Ryan Clark delivers his take on Brian Kelly's future if LSU loses vs. Texas A&M

After last weekend’s loss at No. 17 Vanderbilt to fall to 5-2 (2-2), the pressure is back on Brian Kelly down in Baton Rouge. That makes, at least to some, this weekend’s matchup, a night game against No. 3 Texas A&M in Death Valley, almost a must-win for the head coach of LSU.

Ryan Clark discussed Kelly’s future with the Tigers while live on ‘First Take’ from Birmingham on Friday morning. He knows that there wouldn’t be a firing immediately if a a loss happened tomorrow night against the Aggies, but that winning out would likely be necessary from there for Kelly to keep his job.

“I don’t think he’s coaching for his job on Saturday, but, if he loses Saturday, he’s coaching for his job the rest of the season,” said Clark.

At this point, we know the on-field issue for LSU, with them, despite being 34-13 (.723) in his three and a half seasons, making just one appearance in the SEC Championship and having not made the College Football Playoff, with neither of those currently looking likely to change by this season’s end, in the tenure under Kelly. But, Clark is at the point with it off the field that he just wonders if he is even the right fit as the head coach of the program, especially with those on-field shortcomings factored in on top of that.

“The thing is this. With Scott Woodward, and I always say this – he’s a big-game hunter, right. Like, he had to go find a basketball coach for the women’s game? He didn’t say, nah, we’re just going to go get one of these up and coming assistants somewhere. We’re going to get Kim Mulkey, right. He’s like, you know what, we got a baseball team? We’re going to go get Coach Johnson, right. And, when it came to football, he said we’re going to go big-game hunting, and we’re going to get Brian Kelly – the winningest coach in Notre Dame history. But, you’ve got to be a fit, right,” said Clark. “You’ve got to figure out how to make the people in Louisiana want to back you. You’ve got to say, okay, why do we love this coach?”

“And, if you can’t do that, then you’ve got to win, right,” added Clark. “You can’t go up to Vanderbilt and lose, right. You can’t have games where you don’t show up in the biggest moments. It can’t be the team that your collective said, okay, we’re going to go out and we’re going to invest with this NIL? You can’t be that team that goes and spends the money and we don’t see the fruits on the field.”

“Brian Kelly says he left Notre Dame so he could be at a school that could give him the requisite pieces to win a championship. Notre Dame went to a championship last year, and you haven’t even been to a playoff,” Clark also went on to say later in the segment. “That’s an indictment on who you are as a coach.”

On the desk with him this morning at Legion Field, Stephen A. Smith and Cam Newton each agreed. Smith simply said, with another loss tomorrow night, things like “(he’s) done”, “it’s over”, and “the time is up”. Newton then acknowledged the point about the fit, wondering if he even fits the SEC let alone at LSU, while also himself adding that “it’s time, bro” when it comes to Kelly.

LSU will have its season on the line every time that they take the field from here out, including their next two over the next three weeks against A&M and Alabama. Because of that, Kelly will also have his tenure on the line too if Clark knows the people of the bayou like he does

“If he doesn’t go out and win against Texas A&M? That fire gets turned up real hot on Brian Kelly,” said Clark. “And he has to win out for the rest of the season, or somebody in Baton Rouge, in Louisiana, will be putting up that money for the buyout.”