The LSU Tigers season started with sky high expectations, and ended with everyone picking up the pieces from a shocking year. Coming into the season, LSU was expected to compete for a National Championship after returning key pieces while Brian Kelly used his own money to help the Tigers build a loaded transfer class. After the Tigers went on the road and beat Clemson to start the season, the goals were seemingly achievable.
The weeks that followed slowly proved the Tigers weren't that level of team as they struggled with Louisiana Tech, hardly beat an awful Florida team, and beat Southeastern Louisiana. The Tigers would then lose to Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, and get demolished by Texas A&M in a 4 week span leading to the end of the Brian Kelly era.
Tyrann Mathieu points to Brian Kelly's treatment of Nussmeier as the moment he lost it all
The exact moment LSU's season started to fall apart may have happened in the Summer when Garrett Nussmeier injured his oblique. Nussmeier clearly wasn't healthy before SEC play, yet the Tigers continued to play him while Kelly would call him out after the games. In the lead up to the NFL Draft, Nussmeier has talked about just how injured he's been making it even crazier that he played.
Tyrann Mathieu went on his podcast "In The Bayou With Tyrann Mathieu" where he ripped Brian Kelly for failing to protect his quarterback pointing to it as the moment that Brian Kelly lost his locker room.
Tyrann Mathieu reacts to how Brian Kelly treated Garrett Nussmeier while he dealt with his oblique injury 😳
— In The Bayou With Tyrann Mathieu (@InTheBayouPod) March 21, 2026
“I don’t think Brian Kelly protected him… I think that’s part of the reason he lost the locker room. Like that whole building knew what that kid was going through." pic.twitter.com/fI1AgiJt8t
The fact that everyone in the building and seemingly outside the building knew Garrett Nussmeier clearly wasn't okay makes it even crazier that Brian Kelly never found a way to put the player first. Brian Kelly knew just how much he needed to win, and refusing to let Nussmeier try to recover in the early portion of the season cost him the rest of the way.
In fairness to Brian Kelly, it's totally possible that Garrett Nussmeier hid from the staff just how injured he was, and how much the injury effected him. Even if that's the case however, everyone was able to see that was the case watching him play, and Kelly should've been able to see that each week, yet he never made the change.
Garrett Nussmeier's injury in practice may end up being one of the major sliding doors moments in college football when we look back on it. Lane Kiffin is now in LSU where everyone is convinced he'll eventually win a National Championship as a better fit than Kelly was. Pete Golding now has his first head coaching gig leading the Rebels.
It'll be interesting to see next offseason if Brian Kelly gets another job at a Power 4 program or if his shortcomings at LSU end his time as a major college football coach. Kelly's departure from Notre Dame made a ton of enemies, and after messing up a golden opportunity at LSU, teams may end up looking in another direction.