One day after a crushing 49-25 loss to Texas A&M, where LSU gave up 35 unanswered points in the second half, Brian Kelly was shown the door in Baton Rouge, just midway through his 4th season. With that, Kelly becomes the 10th FBS coach fired this season, and his departure didn’t come cheap. In the fourth year of a 10-year deal, his buyout sits at roughly $54 million: the second-largest in FBS history. Now, while the Tigers search for stability under interim HC Frank Wilson, a veteran LSU broadcaster revealed more swirling details about Kelly’s contract.

On the October 27 episode of Jacques Talk, Greg Bowser, a former LSU DL from the late 1970s and a broadcaster for over three decades, dropped some eye-opening details about Brian Kelly’s contract. “I was reading the thing from the contract a guy sent me the other day—yesterday—and I looked at it,” said Bowser. “You know, the way the buyout’s structured, if it goes away, what I saw… I mean, he’ll get $750,000 a month for the next five years.” While these numbers put Kelly’s firing into a whole new perspective, the drama didn’t end there.

“I looked at Brian Kelly’s contract, and, you know, there was… if he won six games or more, he got a half-million-dollar bonus. And I’m thinking, wait a minute—you just win six games?” So far this season, LSU has victories over Clemson, Florida, Louisiana Tech, Southeastern Louisiana, and South Carolina under Kelly’s leadership. If the clause technically kicks in, it could add a serious bump to his buyout. $500,000 on top of an already costly departure.

But the university didn’t plan to hand over that kind of money so easily. Kelly’s contract includes a “duty to mitigate” clause. That means if LSU fires him, he has to look for another job, and any new salary he earns would reduce the buyout. In short, LSU wouldn’t owe the full amount. They’d only pay the difference between his new role and the remaining buyout. LSU might think it has the upper hand, offering millions to relieve Kelly of his duty to seek a comparable new job.

However, that safety net likely won’t hold. As Tom Mars shared, “No university has ever been able to convince.” Basically, with this clause, Kelly holds significant leverage. Still, choosing Kelly in 2021 for $95 million, including incentives, wasn’t a fault of Scott Woodward. After all, on paper at the time, Kelly was one of the most accomplished HCs. But now, under Brian Kelly, LSU’s situation was serious, not just on the scoreboard, but in other ways as well.

What drove LSU to fire Brian Kelly?

Coaches don’t often walk away from a program like Notre Dame, but Brian Kelly did in 2021. He left South Bend behind and took the reins at LSU, drawn by the promise of a state overflowing with football talent. At the time, it seemed like a perfect match with a clear path to a national title. But in reality, that dream never quite came together. More importantly, Kelly’s four seasons in Baton Rouge were a mixed bag.

He went 34-14 overall, including 19-10 in SEC play, slightly below his Notre Dame win percentage. Early signs were encouraging: a four-win improvement in 2022, a trip to the SEC Title, back-to-back 10-win seasons, and a Heisman Trophy for QB Jayden Daniels. However, as SEC competition ramped up this season, the cracks appeared. Losses to Ole Miss and Vanderbilt were tough, but the 49-25 home blowout by Texas A&M was the final straw. The problems were on both sides of the ball.

His 2023 defense leaked points like a sieve, surrendering 28 per game, and the once-electric offense sputtered to just 25.5 this year, ranking 83rd nationally. To be honest, that math didn’t sit well in Baton Rouge for a coach making over $10 million annually. And patience was never part of the job description at a school where every coach before him raised a championship trophy. Eventually, the cracks became too deep to ignore.