In a stunning move, Brian Kelly is leaving Notre Dame to become the next head football coach at LSU, sources told ESPN.
An agreement likely will be finalized in the next 24 hours.
Kelly, in his 12th season at Notre Dame, will replace Ed Orgeron, whom LSU announced on Oct. 17 would not return as coach of the Tigers in 2022, less than two years removed from an undefeated season and national championship.
Kelly, 60, became the winningest coach in Notre Dame history earlier this season, surpassing Knute Rockne. In 12 seasons, he is 113-40 (including 21 victories from the 2012 and ’13 seasons that were vacated by the NCAA), guiding the Irish to the BCS title game in 2012 and to College Football Playoff appearances in 2018 and 2020.
According to sources, Kelly sent a group text to the Notre Dame players late Monday night informing them that he would be leaving the school and apologizing that they found out “through social media or news reports.” Kelly told the players he would share more with them during a 7 a.m. team meeting on Tuesday.
Notre Dame, ranked No. 6 in the latest CFP rankings, completed an 11-1 season on Saturday and still is in contention to reach its third College Football Playoff in four years. The Fighting Irish suffered their only loss of the season on Oct. 2 to No. 4 Cincinnati.
No previous Notre Dame coach has ever left the Irish, winners of eight national championships as voted on by the AP, to take a job at another school.
Kelly’s departure comes as a major surprise to prominent Notre Dame sources who spoke to ESPN earlier Monday. Sources said LSU had approached Kelly earlier this fall, but he declined any interest in the job. LSU made another push for Kelly over the weekend.
Kelly last week addressed the possibility of leaving Notre Dame for another job, telling reporters, “No. I mean, [Pittsburgh Steelers coach] Mike Tomlin had the best line, right? Unless that fairy godmother comes by with that $250 million check, my wife would want to take a look at it first. I’d have to run it by her.”
Cincinnati’s Luke Fickell will be a top target to replace Kelly at Notre Dame, sources told ESPN’s Chris Low. The timing would be anything but ideal for Fickell, though. He has his undefeated Bearcats on the cusp of the College Football Playoff if they can win their matchup against Houston on Saturday in the AAC championship game.
Fickell has drawn serious interest from several other big-name schools in recent years, but sources close to Fickell said earlier this year that the two jobs that would be most difficult for him to turn down would be Notre Dame and Ohio State, the latter being his alma mater.
Sources told ESPN that Notre Dame defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman would also receive serious consideration for the head-coaching job.
Kelly is 263-96-2 as a college coach with two Division II national titles at Grand Valley State and 10 AP top-10 finishes. He came to Notre Dame from Cincinnati, where he went 34-6 with two New Year’s Six bowl appearances.
Kelly had brought stability and success to Notre Dame unlike the program had in almost two decades.
He has not been able to add a national championship, but the Fighting Irish have been winning at a clip they haven’t reached since Lou Holtz led the program in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Holtz and the Irish won the national title in 1988.
Notre Dame ran through three coaches after Holtz, never coming close to sustained success.
Notre Dame hired Kelly away from Cincinnati to replace Charlie Weis after the 2009 season. It took a while for Kelly to find the right mix of coaching staff and recruiting strategy to turn the Irish into the consistent national contender. Since going 4-8 in 2016, the Irish are 54-9 under Kelly.
LSU finished a 6-6 regular season on Saturday, upsetting Texas A&M at home in what was Orgeron’s last game. He announced following the victory that he will not coach in LSU’s upcoming bowl game, with offensive line coach Brad Davis to act as the interim coach for the game.
“Whoever the new coach is, I wish him all the luck in the world,” Orgeron said Saturday. “I’ll always be an LSU fan.”
Since winning the 2019 national title behind Heisman Trophy winner Joe Burrow, LSU has gone 11-11 and Orgeron was accused of improperly handling allegations of sexual misconduct by a player twice in the past year.
LSU was paying Orgeron $9 million per season, among the highest in college football along with Alabama‘s Nick Saban, Clemson‘s Dabo Swinney and Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M . Kelly’s full salary at Notre Dame, a private school, is unknown but it is believed to be north of $5 million per year.
LSU had been connected to various coaches, including Fisher, whom Orgeron beat on Saturday and who has vehemently denied that he is leaving Texas A&M for any job this offseason. Oklahoma‘s Lincoln Riley also shut down speculation over the weekend that he could be up for the LSU job, before accepting the position at USC only a day ago.
Yahoo! Sports first reported LSU’s expected hire of Kelly.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.