LSU and athletic director Scott Woodward shocked the college football world by going into South Bend and poaching longtime Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly.
Kelly will receive a ten-year, $95 million contract, plus incentives, from LSU. He will be formally introduced as the 34th head coach in program history at a press conference around lunchtime on Wednesday.
THE FACTS
- In 31 years as a head coach, Kelly has amassed a record of 284-97-2, which ranks him first among all active FBS coaches in career victories, ahead of Alabama’s Nick Saban (272 wins) and North Carolina’s Mack Brown (265 wins).
- For the past 12 years, he has served as the head coach at Notre Dame. He leaves South Bend as the Irish’s all-time winningest coach with 113 victories, moving ahead of legendary Knute Rockne for the top spot in 2021. His 12-year mark at Notre Dame stands at 113-40, which includes a 54-9 mark over the past five seasons.
- He is the only coach to win The Home Depot Coach of the Year Award (2009, 2012 and 2018) on more than one occasion.
- Also in his 12-year tenure at Notre Dame, Kelly’s teams have produced 53 NFL Draft picks since 2012, including nine in the first round. The Irish have had eight consensus All-America honors playing for Kelly, while having players win nine national awards during that span.
- Prior to joining the Irish in 2010, Kelly transformed Cincinnati, winning Big East titles in 2008 and 2009. In three years at Cincinnati, the Bearcats won 34 games and appeared in the Orange and Sugar Bowls. In 2007, Kelly led Cincinnati to the school’s first-ever 10-win season with a 10-3 mark and a win in the PapaJohns.com Bowl. In his final season at Cincinnati, Kelly’s team posted a 12-0 mark and earned a berth to the Sugar Bowl.
- He went 118-35-2 in his first head coaching job at Grand Valley State, a Division II school, and led the Lakers to back-to-back national titles in 2002 and 2003, and finished 19-16 at his second stop, Central Michigan.
- Kelly, a native of Everett, Mass., and his wife Paqui have three children – Patrick, Grace and Kenzel. The Kellys are active in community outreach and have established the Kelly Cares Foundation which has donated nearly $5.8 million to support causes related to the fight against breast cancer since its founding in 2008. Paqui Kelly is a two-time breast cancer survivor.
