There's an old Cajun saying about family, "Tout le monde est cousin ic," which means, "Everybody's kin around here." Unless you aren't -- and try too hard to prove you belong.
Kelly was a fantastic football coach at Grand Valley State,
Cincinnati and Notre Dame. He went to LSU because he wanted to coach at a place that had the recruiting base, financial resources and football-crazed fans that would help him win a national title.
From his disastrous introductory speech at an LSU basketball game, in which he pronounced "family" with a fake Southern drawl that was thicker than roux, Kelly just never seemed to fit in.
And he wasn't blind to that. This offseason, Kelly worked with a Washington, D.C.-based image consultant to try to improve his public persona.
The problem wasn't that Kelly was from Massachusetts and had never coached at a school outside the Midwest. Saban was from West Virginia and had never worked at a school or NFL team in the Deep South before taking over LSU. But Saban was authentic and true to his roots and didn't try to hide what he was -- a demanding perfectionist who finally turned the Tigers into champions again after a title drought of 45 years.
On Saturday, Kelly even seemed to fall out of favor with Gov. Jeff Landry, who in the wake of the Texas A&M loss
trolled LSU on social media about raising football ticket prices for 2026. Landry was then right in the middle of the discussions that led to the school separating from Kelly, according to a source close to the situation.
In the end, Kelly didn't win enough and tried too hard to prove to LSU fans that he was one of them.
-- Schlabach/Rittenberg
www.cbssports.com
