LSU fans breakout 'Fire Kelly' chants during game vs. Vanderbilt in Death Valley
With LSU fading in the second half of the 2024 season, the pressure has only cranked up on head coach Brian Kelly. And the fans let him know their displeasure on Saturday night in Death Valley.
With LSU trailing after an opening drive touchdown by visiting Vanderbilt, the Tigers faithful broke out in a predictable chant.
“Fire Kelly!” the LSU fans chanted.
LSU is 6-4 and has lost three in a row. The Tigers did manage to tie the game, 7-7, but the score remained knotted there into the second quarter.
Heat has also grown on Kelly as, parallel to underperformance on the field, a major shift occurred in recruiting. On Nov. 21, No. 1 overall recruit Bryce Underwood, a quarterback from Belleville (Mich.), flipped his commitment from the Tigers to the Wolverines, further compounding public ire with Kelly and his job performance.
With the Tigers failing to pull away from Vanderbilt in the first half on Saturday night, that ire boiled over and some fans made their feelings known.
And Kelly isn’t immune to this reality, something he discussed on the SEC coaches teleconference the day before Underwood flipped his commitment.
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“Based upon feedback that I’m getting from our leadership council here, we’re right on where we need to be in terms of building the foundation of our program,” Kelly said on the SEC coaches teleconference on Wednesday. “We have to continue to recruit. Our players are playing hard, they’re playing with the right kind of attitude, but this is the SEC. And the talent is real. And so we have to continue to recruit. We’ve got a great class coming in. It’s a Top 5 class and that is going to contribute to the success moving forward. I don’t know that it’s much about me as much as it’s about us and how we continue to build our program consistently and then good recruiting. I think that’s a huge piece of this.”
After winning 10 games in each of his first two seasons, Kelly and the Tigers are going to win eight at most in 2024. His overall record sits at 26-11 as the end of his third season approaches.
But the continued promise of progress in Year 4 and beyond doesn’t mean the 2024 season — one in which LSU sits at 6-4 with two games to play — isn’t disappointing.
“I think the team morale is disappointed. The coaches are disappointed. Every fan that follows LSU is disappointed and they should be,” Kelly said. “We don’t sign up for this for anything but positive outcomes. But they are committed. They are resolute in what they want to do and they want better football and excited to coach them because of the way that they have presented themselves to us. And that is: Keep coaching us, stick with the process, coach us hard, coach us fair and help us get better each and every week. And when you get that kind of captive audience, that’s what you want in coaching. So we’ve got that group here and we’re going to go back out swinging and battling again this Saturday against a really good Vanderbilt team.”