By now, if you’ve been paying attention to college football at all, you know Brian Kelly is leaving Notre Dame for LSU after 12 seasons of coaching the Fighting Irish.
You’re also well aware of Notre Dame’s standing in the college football world — the team is right in the midst of the chase for a spot in the College Football Playoff.
So it’s totally reasonable to think that folks at Notre Dame, including the players, are not happy about this. And that’s the exact vibe you get when you hear what Brian Kelly reportedly told players in an early-morning meeting on Tuesday — Notre Dame Rivals.com site BlueandGold.com said it obtained leaked audio of Kelly’s farewell speech to Notre Dame’s players.
He told the players he understands him leaving is a shock, but called it him finding another opportunity that he needed to jump on. He said there was “nobody that’s at fault.”
“And so many times, people looking for a reason to blame, or it was a reason for something — there was nothing here but first-class in everything that Notre Dame has done for me and my family. I saw my time here as a blessing, working with incredible men on a day-to-day basis. But there comes a time where you look in your life for another opportunity, and I felt like it was time in my life for another challenge. And I saw that opportunity in a very short window and felt that it was best for me and my family to pursue a new challenge. And so there’s no one to blame. There’s nobody that’s at fault. Nobody did anything wrong.”
This is pretty wack, by all accounts. You could certainly understand why players and staff would be upset about this. He’s completely bailing on them and this is his explanation. And, as my colleague Andy Nesbitt points out, it certainly doesn’t feel like limitless love.
Quite frankly, it’s not good enough. And he should be ashamed for leaving his team hanging like this.
