Another Brian Kelly Year 3 breakthrough: Next two games will determine if LSU is set for a special season

For Brian Kelly, special seasons have come in 3s. 

In Year 3 at Central Michigan, he won a MAC title and parlayed the championship into the Cincinnati job. 

In Year 3 with the Bearcats, Kelly went 12-0, won the Big East and was promptly hired by Notre Dame. 

In Year 3 with the Irish, Kelly led Notre Dame to a 12-0 regular season and its first national title appearance in nearly 25 years. 

The final chapters have yet to be written on Kelly’s Year 3 at LSU, but halfway through the 2024 slate, Kelly has his latest program positioned for another breakthrough season. 

The next few weeks will determine just special this season will be, though. 

Can LSU make a run to the SEC Championship, College Football Playoff?

LSU opened this fall with another clunker in a marquee, non-conference game, losing 27-20 to a so-so USC team in Las Vegas. It was a third-straight opener loss in three seasons under Kelly, and two weeks later after the Tigers had to rally from a 17-point deficit at South Carolina, the grumblings out of Baton Rouge started to grow. 

“Are we sure Brian Kelly is the coach to lead GEAUX TIGERS to a title?”

But then a funny thing happened. 

LSU started to play better. Imagine that?

Big-armed quarterback Garrett Nussmeier, who has been the top QB in the SEC this season, and a deep pool of playmakers was always going to be LSU’s strength this season, but in the last month, the have Tigers found a semblance of a ground game with freshman tailback Caden Durham. Led by future Top 5 pick Will Campbell, the offensive line (if it can avoid a zillion false start penalties like the six it had in the win over Arkansas), remains one of the best units in America (two sacks allowed, No. 2 nationally). 

The biggest change from Week 1 to today has been LSU’s defense, though. Kelly made significant investments overhauling the entire staff, and slowly, Blake Baker, Bo Davis and the rest of the Tigers’ defensive braintrust has started to produce real results — this mostly without preseason All-American linebacker Harold Perkins Jr. 

Whit Weeks (28 tackles, two sacks, one forced fumble and one pick in the last two games alone) has emerged as a candidate for SEC Defensive Player of the Year. Corner Zy Alexander has returned from injury and played well. And a thin defensive line (led by former Oregon transfer Bradyn Swinson, who has 7.0 sacks) has developed and exceeded my preseason expectations.

I was critical of Brian Kelly’s transfer portal approach this offseason. I thought his broke-boy comments were actually overblown, but I did believe there was real consequences for not investing in defensive tackle depth. 

That could still ring true, but the Tigers have done a nice job mixing and matching personnel up front to run Baker’s scheme — with each week producing better results. LSU has vastly improved its red zone defense (118th in touchdowns allowed in 2023, 18th thus far in 2024), while it has made jumps on third downs, run defense and pass rush. 

So as we approach Halloween, LSU is suddenly on a six-game winning streak and looks up and sees itself tied atop the SEC standings with Texas A&M. 

Georgia, Texas, Alabama and Tennessee all have a conference loss. Ole Miss, who LSU beat two weeks ago, is just 1-2 in league play, while Missouri (2-1) has all the makings of a paper tiger. 

So another storybook Year 3 is right there for the taking for Kelly’s team. Alabama is down. Georgia, Texas and Tennessee aren’t on the schedule. 

Can the Tigers grab the opportunity by the horns?

“I think that’s pretty clear this group understands that now. I think they can now sense that they have put themselves in a pretty good position (to win a SEC Championship),” Brian Kelly said this week. 

“Now they gotta go earn it again on the road but there’s clearly a different way they perceive the next six weeks. I think by their standards, they believe they’re getting better and I believe they’re getting better.”

LSU plays at Texas A&M this Saturday in primetime and then will host Alabama at night two weeks later. Split, and the Tigers would be well-positioned to go 7-1 in league play. Win both, and LSU would have a straight-line highway to Atlanta for the SEC Championship Game and a real shot at a College Football Playoff bye. 

An eighth-straight 10-win season would be nice, but Brian Kelly came to LSU to win championships. He’s been very transparent about those goals. Tigers fans — with national titles from their last three coaches — have the same expectations, too. 

So is Year 3 the year again for Kelly? 

We’ll see.