The bully of college football comes out to defend Brian Kelly against the Notre Dame haters. As of now, both the teams, Notre Dame and LSU have lost one game out of their 2 ever since the season began and yet, the fans of the Fighting Irish team don’t skip on any opportunity to bash on Brian Kelly. The hate that keeps piling up against Brian Kelly seems to solely stem from the fact that he decided to go coach Notre Dame’s arch-rivaling team after being their HC for more than a decade. Marcus Freeman was the man that they brought in to replace Kelly but so far, he hasn’t had a lot of success either. At the moment, Freeman and Kelly’s respective records for their teams stand at 20-9, and 21-8, which is almost identical. Thus, Finebaum coming to Kelly’s defense doesn’t seem like an out-of-the-blue gesture but rather a deserving one.

On the 11th September episode of the ‘Always College Football with Greg McElroy’ Paul Finebaum came on to the show and was talking about whether Marcus Freeman could gain back the faith of the Notre Dame fans. The same fans, who relentlessly attack Brian Kelly, to which, Finebaum took a firm stand.

Finebaum went on a little rant of his own to defend Brian Kelly and stated how Brian Kelly has made it to the playoffs twice whereas Freeman has yet to make his debut. He said, “I know Notre Dame fans love to beat up on Brian Kelly and say all the things, and take such glee and ooze out with the shot-in-froyo every time Brian Kelly loses but Brian Kelly has lost to some pretty good teams over his LSU tenure.” Thus, Kelly seems to have a confidante in Finebaum for the course of this season while Freeman is yet to prove worthy of the analyst’s best wishes. With that being said, let’s take a look at the iconic rivalry between LSU and Notre Dame and where the record currently stands.

LSU v/s Notre Dame: A rivalry for the ages

Ever since Kelly decided to jump ship and join LSU, the two teams have developed a keen sense of dislike for each other. Notre Dame and LSU haven’t played a regular season since 1998 but have clashed in a total of three bowl games since 2007. It is improbable that they will meet on the gridiron this season but if they did, it would be a match for the ages, seeing as how the tensions are at an all-time high.

They met each other for the first time in 1970 when Notre Dame was the victors with nothing but 3 points on the scoreboard. Since then, they’ve played against each other a total of 12 times, with the Fighting Irish standing in the lead by a score of 7-5. Both the fans of these teams would want to see Brian Kelly and Marcus Freeman square off in a potential game in the upcoming seasons but as of now, the cold war between them is probably not going to end anytime soon.