When Brian Kelly left Notre Dame to become the new head coach for the LSU Tigers, it was assumed that he would try to bring some of his assistant coaches with him. That mostly revolved around offensive coordinator Tommy Rees and defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman.
Those plans changed with Freeman being elevated to head coach at Notre Dame and Reese deciding to stay on as OC. However, that doesn’t mean Kelly is done trying to poach his former assistants to join him in Baton Rouge.
According to Brody Miller of The Athletic, Kelly is expected to hire Notre Dame co-director of strength and conditioning Jacob Flint, who will do the same for LSU.
Flint served as essentially Matt Balis' No. 2 at Notre Dame the past few years and turned down opportunities to run other programs.
He was a well-liked figure, seemingly a good players coach to work alongside Kelly.
Recommend this @PeteSampson_
piece https://t.co/gV84kaC4eq https://t.co/loeFtVC4Gj— Brody Miller (@BrodyAMiller) December 7, 2021
Meanwhile, Bruce Feldman is reporting that Kelly will also hire Notre Dame’s special teams coordinator Brian Polian.
SOURCE: Notre Dame special teams coordinator Brian Polian is expected to join Brian Kelly’s staff at LSU. Polian has SEC coaching experience from his time as STC at Texas A&M.
— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) December 7, 2021
No word on whether or not both will be asked to adopt southern accents as Kelly has.
Kelly signed a 10-year $95 million contract with LSU a couple of weeks back following a successful run at Notre Dame. He now hopes to be the third-consecutive LSU head coach to win a national title. It appears that he’s putting together a quality coaching staff, even if he can’t get the coordinators he was hoping for. Who knows, he may end up coaching against them in the College Football Playoff soon enough.
