Brian Kelly won’t coach anywhere in 2026. Luckily, that doesn’t mean Notre Dame fans are robbed of the opportunity to turn on the TV and sneer, boo, and laugh as the former Irish and LSU coach bloviates on any number of subjects. This fall, Kelly will call CBS College Football games involving Mountain West teams.
CBS Sports has one Big Ten football game a week, as well as Mountain West rights. This season, Charles Davis is replacing Gary Danielson alongside Brad Nessler on Big Ten games at the network. Kelly is expected to be part of a three-man booth on Mountain West games on the broadcast network, according to Front Office Sports.
Brian Kelly will also be an analyst on the CBSSN weekday program, Inside College Football, this season. Perhaps CBS Sports knows that Notre Dame fans love to hate watching the former head coach and is giving them ample opportunities to do so, as long as they tune into the company’s networks.
CBS tipped its hand a bit about the plans to incorporate the man with a dozen accents into its football programming when he was an in-studio analyst around this spring’s NFL Draft. One has to wonder if he might take on a “surfer dude” approach to his analysis and game calling now that he’s part of the Mountain West broadcasts. If he were a bit more self-aware, he might do so on purpose, considering he’s part of one of the more talked-about speeches to a fanbase in the history of college football.
Brian Kelly’s CBS role gives Notre Dame football fans a new hate-watch option
Back when he first took the job at LSU, he appeared during halftime of a Bayou Bengals basketball game to introduce himself to the Tigers’ faithful. For reasons that escaped everyone, the Massachusetts-born coach adopted a Cajun accent for his speech.
“I haven’t even won all my games yet. It’s a great night to be a Tiger. I’m here with my family (pronounced fah-muly), and we are so excited to be in the great state of Louisiana. But more importantly, to be with you great fans and to be part of an incredible ride here at Louisiana State University.”
Kelly spent the last 22 years as a head coach, starting at Central Michigan before rising to Cincinnati, Notre Dame, and then the last four seasons at LSU. The Fighting Irish’s all-time winningest coach with 113 victories, his Notre Dame teams reached the College Football Playoff twice, and played in the BCS Championship game against Alabama during the 2012 season.
Those numbers should have made him a beloved figure in South Bend. However, the way he left for LSU and the comments he made about the shortcomings of the football program in general didn’t sit well with Fighting Irish fans. Chief among his excuses for leaving was that it was impossible to recruit top athletes to Notre Dame. Marcus Freeman has spent the last two years proving that entirely inaccurate. He even has his squad poised to make a run at the No. 1 recruiting class in the country for 2027, if a few recruiting battles go his way.
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