When the LSU Tigers hired Brian Kelly to be their head coach, they were probably anticipating that he would have them competing for a national championship in short order.
That has not only not happened yet, but they appear to be drifting further away from that level.
With Saturday’s 27-16 loss at Florida on Saturday, LSU has now lost three games in a row and has lost at least four games for the second time in Kelly’s first three seasons with the program.
It is just the third time in the past 25 years that an LSU team has lost three games in a row.
This cannot be sitting well with LSU boosters and donors after the program paid Kelly $9.5 million to leave Notre Dame.
The previous two losses coming into Saturday were concerning enough, getting blown out (38-23 and 42-13) by consecutive ranked opponents Texas A&M and Alabama. But even that might be somewhat forgiven because, again, they were highly ranked opponents and potential playoff contenders.
Following up those two poor performances by going on the road to Florida — a wildly disappointing team that had also been blown out in back-to-back weeks — and also losing by double-digits is when seats in the SEC start getting hot.
The frustration seemed to be boiling over in a big way on the sidelines as Kelly was seen having heated confrontations with multiple players. Kelly has always been known for being an intense, fiery coach, but it seemed to be getting ugly on Saturday.
At this point, the thing that might be saving Kelly from truly being on the hot seat is the fact his contract carries a massive buyout ($61 million at this point). How bad would the season have to get for LSU to be willing to eat that?
The Tigers still have two regular-season games remaining against a dangerous Vanderbilt team that has been able to hang with some of the nation’s best teams and Oklahoma.
LSU opened the season ranked No. 13 in the country and was ranked No. 22 this week. After Saturday’s game, it is going to be heading into the homestretch of the regular season almost certainly unranked.
