Brian Kelly on coaching carousel rumors: 'I'm not going anywhere, this is my last stop'

As the 2023 college football coaching carousel spins up there are some seriously high-profile jobs open, like the Texas A&M gig. But LSU coach Brian Kelly doesn’t plan to let his name get tossed around for jobs like that if he can avoid it.

Following the team’s final regular-season game of the year, Kelly addressed his status as LSU’s coach.

“I’ve been in this for 30-something years. What’s that, like 200 and something dog years? It’s a long time. I feel that way sometimes,” Kelly said. “This is where I wanted to be. I wanted to be at LSU, and I love it here. I’m not going anywhere. This is my stop. This is the last stop on the coach Kelly caravan.”

In two years with the Tigers, Kelly has already accomplished quite a bit.

He led the team to 10 wins in his first season in charge, winning the SEC West and earning a berth in the SEC Championship Game. Though the Tigers didn’t win that game, it was a step in the right direction for a program that had undergone some turmoil with former coach Ed Orgeron.

Kelly and the Tigers failed to win the SEC West in his second year in charge, dropping three games overall and two in conference play. Still, the team will have a chance to get to 10 wins again.

The last time the Tigers won 10 games in back-to-back years was in 2018 and 2019.

But the important thing is that Kelly doesn’t appear to be entertaining any ideas of jumping ship to a more attractive gig — of which there are probably remarkably few anyway.

“You always go, ‘Well, he’s just saying that to get the right soundbite.’ But I don’t have to say anything that puts me in a corner,” Brian Kelly said. “But this is it. This is where I want to be, this is where I want to coach. I love it here. I love the people. I love the state. And I love the fact that I’m working with an administration, an athletic director in Scott Woodward and a president in president Tate that are giving us the support necessary to graduate champions. So this is where I want to be.”

With that out of the way, Kelly and the Tigers can continue to build.

Recruiting will be a big part of that, and by LSU’s standards there is still work to be done. LSU currently has the nation’s No. 12 ranked class, one that ranks sixth among current SEC teams and eighth among 2024 SEC teams.