Bowl season is currently underway but that isn’t stopping anyone from looking ahead to the 2022 season. Among the big storylines, next year will be looking back at the new hires for 28 college football programs.
Brian Kelly was one of those coaches that left a national brand with Notre Dame for another big national brand, the LSU Tigers. Is this the team or location that will allow Brian Kelly to finally win the big one? He was able to recruit at Notre Dame and it should come easier at LSU, a place that essentially recruits itself.
According to Austin Nivison of 247Sports, that is just one of 10 huge storylines to observe in the 2022 season.
What 247Sports Says…
The 2021 cycle was one of the wildest on the coaching carousel in recent memory. Big-name coaches left major programs to take new jobs at other programs, like Lincoln Riley leaving Oklahoma for USC, Mario Cristobal leaving Oregon for Miami, and Brian Kelly leaving Notre Dame for LSU. All of those programs replaced those coaches with defensive coordinators without head coaching experience. On top of all that, Florida fired Dan Mullen and replaced him with one of the most respected coaches at the Group of Five level. It was chaos for about a month, but how many of the new hires will work out. Will any reach the College Football Playoff immediately? Will any give their respective fan bases a level of buyer’s remorse?
The Brian Kelly era will officially begin in New Orleans, Louisiana when the LSU Tigers meet up with the Florida State Seminoles to kick off the 2022 campaign. These two teams haven’t faced off since the 1991 season in Baton Rouge. The Seminoles won that game 27-16, in fact, FSU has won four straight in the series dating back to 1982. They hold the overall advantage of 7–2. In the very first meeting, the Tigers won the 1968 Peach Bowl by a score of 31-27.
Interestingly enough, it was in New Orleans where the Ed Orgeron era officially began as well. The interim tag was removed and the Tigers beat the BYU Cougars in the Superdome 27-0 to kick off the 2017 campaign. We will see if Kelly has a similar result.