There’s not a lot of love out there for fired LSU head coach Brian Kelly. In the wake of his dismissal after three and a half seasons with the Tigers, scores of individuals are coming out with their stories of Kelly being a lousy coach and lousy human being. And former NFL star and current Amazon Thursday Night Football analyst Andrew Whitworth has his own story.
Kelly has been blasted by former players, family members of players, media personalities, and seemingly everyone in between. Former LSU safety Matthew Langlois called Kelly “genuinely one of the worst humans I’ve been around.” The stories of Kelly’s human qualities have also brought back the tragic death of Notre Dame student Declan Sullivan into the headlines. When Kelly was coach of the Fighting Irish in 2010, heavy winds blew over a lift causing Sullivan to fall to his death. Notre Dame was fined just $77,500 for exposing Sullivan to unsafe working conditions.
Brian Kelly’s LSU buyout is set at $54 million. One of the requirements of the buyout that is commonplace for high-profile coaches is that he must seek gainful employment to help offset LSU’s payout. However, given the public reaction, it’s hard to imagine anyone wanting to hire him at this point.
The subject came up on the Fitz & Whit podcast with Thursday Night Football analysts Ryan Fitzpatrick and Andrew Whitworth. Fitzpatrick began by saying he had a negative perception of Kelly from afar by observing how he treats others.
“I don’t know Brian Kelly at all, but watching from afar, not just this year but in general, it just seems like he doesn’t treat people the right way. The way he talks to people, players, coaches, I have never been a fan. And maybe it’s just the optics and no, he’s great when you get behind closed doors. But, I’ve never liked the way that he talks to people on the sideline,” Fitzpatrick said.
Then LSU alum Whitworth shared how he had offered to help Kelly and the LSU program by mentoring athletes or in another way, but was snubbed by the former coach.
“If you look across college football, some of the coaches we see being featured all the time from the energy they bring and who they are in the locker room, it sticks out like a sore thumb who the guys are who are like, ‘man, I’d love to play for that guy.’ To your point, I don’t know Brian Kelly at all either,” Whitworth said. “But what I do know is I’ve reached out multiple times to like, ‘hey, man, if there’s anything I can do to mentor, to help, just be there for you, if there’s a conversation that we can have behind the scenes, I don’t need anybody to know about it, but love to help you. And gotten lots of like, ‘oh that’s great I’ll keep that in mind,’ type stuff. So it doesn’t seem like an interest level there.”
“I don’t know anyone that shares the side of, ‘hey, y’all, yea, this dude, his impact, his energy, all those things’ I haven’t heard a single story. In fact, I’ve only heard stories to the other side of it. You’ve even seen some current players who just played for him saying one of the worst experiences they’ve ever had as far as a human being and the leader that he was,” he added.
Whitworth then suggested that the school should lean on its accomplished alumni in the league and put a group together to help out the process of finding the next head coach. In all honesty, that sounds a lot better than the state governor being the one to pull the strings. He also added that interim coach Frank Wilson sent out a message to alumni making sure it was known they were welcome to stop by and be involved in the program, which must not have been the case under the leadership of Brian Kelly.
Andrew Whitworth is everything you could ever want in an alum that could help out a program. He was a Super Bowl Champion, Walter Payton Man of the Year winner, and All-Pro. He is also a Louisiana native. And he’s on television every week covering the NFL and does a great job of it with Amazon Prime Video. For Brian Kelly to simply tell him “thanks but no thanks” tells you everything you need to know about the way he runs a program. And it tells you why all of his many haters are showing up to celebrate at his LSU funeral.
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