Now that LSU has fired Brian Kelly, plenty of people are coming out of the woodwork to point out that there were plenty of signs it was never going to work in Baton Rouge. One big sign in hindsight, that was starting the Bayou Bengals straight in the face, was a flashing red light and deafening siren following his departure from Notre Dame.
Kelly has never seemed like the most likable person in college sports. Clearly, he's a talented football mind, but he's had some controversies follow him that very few coaches have had to deal with. There's also the celebration going on by former (and some current) players who played under Kelly.
So what was the flashing warning sign that anyone paying any attention to Brian Kelly's departure from Notre Dame should have seen from space? It was the staff he put together once he arrived at LSU.
Few Notre Dame football assistants followed Brian Kelly to LSU
Very few members of Brian Kelly's final Fighting Irish coaching staff followed him from South Bend to Baton Rouge. That is almost entirely unheard of in a profession where assistants tend to follow their boss, unless they're offered a promotion elsewhere.
Indeed, when a coach gets a new job, he might not take his entire staff from the previous job with him. There are some opportunities to upgrade. But generally speaking, a head coach wants to have someone he knows and trusts at his side in a new job. Kelly ... took almost no one.
Whether someone wanted to make the case that Kelly didn't like his staff, or his staff didn't like him, it was not a great sign right from the get-go. As it turns out, Kelly took Brian Polian, who was the special teams coordinator, and Kerry Cooks, who was an analyst from Notre Dame. Those were the big names that followed him. Neither one is still there, by the way.
That's the other warning sign about Brian Kelly. When he did bring over coaches he worked with elsewhere, they tended to move along before he did.
The most significant case in point was Mike Denbrock, who was Kelly's offensive coordinator at Cincinnati and joined him at LSU. Denbrock jumped ship last year, coming to work with Marcus Freeman at Notre Dame, one season after tutoring Heisman winner Jayden Daniels.
Kelly also lost Bob Diaco after last season to North Carolina. Both Diaco and Denbrock coached with the now-former LSU coach at multiple stops, and both left before the Tigers fired Kelly.
Certainly, in hindsight, the way Brian Kelly put his staff together after leaving Notre Dame should have been a bigger sign that things were never going to work out. Whoever hires him next can use that as a similar barometer.