Brian Kelly's sad realization about watching Lane Kiffin and LSU football

Brian Kelly was the head coach of the LSU Tigers from 2022 to 2025.

Perhaps more importantly, for him at least, Kelly has been a college football coach since the 1980's. By the time he came to national prominence as the head coach of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish from 2010 to 2021, Kelly had spent decades in college football.

His coaching career started at DII Assumption as the defensive coordinator and linebackers coach in 1983.

And yet, this past weekend as college football officially kicked off, Kelly was watching the games on television just like most of the rest of us.

Recently, speaking on Sirius XM, Kelly revealed that he had a hard time tuning in to watch his old team, LSU, take on the Clemson Tigers in Week 1.

It wasn't just about Lane Kiffin and the Bayou Bengals, though.

“I’ll be honest, I had a hard time watching it,” Kelly said on Thursday (h/t On3). “But I don’t think it was just LSU, it was just the first weekend truly of college football, and it was hard. You’ve been doing it for 35 years, and not to be part of that process, my wife wanted to kill me. She was like, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ What was wrong was I wasn’t on the sidelines, and I had to deal with it and get through it.”

Kelly, 64, is still around the game he loves as a college football analyst for CBS Sports. 

He's even calling the games as part of the CBS crew covering Mountain West Conference games in 2026.