Greg McElroy responds to critics of LSU for Brian Kelly hire

Brian Kelly was a divisive hire for LSU. Obviously a great college football coach who consistently had his Notre Dame teams in the hunt. He just couldn’t put the nail in the coffin though, and often fell way short against stronger powers like Alabama and Clemson. So what’s to say he won’t get to the precipice and fall short once again with LSU?

Maybe he doesn’t have the spark and vitality of an Ed Orgeron from a personality standpoint. But ESPN’s Greg McElroy says fans should throw fit out the window. It’s a good fit if he wins, a bad one if he loses. Simple as that, according to McElroy. He said as much on the Always College Football Podcast.

You can read his comments from a recent show on Kelly’s fit in the Bayou right here:

Greg McElroy says Kelly’s fit doesn’t matter

“LSU has the talent, we all know that. But do they now have the right leader? No doubt,” claims McElroy. “A lot of people have mocked Brian Kelly all off season. A lot of people have said how bad of a fit he was. But here’s been my pushback with Brian Kelly’s hire: They just had the best fit ever at LSU. A guy that was from Louisiana, that had every relationship that you could possibly manufacture in the state of Louisiana in Orgeron. And it was a remarkable failure the last couple years.”

Kelly, more so than Orgeron, brings real results at the highest level into the job. He’s proven he can at least get there.

:Brian Kelly, say what you want about his tenure at Notre Dame, his inability to get over the hump at Notre Dame, but he got them there. Got to the National Championship, got to the Playoff on multiple different occasions. He has kind of reinvented himself a time or two. And if you say anything about Brian Kelly, that he’s just not a great fit, well let me tell you what. A great fit at LSU is a guy that wins.”

McElroy then explained how that line of thinking applies to one former legendary coach at LSU.

“Because last time I checked, when a guy that coached at Toledo and Michigan State decided to head on down to the Bayou, he won a lot of games. His name was Nick Saban. Wasn’t a great fit from West Virginia. But guess what: Gets down to LSU, he wins, he all of a sudden becomes a great fit.”

Lastly, Greg McElroy issued his thesis for the whole segment: fit is a bunch of hooey.

“It doesn’t matter. The fit doesn’t matter. All that matters is winning. And at LSU, they have the pieces right now to get the job done.”