Kelly had just lost to Texas A&M in a brutal 49–25 defeat, causing LSU to fall to 5–3 on the year. With LSU's championship aspirations inching farther and farther out of reach, the program decided to part ways with the former Notre Dame coach and kick off a new and hopefully brighter era.

One former LSU football player has nothing good to say about Brian Kelly. Safety Matthew Langlois missed most of the 2022 season and all of 2023 with an ACL injury and then stepped away from the sport before the 2024 season. In posts that appear to have since been deleted, he wrote on X:

Former Notre Dame coach's dismissal unveils a pattern of professional detachment that left one of college football's premier programs in disarray while he vacationed in Florida.

From the weird accent to the real friction, Kelly's four years in Baton Rouge were a slow-motion culture clash that ended the only way it could

The parents of late LSU football star Kyren Lacy — who died in April of an apparent suicide two days before a grand jury was expected to begin hearing evidence regarding his role in a fatal car accident, — shared conflicting responses to the firing of head coach Brian Kelly.