Former Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly is doing everything he can to get back what he lost this fall. Kelly, fired from LSU after a less-than-impressive run in Baton Rouge, has talked openly about essentially going back to the drawing board in order to get another job. That now includes essentially being an unpaid intern with several programs, including the Memphis Tigers.
Kelly talked over the offseason about taking several trips to various schools, including Notre Dame, to learn what they’re doing well. While it’s not clear if he’s actually followed through with the trip to South Bend, he’s popped up on more than one campus. Not only has he made some trips to Memphis to help head coach Charles Huff, but it appears there are plans for him to continue doing so throughout the summer and fall.
Notre Dame football fans, who still hold a grudge against Brian Kelly for the way he left the program for “bigger and brighter” things at LSU, have to love how the “mighty” have fallen. The former coach can’t even get a paid consultant gig with any of the teams he’s currently helping.
Kelly, who is consulting for multiple programs after being fired by LSU in the middle of the 2025 season, is not part of Memphis' staff and is not being paid for his advice to Memphis. Huff said he'll start checking in with Kelly more toward the end of the season because Memphis will then be focused on recruiting and building the 2027 roster in the transfer portal.
Brian Kelly’s post-LSU rebuild proves Notre Dame football fans were right to laugh
It’s certainly interesting that even Huff isn’t planning on leaning on Brian Kelly during the season. It doesn’t appear that current coaches really consider him someone who can offer advice on how to run a team and win ballgames. Huff and some of the other teams are looking for ways to recruit the way LSU did in the last few years, so they’re perfectly fine not getting feedback from him on how to develop the talent they recruit.
Huff recently noted that one of the big strikes against Brian Kelly in the public eye isn’t something the Memphis coach has seen. He said the ex-LSU coach has only been humble and helpful.
"Talking to him was really good, because there's a lot of humility in him," Huff said. "He's like, 'There were some things that I wish I did different.' At that level, you don't have a chance to go backwards. But that's given me an opportunity to kind of think about some things that we may run into that we haven't run into yet. So it's been really good."
That Brian Kelly is touring the country, offering coaching advice to whoever will listen, is certainly an interesting twist for the former Notre Dame head coach. He’s clearly trying to lay the groundwork to get hired again, and the fact that his name didn’t come up once this offseason, despite plenty of openings, shows he does have to repair his perception. The question will always be: can he fight the voice in his head that he knows better than anyone else and show humility when it really matters? That still seems unlikely.
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