarterback in Garrett Nussmeier. He’s got a tough opener in Clemson. The expectations bring on a lot of pressure,” Orgeron added to the thrust, “especially when you haven’t won a championship yet. The pressure there is to win a championship.”
Orgeron boasted an impressive resume at LSU as the defensive line coach before 2016. He was named the interim head coach after Miles was forced to depart early in the 2016 season. In Orgeron’s third full season as the team’s head coach, he led the Tigers to a stupendous 15-0 record and clinched LSU its fourth national championship. The legacy is well-contestable. Kelly wasn’t supposed to replicate. But getting completely undermined in the title scene after a breakout 2019? That’s unacceptable.
This year is an ultimatum more than a shimmering hope. But to nail the ultimatum and re-solidify the Tigers’ legacy, Kelly needs to adopt a ‘first comes first’ policy.
Brian Kelly needs to get rid of a recurring curse in 2025
And what does that mean? Well, the Tigers bear a strange curse of giving it away in the opener. History witnessed that it didn’t lead to anything good later in the season. LSU had a notorious record of losing five straight season openers, marking it as the worst and longest streak in program history.
The last time they lost five was from 1991 to 95. They couldn’t decode the mystery of a season opener since 2019. For Brian Kelly, it’s even worse. He never saw the 1-0 on the scoreboard since arriving in Baton Rouge in 2022. Analysts deem it a major slump in their way to reach the Natty scene, or at least the playoff bracket.
Morning shows the day, they say. Just like that, the early momentum shows a glimpse of the rest of the season. If you start well, the boost in confidence will add flair to the winning potential. Straight and raw!
T-Bob Hebert points during a conversation on On3, “Nothing is bigger right now than ‘win the first game of the season’ because that is what is holding him back from all of his goals.” With a costly roster containing a firepower like Harold Perkins Jr, running back Harlem Berry, and cornerback DJ Pickett, the leading light Garrett Nussmeier, if it’s not ‘now’ for LSU, it would be safe to say, it’s ‘never’!
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