Brian Kelly explains his awkward Southern accent, dance video

Brian Kelly made all sorts of headlines since leaving Notre Dame for the LSU job, and now we’re getting his explanation of a few events.

The former Notre Dame coach was hired by LSU at the end of November, although he did not coach the Tigers for their Texas Bowl game on Tuesday. He did give an interview to ESPN during the game and addressed a few subjects of interest.

Kelly starred in an awkward video with five-star quarterback recruit Walker Howard (watch here). He addressed the video during his interview.

“Well listen, Walker Howard is a five-star quarterback. You know that you got to do what your quarterback asks. If he says you got to dance, why wouldn’t you dance?” Kelly said.

Kelly also talked about the viral video clip of him talking in a Southern accent (video here).

“Whether it was dancing or I couldn’t get my accent down … listen, I’m from Boston. We don’t have strong accents,” Kelly said.

Then the coach acknowledged he was trying to fit in with the community.

“At the end of the day, this is really about, for me, I want to be a part of this community. I want to be a part of Louisiana. I want to really immerse myself in Louisiana and this community, and I’m so excited to be down here in Baton Rouge,” Kelly said.

The 60-year-old coach also shared that he plans to build his team for 2022 via the transfer portal, although he emphasized that in the future, recruiting freshmen is the way he wants to build. He seemed to hint that Myles Brennan might be the leading quarterback entering the spring too.

LSU won a national championship in the 2019 season and has desires of competing at that level. Kelly has a lot of work to get back to that place.