Brian Kelly fired as LSU football coach after four seasons

BATON ROUGE — Four seasons into his tenure, things just didn't quite click for Brian Kelly with LSU football.

And on Sunday, the connection was severed between the two as Kelly was fired as LSU head coach, a source close to the program confirmed to The Advertiser, putting an end to an overall underwhelming stint for Kelly in Baton Rouge. Current running backs coach and associate head coach Frank Wilson will serve as interim coach for the Tigers for the remainder of the 2025 campaign.

Kelly's final game as LSU's head coach was a 49-25 trouncing at the hands of Texas A&M inside Tiger Stadium.

Per Kelly's contract, he is set to be due a $53.29 million buyout, the second-highest buyout for a fired college football coach in history.

Kelly won 34 games over three-plus seasons at LSU and he found some success early in his tenure, leading the Tigers to the SEC West division championship and SEC Championship Game appearance against Georgia in his first season.

But since his debut, it's been tough sledding for Kelly and the Tigers as they could not nab signature wins.

LSU finished the 2024 season with a demonstrative 37-17 victory at home over Oklahoma, a game that afterward Kelly told reporters and anyone that was listening that he and his football team "were taking receipts" of the detractors and doubters and what they had to say and that the Tigers "would see you in the national championship."

Before the 2025 campaign, a large faction of the LSU fan base publicly questioned if Kelly was the right man for the job and, as the losses mounted, doubters not only grew in numbers but also the groans grew louder with a lot of them calling for him to be fired.

Kelly went 92-39 at Notre Dame prior to taking the job at LSU in December of 2021.

(This story was updated with new information.)

Cory Diaz covers the LSU Tigers for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his Tigers coverage on Twitter: @ByCoryDiaz. Got questions regarding LSU athletics? Send them to Cory Diaz at bdiaz@gannett.com.