Brian Kelly Comes Up Small In Another Big Game As LSU Gets Rolled By Bowl-Ineligible Texas A&M
Advertisement
Yeah, no shit. Yikes. The whole premise of Brian Kelly coming to LSU was to compete with the very best in the SEC and get over the hump he never could in his previous stops at Cincinnati and Notre Dame.
While I wouldn't call Kelly's maiden season in Baton Rouge a failure by any means, it's almost like he shouldn't have bothered recovering so well from that debut loss to Florida State, and shouldn't have bothered to beat Alabama if THIS was gonna happen.
Damn man. I'm sure the Aggies faithful are going nuts in College Station, but it might've behooved Texas A&M fans to lose this game so that it'd be easier to jet Jimbo Fisher out of town. Granted, the expensive reality of his exorbitant buyout would likely discourage such a move in the first place. At least the remote possibility would exist, though.
Instead we had Brian Kelly come thisclose yet again. I mean that in the overall season sense. Not this particular game. The Tigers had little chance. To be fair, they were hanging tough for a while until Moose Muhammad III — another son of wide receiver royalty to make me feel old as fuck — ripped out LSU's soul with this one-handed snag:
Had you looked closely enough, you could see the flicker of optimistic spirit escape to the high heavens from Kelly's corporeal form when Muhammad hauled that ball in. I almost feel bad for Kelly. Dude has been so close to the NCAA gridiron mountaintop so many times, only to be depantsed by his various adversaries time and again.
That photo I shared that flanked the final score at the top? It was deployed in a far different context by LSU Football's official Twitter mere hours beforehand to imply they were, um, potentially vying for a College Football Playoff berth:
Advertisement
Barstool LSU's fine folks endured a similar arc of tragedy:
The SEC Championship Game sure carries a lot less meaning now. Even if LSU somehow finds a way to pull that fucker out, it won't really matter. Georgia is a lock to make it to the CFP, and the Tigers now have a zero point zero percent chance of getting into the top four with three losses on their resume.
LSU can definitely build on 2022. From where the season started, it was an achievement to even make it to the SEC title clash with the reigning national champs. That doesn't mean this loss doesn't sting like crazy — or that diehards want to hear this shit from Kelly afterwards:
Advertisement
I have an idea, for those of you dismayed by LSU's defeat: Do some retail therapy at the Barstool Store during our Black Friday sale, which runs through Cyber Monday! You get 20% off everything. Get in on this. Make your football grief productive by getting some early shopping done for the holidays perhaps.
Twitter @MattFitz_gerald/TikTok