Ryan Clark pitches Penn State to consider hiring Brian Kelly if LSU reaches College Football Playoff

No. 10 LSU will travel to Nashville to play No. 17 Vanderbilt on Saturday afternoon. But, regardless of what they do tomorrow or for the remainder of this season, Ryan Clark sounds ready to auction off Brian Kelly to somewhere else in college football.

Clark, on the panel on ‘First Take’ on Friday morning, was asked which game was most intriguing on the schedule for Week 8, with his answer being the Top 20 conference matchup of LSU vs. Vanderbilt. He sees it as a prime opportunity for the Tigers, specifically their offense, to be what many thought they’d be coming into the season, and be that on the road against what’s a decent opponent these days in Vandy.

“Obviously, it’s Vanderbilt-LSU,” Clark said. “And, I am a homer, for sure. For me, it’s – who is the real LSU? Where’s the Garrett Nussmeier that was supposed to go top-five? Where is this explosive offense that you supposedly were able to get by having a track team, or a 4×1 team in the wide receiver room? You have a defense that’s playing top tier. Now, can you go and play Diego Pavia, who is all energy, all execution, all fight, and can you go and win that game handily? Because, if you can’t, then that’s an issue, and you are not a College Football Playoff team.”

However, whether the Tigers win or lose, or whether they make the playoff or not, Clark just suddenly began offering Kelly to other jobs, which are currently opening or will open, in the sport. He specifically referenced the opening at Penn State, which was a prior topic from earlier in the segment.

“If they do (make the College Football Playoff)? Penn State? There’s a great coach at LSU named Brian Kelly, that everybody loves, that you should look at,” Clark said.

This was a bit of an odd interjection that Clark got in right as he was done with his take. It’d make even less sense if, with a win tomorrow in Music City, Kelly would move to 35-12 (.745) in his tenure with the Tigers, and it’d make even less sense than that if he were to actually do what many have been waiting for him to do since he got there in taking them back to the CFP.

Just to play along, though, what if Brian Kelly is an ideal candidate at Penn State? He’s a native of the Northeast, which may make him a better fit in State College than in Baton Rouge. He also has a resumé that’s two decades long of him being one of the best coaches in the sport with a career record of 200-74 (.730). Since 2010, at two of college football’s biggest brands, Kelly is 113-40 (.739) at Notre Dame and then the 34-12 mark at LSU. So, while said almost out of nowhere, the Nittany Lions could end up with far worse candidates than Kelly.

This likely becomes an afterthought of a comment as Kelly continues this season and Penn State begins its coaching search. Still, Clark provided quite a thought in just offering up his alma mater’s head coach midseason.