The Athletic has live coverage of the reaction to LSU firing Brian Kelly.

LSU fired head football coach Brian Kelly on Sunday night, less than 24 hours after the Tigers were embarrassed by Texas A&M in a 49-25 home loss.

The announcement came hours after Kelly and athletic director Scott Woodward met and disagreed over possible coaching staff changes, multiple program sources told The Athletic.

On the heels of LSU’s third loss in four games, the sources said Woodward wanted Kelly to make staff changes, including firing offensive coordinator Joe Sloan, to try to fix an offense that ranks last in the SEC in rushing yards per game. However, when Kelly and Woodward met Sunday afternoon, things got very tense. After Woodward told the head coach to fire his play caller, Kelly fired back that he wanted to make other staff moves Woodward wasn’t comfortable with. The situation then escalated, with the head coach pushing back hard against his boss.

Threats about negotiating a settlement of Kelly’s $53 million buyout came up, but whether the LSU Board of Supervisors would give Woodward the authority to do that was another matter that needed to be sorted out. Kelly’s contract would give LSU some relief if he gets another coaching job and does not include a huge lump-sum payout.

LSU’s news release Sunday night said “terms of the separation are still being negotiated.”

“When Coach Kelly arrived at LSU four years ago, we had high hopes that he would lead us to multiple SEC and national championships during his time in Baton Rouge,” Woodward said in the release. “Ultimately, the success at the level that LSU demands simply did not materialize, and I made the decision to make a change after last night’s game. I am grateful for the ongoing consultations and support of the LSU Board of Supervisors and interim president Matt Lee in this decision. We wish Coach Kelly and his family the very best in their future endeavors. We will continue to negotiate his separation and will work toward a path that is better for both parties.”

Associate head coach Frank Wilson has been named the interim head coach. A team meeting had been called for 8 p.m. CT Sunday, multiple program sources told The Athletic. Tigers players are scheduled to be off Monday, as LSU (5-3, 2-3 SEC) begins an idle week before playing at No. 4 Alabama on Nov. 8.

Kelly had left the football facility earlier Sunday, as did pretty much everyone else on the LSU staff, as they awaited some resolution. Kelly’s agent, Trace Armstrong, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The school has been operating under the interim president Lee, the College of Agriculture dean, since May, when previous president William Tate left to take the same role at Rutgers. Conversations took place Sunday among Tigers leadership and power brokers that included the state’s governor, Jeff Landry, to assess an immediate path forward with the LSU football program and Kelly’s future in Baton Rouge. Landry met with the LSU Board of Supervisors on Sunday evening to address the matter.

LSU’s move increased the number of Power 4 head-coaching vacancies to eight. LSU would immediately become one of the most desirable, along with Florida and Penn State. With plenty more jobs expected to come up, Kelly — like former Penn State coach James Franklin — could be an attractive candidate.

The Tigers began this season ranked No. 9 in the AP poll, as Kelly embraced the expectations for his team in Year 4. Kelly said that LSU’s roster cost $18 million to assemble, which more than tripled the financial commitment made to last year’s team. He had made bold proclamations about 2025 last winter after the program had backslid in his third year on the job.

“We’re taking receipts … and we’ll see you at the national championship,” Kelly said after the Tigers finished the season by beating an Oklahoma team that went 6-6.

The three coaches who preceded Kelly at LSU — Ed Orgeron, Les Miles and Nick Saban — all won a national title in their first four years on the job. Kelly’s record at LSU is 34-14, including a 5-11 mark against ranked opponents.

Kelly has already experienced major staff turnover in his three-plus seasons at LSU, first cleaning house when he left Notre Dame and took over for Orgeron after the 2021 season.

LSU started 4-0 but has lost three of its past four games. (Stephen Lew / Imagn Images)

The Tigers won the SEC West and upset Alabama in Kelly’s first season, but there was no progress in year two despite a Heisman Trophy season from quarterback Jayden Daniels. Offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock then left LSU and returned to Notre Dame after Daniels’ Heisman season in 2023. Sloan was promoted from quarterbacks coach to replace him.

Kelly overhauled his defense staff after the 2023 season, hiring former Tigers assistant Blake Baker away from Missouri to be coordinator for $2.5 million per season. Kelly also brought back several coaches — at the behest of Woodward — with ties to previous LSU staffs, including defensive backs coach Corey Raymond and defensive line coach Bo Davis, to help boost in-state recruiting. Davis left to join the New Orleans Saints after last season, when LSU finished 9-4 and unranked.

This season, the problems at LSU flipped to the other side of the ball. Kelly’s offense ranks No. 105 in the nation in rushing yards per carry (3.78) and No. 83 in scoring (25.5 points per game), while the defense helped LSU get off to a promising start.

The Tigers started 4-0 with an opening victory at then-No. 4 Clemson that snapped a string of three straight losses in high-profile openers for LSU under Kelly. But Clemson has fizzled too, and even with an NFL prospect in Garrett Nussmeier at quarterback, LSU’s offense has been among the worst in the SEC. LSU has yet to score more than 25 points against an FBS opponent, including a 24-19 loss to Ole Miss, a 31-24 loss to Vanderbilt and the 49-25 loss to Texas A&M in which it finished with 278 total yards.

As soon as Kelly was hired away from Notre Dame by Woodward in December 2021, questions arose about how well his style of running a program and recruiting would fit at an SEC powerhouse. An awkward introduction at an LSU basketball game, when Kelly slipped into an odd southern-sounding accent, was considered the first red flag.

Kelly, a Massachusetts native, spent most of the first three decades of his coaching career in the Midwest, winning a Division II national title at Grand Valley State before entering FBS with Central Michigan. His career record in the FBS is 200-76.

Kelly left Notre Dame for LSU because he saw it as a better chance to win a national championship. He openly said he felt he had taken Notre Dame as far as it could go over 12 seasons, going 113-40.

He compared coaching in the SEC to playing in Major League Baseball’s hyper-competitive American League East with the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox.

“It’s been awesome because you’ve got incredible facilities, you’ve got players that want to be great,” Kelly told the Associated Press on the eve of his first spring practice at LSU in 2022. “I want to be in an environment where I have the resources to win a national championship.”

Instead, Kelly peaked in year one and was never able to deliver the national title that his Hall of Fame resume has lacked — and that his three predecessors at LSU had won.