Booger McFarland blunt about LSU needing to make College Football Playoff: 'It's time'

Booger McFarland wants to see LSU back to contending for and winning the national championship.

McFarland was a guest on ‘Andy & Ari On3’ on Wednesday. During that appearance, while speaking about the playoff, he referenced hoping to eventually see a playoff game hosted in Tiger Stadium.

“You know what? I don’t want to imagine it. I want to see it,” said McFarland. “That’s what I text (Brian Kelly) all the time. Like, it’s time, you know. I don’t want to imagine.”

That opened the discussion of the state of the program in Baton Rouge coming out of year three under Kelly. The Tigers are 29-11 in that span but have played once in the SEC Championship and have yet to make another appearance in the College Football Playoff. They’ve been in playoff discussion during all three but the losses always added too early or too many by the end to have a case, especially prior to expansion. That includes this season where LSU finished at 9-4 overall which, when compared to his other two, was their fewest wins and tied for their most losses.

With that, McFarland says he keeps it real with Kelly. The head coach knows what McFarland thinks about what they’re doing at times, and from there, it’s on him to do the job.

“He knows. Like, BK understands where he’s at,” McFarland said. “You know, every coach that comes to LSU? I tell them all the same thing – I’m loyal to the three letters, not to you. So you’re always going to get honesty from me because I am loyal to my program and I’m loyal because I want to see those kids and I want to see LSU be successful. So, when I text any of them, going all the way back to Les Miles and even now to BK, I text them, from a football analyst standpoint, what I see and it’s the pure honest truth. And sometimes it’s, ‘Hey, man, great job. I love how you did x, y, z’ or sometimes it’s, ‘You know what, this was poor. What you did, how we played, what we’re doing is not good enough.’

“I think, as a coach, you can respect it, or at least I hope he does. BK and I got a good relationship. I think he has openly said he came to LSU for an opportunity to win a championship. So, like, what I’m saying and what I text him? There’s no secret. Like, what’s already known doesn’t need to be said.”

That starts with next season’s roster for LSU. The Tigers will be losing some key names but will also bring back names, on both sides of the ball, like QB Garrett Nussmeier, RB Caden Durham, LB Whit Weeks, and Harold Perkins Jr. among others. They’ll also be bringing in a pair of top 10 rated classes both in the portal and from high school.

“Yeah, I mean, everybody’s going after it. There’s 17,000 kids in the portal. Like, if you can’t put together a roster, that means either a) you don’t know how or b) you don’t have any money. I don’t think LSU is in either one of those positions. So, let’s see how this roster shapes,” McFarland said. “You know, LSU’s got – I think they’re going to wind up having 15 or 18 guys out of the portal.”

It’ll also begin next season with a road trip to another team of Tigers that play in their own version of Death Valley.

“A trip to the fake-Death Valley is coming. I think it’s Labor Day weekend – LSU at Clemson. And, yes, I said the fake-Death Valley because, the following year, they come to the real-Death Valley. So we’ll see. We’ll see,” McFarland said. “I know we’re six months away or seven or however many months away but I can’t wait for that one.”

Kelly came to LSU to be the fourth-consecutive head coach of theirs to win a championship. That’s the standard there and, as such, the expectation for McFarland.