Man, Brian Kelly knows how to hire defensive coordinators.
His final three defensive play-callers at Notre Dame were Mike Elko, Clark Lea and Marcus Freeman.
Today, those three defensive gurus now are head coaches at Texas A&M, Vanderbilt and Notre Dame, respectively.
Elko and Lea have seen their teams soundly defeat Kelly's bumbling bayou bengals in consecutive weeks; Freeman is coming off a watershed season in which he guided Kelly's old program, Notre Dame, to record-setting heights en route to the 2024 College Football Playoff championship-bout in the sport's first-ever 12-team field.
Combined, those three programs this year are 19-4, all projected inside the 2025 CFP field and all will be ranked today in the respective USA Today Coaches and Associated Press Top 25 polls.
LSU? The Tigers now have three losses, are done being a fringe CFP contender this year and own three or more losses in each of Kelly's four seasons in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. After guiding LSU to an ahead-of-schedule appearance in the 2022 SEC Championship game opposite Georgia, Kelly has not had his Tigers as a factor in any SEC title races and therefore not really a factor in the postseason.
But IF -- and hypotheticals are allowed in this space, because why not? -- the CFP field was to be seeded today, Kelly's aforementioned triumvirate of ex-Irish defensive play-callers all would be cashing CFP bonus checks, and Kelly might be at whatever the latest iteration is of the Poulan Weedeater Bowl.
Elsewhere, South Carolina's season spiraled into further disaster, and there's little reason for a silver lining to the Gamecocks's situation. They have LeNorris Sellers at quarterback, and he's among the most touted NFL Draft prospects. The Gamecocks have Dylan Stewart on defense. Rinse, repeat NFL Draft hype -- though Stewart is just a true sophomore.
Shane Beamer's ballclub has games left at Ole Miss and at Texas A&M, as well as home tilts with Coastal Carolina and rival Clemson. This is a five-loss team that is not done losing.
Nor is Kentucky, which got waxed again at home Saturday night by visiting Tennessee. The Vols turned out the lights on the homestanding Wildcats and then will attempt to do the same in their 'Dark Mode' jerseys next week under the lights of Neyland Stadium when Oklahoma visits in an CFP elimination game.
There's more to this week's College Football Week 9 rewind, including spotlighting San Diego State, Central Michigan, North Dakota State, Montana's red pandas, err, Grizzlies, and much more.
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