Brian Kelly’s old quotes on leaving Notre Dame for LSU have aged worse than milk

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish may not have been pegged as the favorites to make a run in the College Football Playoff but Marcus Freeman clearly doesn't care about the odds. After a thrilling and gutsy Orange Bowl victory over Penn State on Thursday night, the Irish are heading to the CFP National Championship Game and currently await the winner of Ohio State vs. Texas.

Former Notre Dame head coach and current LSU head coach Brian Kelly, meanwhile, has watched the entirety of the Playoff play out from home (aside from the Texas Bowl win over Baylor).

Kelly parted ways with the Fighting Irish ahead of the 2022 season after 12 years with the program and after reeling off five straight 10-plus win seasons in South Bend. But the head coach wanted to move on to bigger and better things, or so he said. After Notre Dame's win over the Nittany Lions, Nicole Auerbach brought up Kelly's quote from April 2022 about his departure for LSU, and it could not have aged worse.

"I want to be in an environment where I have the resources to win a national championship," Kelly said.

Considering that Freeman is now set to coach Notre Dame in the National Championship Game while Kelly has not even made the College Football Playoff in its entirety, even in the first year of 12-team expansion, that sentiment has aged horrendously.

Brian Kelly has egg on his face with Notre Dame in National Championship Game

This isn't to say that Kelly and the Tigers haven't enjoyed success, albeit perhaps not by LSU standards. He's put together seasons finishing at 10-4, 10-3 and then 9-4 this past year. At the same time, though, that looks exceptionally worse when the Fighting Irish program he left for proverbial greener pastures (you know, because of the money trees in Baton Rouge) is in the natty while the Tigers haven't even sniffed it.

Now, it should be said that Kelly has still produced a Heisman Trophy winner at LSU with Jayden Daniels and has another early candidate for the 2025 award with quarterback Garrett Nussmeier returning. The big issue for the Tigers has been a leaky defense that marginally improved with Blake Baker being hired as defensive coordinator but has a long way left to go as well.

This also isn't to say that Kelly won't get LSU in a similar spot at some point. While he deserves plenty of criticism, he's proven to be a winning coach and, even if his 2022 sentiment looks bad in this moment, he's not wrong about the resources available to him in Baton Rouge. The big thing to this point has been not entirely taking advantage of those resources. If that tide turns, though, we know that the ceiling of the Tigers as a program is indeed national championship caliber.

But in this moment, Notre Dame fans should absolutely gloat over Kelly. He left them high-and-dry because he didn't believe in the potential of the program like he does at LSU. Freeman has thrown that back in his face beautifully and now has the Fighting Irish playing for the title. You'll get there one day too, Brian Kelly — just not before your former employer.