Welcome to the Andy Staples show.

We are running through the states of the programs and very interesting times that we are in college athletics.

Brodie Miller, our LSU, be right with the

athletic, joins me because we've talked about a bunch of different programs, Brody, and kind of

where everybody's at with NIL and with their coaching staff and their recruiting and their

collectives and all that stuff. But LSU, just in an interesting place, period, they fired a coach who had won a national title two years earlier, make a huge splash

by taking Notre Dame's coach, and now we get down to the actual business of football.

Yeah, no, it's been in a fascinating territory because I wouldn't say I'm prescended,

but it's pretty bizarre territory from what they've gone through, the way it collapsed, and then hiring the polar opposite human being and Brian Kelly in such a strange time. So it's been a fascinating few months because I think the sentiment a lot of people, you know, myself included, I guess, has been, hey, LSU is this program that sleeping giants not accurate because they've won two

titles recently. I was saying, hey, they're a giant giant, very awake giant. Yes, but there is that thing of, for like 20 years, they've been kind of run not exactly well and still can win a title every year. Yeah, a little bit of a mom and pop operation for a while. Yeah. There's this inconsistency that is rooted at the top to some extent. And now the idea has been,

hey, if you put the selling point on their end, I guess I'd say, is like if you put that grown-up in the room, if you put that guy who knows how to actually run a program like a C, I hate the CEO thing, but still, like a good CEO. But I think that's probably an accurate assessment of the Brian Kelly era at Notre Dame.

Post-2016.

That is accurate.

I guess the entire

thesis of this whole thing

is like we're all going to find assessment of the Brian Kelly era at Notre Dame. I think that is. Post-2016.

That is accurate.

I guess the entire, like, thesis of this whole thing is, like, we're all going to find out, is Brian Kelly, did he take them to Notre Dame to their ceiling and Ellis He was going to get more out of it? Or are you going to find the limit, or the limitations are going to get exponentially worse? Right. Or you could find out that Brian Kelly maybe was well suited for Notre Dame and not as suited.

But the fit thing, like every time this comes up, the example I give is the guy LSU just fired. No one fit better at a place than Ed Ors-Ron fit at LSU. And they fired him. And then, of course, the big one is Nick Saban did not fit the culture at LSU. When he came down there, that was the biggest thing everyone was like. He established the blueprint. Everyone else has followed. It doesn't matter. It's just like when has that ever like changed the success of a coach in a school? I can't think of many. No. And I think I think the four months that we've seen so far, I think that theory is so far coming true of just watching Brian Kelly run a program. Do I have questions about the scheme stuff on the field or how he's going to do recruiting? Of course I do. Those fears aren't going away. But watching him run a program, you actually, like, I don't want to, like, you can't understate it or overstate it. He is, there is a difference in how that program is run. You talk to people in that building and there is just a difference in clarity and accountability in understanding just the communication of what you wanted to do on a given day. And you watch practice. And again, I'm not making too much of practice, but it's like there is a literal difference in watching practice of like everybody knows what they're doing. It is a controlled chaos. So that part, I actually am in a place of optimism of like, I think he's going to get this thing rolling. I just don't know the ceiling. Well, that's the thing. After that staff overhaul following the 2016 season, and I think Kelly had to do some soul searching after that too. But you look at what Notre Dame put on the field, you kind of knew what you were going to get. It felt like the floor was very high. we don't know where the ceiling was. And that is the question because I think part of why you move from Notre Dame to LSU is the feeling that LSU has kind of this unlimited ceiling. And two years ago, they had maybe the best college football team that ever existed. Yeah, it's up there. I mean, yeah, there's something about margins, right? It's like people are dunking on him for the recruiting and like how it's easier to recruit Louisiana's in your backyard. That's not about being, maybe you could argue it's about being lazy. I don't know, but like it's about margins. It's like Notre Dame's a larger margin job on a day-to-day basis. You have to recruit the whole country. And oh, by the way, here's a bunch of guys you're not

allowed to recruit because you can't get them in.

And it's like LSU, it's not saying lazy. It's just simple. Like you by default should have a top 10 class every year. Yeah, we're going to find out if he can get those top three classes. Absolutely. That's big. But you by default should have that. So his margins change a little bit. So yeah, and I think there is, it is accurate to say he is rejuvenated right now.

Like that can sound corny, but that is accurate to people around him. He is rejuvenated. The fair question on that is like, will he still be rejuvenated in three years? I mean, this is a job that will beat you down. Just ask the last couple people that had it. It will beat you down. Right now he's in prove everyone wrong mode a little bit.

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