Michigan coaching search: Ryan Clark shoots down possibility of Brian Kelly being a candidate for Wolverines

Amid all the chaos that has taken place in the last 24 hours since Sherrone Moore‘s firing for cause and subsequent arrest Wednesday evening, where Michigan football turns next has taken a bit of a back seat. That said, the newly-opened Wolverines head coaching job has already been connected with multiple big-name candidates.

On3 insider Pete Nakos‘ initial Hot Board included prominent sitting head coaches such as Alabama‘s Kalen DeBoer, USC‘s Lincoln Riley, Missouri‘s Eli Drinkwitz, Washington‘s Jedd Fisch and Vanderbilt‘s Clark Lea, among other options. But at least one Michigan coaching candidate that’s been lobbied about doesn’t pass the smell test for ESPN’s Ryan Clark: former LSU head coach Brian Kelly, who was fired himself in October.

“Going forward, you can’t just bring in a coach that’s good at Xs and Os. You need to bring in a leader of men. You need to bring in a man that these young men can look at and model certain aspects of their life after. I don’t know who that is,” Clark said Thursday morning on ESPN’s First Take. “Is it a Jedd Fisch from the University of Washington, who turned Arizona around? I know I heard the name Brian Kelly floated around, and he absolutely should not be the next head coach of Michigan. From everything we’ve seen from Kalen DeBoer, even if he’s not winning the amount of games you want him to win at Alabama, he carries himself in a way that I would want my son to play for.

“And I think when you’re looking at finding this next head coach, it’s not as simple as how many games can we win. It’s who can change the perception of the sort of person we are picking to lead young men into the next chapters of their lives.”

Among the most prominent names mentioned in connection to Michigan, Kelly is the only candidate currently without a job after he was fired Oct. 26, one day after the Tigers’ embarrassing 49-25 home loss to Texas A&M. Kelly is owed a $54 million buyout from LSU, which the school’s Board of Supervisors finally agreed to pay after some legal wrangling between both parties.

Kelly finished his four-year tenure at LSU with a 34-13 overall record, including 19-10 in SEC play. While he kept the Tigers competitive, Kelly only made the SEC Championship Game once, in his first season, and never qualified for the College Football Playoff while in Baton Rouge.