There is now yet another huge vacancy in college football.
After all the smoke about Lane Kiffin leaving Ole Miss for Florida and FSU doing an end-of-year review with Mike Norvell, there is another opening.
LSU has fired Brian Kelly in the midst of his fourth season in Baton Rouge. ESPN’s senior college football writer Pete Thamel revealed today that LSU has called a team meeting for Sunday night. This was two hours after Thamel revealed that LSU is “In discussions about Brian Kelly’s future."
Just minutes after that report, he revealed that LSU has pulled the plug and relieved Kelly of his duties. The buyout could be split down the middle at $27 million, according to Yahoo Sports' Ross Dellenger.
If LSU and Brian Kelly agree to even half of his owed buyout - $27 million - FBS schools will have committed to spend more than $140 million on 10 fired coaches.
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) October 27, 2025
This is believed to be the most in the history of college athletics, topping 2023 ($132M).
It is still October.
Coming off of back-to-back devastating losses to Vanderbilt and Texas A&M respectively, LSU has ended the Brian Kelly experiment. Kelly’s entire tenure has been quite disappointing for Tigers fans, from poor play to embarrassing recruit videos. LSU has been bad, to say the least.
This is a premiere college football program, with one of the best home crowds in the nation, and anything less than playoff contention should be seen as bad for LSU, and yet Kelly has yet to sniff postseason success for the Tigers, and this was something that the brass at Death Valley, and the fanbase at large, has just had enough of.
This now of course opens up the question of who will replace Kelly? Could Lane Kiffin yet again be up for another big job? Of course if you want to gain traction online, one could say Deion Sanders is Bayou bound. But after Colorado’s embarrassing loss to Utah, that’s probably nowhere close to being a possibility.
Also, keep in mind that Steve Sarkisian this past weekend, according to The Athletic's Diana Russini, said that he was open to the idea of going to the NFL, namely the Tennessee Titans. However could LSU be an option? It’s a huge job, one of the best in college, and has probably a better home atmosphere than most NFL stadiums, could this job tempt Sark? Time will tell, but the season of parity and chaos continues in college football.
More college football news:
- Deion Sanders buyout, contract details as Colorado Buffaloes coach
- Steve Sarkisian reportedly interested in leaving Texas for NFL openings
- Cam Newton nearly comes to blows with a mascot on ESPN
- Paul Finebaum remains sold on one name for Florida opening
- UNC fans think Bill Belichick resigned to join Duke's coaching staff because of a satirical story