Brian Kelly reveals how he handled being the butt of online jokes after dancing video

LSU’s new head football coach, Brian Kelly, garnered national headlines in the past six months for reeling in a $100 million dollar deal to resurrect the Tigers program in Baton Rouge, La. Soon after he was hired in Baton Rouge, college football fans across the country couldn’t stop laughing after a TikTok video released with him and a four-star quarterback prospect, Walker Howard dancing. The video received a lot of criticism from across the country via social media. This week in Destin, Fla. Kelly spent some time on The Paul Finebaum Show opening up about the topic and how he handled the criticism.

“You know, I was having fun with it. Recruits would say coach will you do this and I’d say, you know what, sure. Why not? If a 17-year old kid is gonna ask me two or three times, I’m not so full of myself that I can’t do something like that. And to me, it was…invigorating. So I really didn’t care about what other people thought about it. My kids did. [They said] ‘Dad they can’t say that.’ I’m like, just let it go. Those aren’t the people we want to listen to anyway,” Kelly said.

Before getting into college football coaching, Kelly also has an extensive background in politics. In some ways, that background has helped him tune out whatever noise is on the outside. He’s well aware that with a contract of $100 million dollars at a college football program like LSU, every single move he makes is going to be heavily, heavily scrutinized.

He’s won at a high level at nearly every program he’s touched over the years, whether it be Grand Valley State, Central Michigan, the Cincinnati Bearcats, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, and now, we’ll see how he fares with the LSU Tigers.

Brian Kelly admits he would not have danced with Walker Howard at ND

Sometimes a new environment makes a coach change a little bit and apparently that’s the case with LSU’s new $100 million man. Brian Kelly recently confirmed that he likely wouldn’t have showed off those dance moves if he was still in South Bend.

“I would not have done that at Notre Dame,” Kelly said during an interview with Jacques Doucet. “It’s just a different place, a different time. I’ve always kind of looked at my situation and said I think as a leader, you’ve got to always shift and change and look to improve and sometimes, reinvent yourself. I don’t know if I’ve reinvented myself in all those areas.

“But when a young man looks at you and says, ‘Coach, let’s have some fun with this,’ why not? I think sometimes, we get a little too caught up in what other people think instead of the people that are asking you to do some things. I had some fun with it, and I’m glad I did.”

On3’s Nick Schultz also contributed to this article.