The college football world has seen a pretty major shake-up in recent days thanks to a pair of head coaches bolting from one blue blood job for another. Now-former Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley reckoned his time in Norman had run its course and decided to take the USC job, and one day later, longtime Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly took over LSU’s head coaching vacancy now that Ed Orgeron is no longer in charge.
While the Riley news came out of left field, Kelly heading down to Baton Rouge was arguably an even bigger surprise, thanks in part to the fact that the Fighting Irish have a legitimate chance of making the College Football Playoff depending on how things shake out during the various conference championship games this upcoming weekend. Shortly after news of his decision hit the Twitterverse on Monday, a message Kelly sent to the team regarding a 7 a.m. meeting where he’d explain himself.
Shortly after Matt Fortuna and Pete Sampson of The Athletic published the transcript of his message to the team in their tell-all in the aftermath of his departure, video surfaced of Kelly’s goodbye to the team. Here’s the entire thing:
FOOTAGE: Brian Kelly’s 4-minute goodbye address to the Notre Dame football team, Part 1: pic.twitter.com/Yt8qMrJYu1
— PFF College (@PFF_College) December 1, 2021
Part 2: pic.twitter.com/osFKECmHxh
— PFF College (@PFF_College) December 1, 2021
According to The Athletic, Kelly did not take any questions from the team, and after he said goodbye, “he walked out of the door to his right.” Notre Dame was sixth in the most recent College Football Playoff rankings that were released on Tuesday evening, and on Wednesday, Kelly had his introductory press conference at LSU.