Brian Kelly Talks Advice for Lane Kiffin, Explains What Led to LSU Firing

Former LSU head coach Brian Kelly knows the pressure new head coach Lane Kiffin will face in Baton Rouge, but he feels Kiffin is built to handle it well.

While speaking to John Brice of USA Today, Kelly was asked if he had any advice for Kiffin, and he declared that he's confident Kiffin is already prepared to lead the Tigers' rebuild.

"Lane doesn't need advice," Kelly said. "He's seen it from the NFL to SC to building a program… I don't think I'm telling him anything he doesn't know. The world we live in today, Michigan just won a basketball championship with five transfers. You can do it, but there are so many moving pieces. I don't think he needs any advice. I think you just continue to be who you are. I think that's all you can be. People are going to judge you based upon what they think, anyways. So, just be Lane Kiffin."

Kelly had coached at LSU since 2022 before he was fired following the team's 5-3 start to the 2025 season. The Tigers finished the year with a 7-6 record after losing to Houston in the Texas Bowl.

Kelly ended his tenure at LSU with a 34-14 overall record and a 19-10 record in SEC play. In his assessment, his successes during his time with the Tigers weren't enough to keep his job.

"I would say there's an easy, simple answer," Kelly said of what went wrong at LSU, "and I didn't win enough games. There's a longer answer to why that didn't happen, I'll probably have to write a book about that. There's always cause and effect and the effect was I didn't win enough games, period."

He added: "I guess you do have to start with what is winning enough games? We were 34-14, 22-3 at home when I was fired. We had two 10-win seasons, won an SEC (West Division) championship, had the No. 1 offense in college football, a Heisman Trophy winner. When you look at what is winning and what keeps you employed, other people make those decisions. But it starts with what is defined as winning, and unfortunately it wasn't defined as enough winning leading into being fired."

Kiffin will now try to make his mark on an LSU program that hasn't made it to the College Football Playoff since its last national championship win in the 2019 season.