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LSU Head Coach Brian Kelly

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fter being fired midway through his fourth season as head coach of the LSU Tigers in 2025, Brian Kelly has found a new role in college football.

Kelly is expected to take time off from coaching and join CBS this upcoming season to call Mountain West games for the broadcast network as part of a three-man booth, sources told Ryan Glasspiegel of Front Office Sports.

The network is undergoing notable changes despite acquiring Mountain West broadcasting rights. CBS will air just one Big Ten game per week, and Charles Davis will replace Gary Danielson alongside Brad Nessler on the network’s lead broadcast team.

CBS has yet to publicly announce Kelly’s role. However, the move builds on his recent appearance on CBS Sports Network, where he joined Kevin Carter and Beanie Wells to discuss the 2026 NFL Draft in April.

Brian Kelly’s Time at LSU

Kelly, the all-time winningest coach in Notre Dame history with 113 wins, left the program in 2021 after 12 seasons to accept the LSU job on an historic 10-year, $95 million deal, which made him the second highest-paid coach in the sport behind Nick Saban at the time. 

In Baton Rouge, he compiled a solid 34-14 overall record and went 19-10 against SEC opponents. However, the standard at LSU is not simply to finish above .500 year after year — it’s to win national championships. Kelly failed to lead the Tigers to the College Football Playoff during his tenure and had the team sitting at 5-3 when he was fired in October.

Why does Kelly believe he was fired? Simply put, he didn’t win enough games. 

“I would say there’s an easy, simple answer,” Kelly told USA Today back in April, “and I didn’t win enough games. There’s a longer answer to why that didn’t happen, I’ll probably have to write a book about that. There’s always cause and effect and the effect was I didn’t win enough games, period.

“We were 34-14, 22-3 at home when I was fired,” he added. “We had two 10-win seasons, won an SEC [West Division] championship, had the No. 1 offense in college football, a Heisman Trophy winner. When you look at what is winning and what keeps you employed, other people make those decisions. But it starts with what is defined as winning, and unfortunately it wasn’t defined as enough winning leading into being fired.”

Kelly Plans to Coach Again

In his comments to USA Today, Kelly noted that despite being 64 years old, he still intends to return to coaching.

“I still want to make a difference,” said Kelly. “All the young men that have been under my charge over 35 years, I feel like I have a lot still to give. Even with all this money in college football, they still need mentorship, still need development. Money aside, I have a lot to give. And my motivation is to want to get back to building relationships and successful programs in college football.”