SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Brian Kelly has 35 years of head coaching experience, and he doesn’t believe his career on the sideline is over. To understand what’s next, he will spend the next year remembering where he’s been. And for Kelly, who was fired by LSU last October halfway through his fourth season in Baton Rouge, that means retracing his steps from Grand Valley State to Notre Dame, the place he bolted from in December 2021 while the Irish were still in contention for the College Football Playoff.

“Reconnecting just feels so good, and you don’t get a chance to do that when you’re running 110 miles an hour on the treadmill,” Kelly said this week in an appearance on The Independent podcast. “You’re getting a chance to reconnect with former coaches, players, (that’s) been priority No. 1 for me, actually.”

In June, Kelly was reported to be in discussions with CBS Sports about joining its college football coverage, though he said this week nothing was signed yet. For Kelly, spending the 2026 football season as a member of the media would be a means to an end. If he doesn’t keep in touch with the sport this fall in some capacity, Kelly knows college football could move on from him entirely.

Kelly has already been to Green Bay this offseason, visiting his former quarterbacks coach Matt LaFleur. He’ll be back at Grand Valley State for a golf outing, returning to a place where he won two national titles at the Division II level. And at some point later this year, Kelly intends to visit Notre Dame, returning to the Guglielmino Athletics Complex four and a half years after he walked out.

Kelly returned to Notre Dame for the funeral of Lou Holtz in March, paying respects to the last head football coach to win a national title at Notre Dame. The next time he comes to South Bend, it would be to back Marcus Freeman in his effort to be the next Irish head coach to win it all.

“Obviously it’s important for me to let them know that I’m supporting and I want to support the program and I want that out there and I want to be visible for a day,” Kelly said. “I’m not in there to look at what they’re running offensively or defensively, but I just want to show that I have 100 percent faith and confidence in what they’re doing and how they’re doing it, not that they need me to validate in any way.

“But I want our fans to know, the Notre Dame fans, that I’m 100 percent supportive of what they’re doing and how they are doing it on a day-to-day basis.”

College football and Notre Dame have changed since Kelly’s departure in 2021, but the program’s all-time leader in wins (and losses) still has connections here. His name is on a wall inside the Irish Athletics Center, as a donor who helped fund the indoor practice facility’s construction. Current offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock worked for Kelly at three spots — Grand Valley State, Notre Dame and LSU — and stood in Kelly’s wedding. Notre Dame deputy athletic director Ron Powlus was on Kelly’s operations staff.

Mostly notably, Kelly’s last defensive coordinator is now the head coach.

“It’s extraordinary that a football coach with no head coaching experience has been able to step in the job and do as well as Marcus has,” Kelly said. “I think that that needs to be said. I had 19 years of being a head coach, and I felt like the water is up to my nose at times at Notre Dame.

“What Marcus does extremely well is he listens. He doesn’t have a preordained, ‘This is the way we’re doing it.’ He’ll get there, but he listens. And he listens to people around him, people that he respects. And because he does that and he’s humble, he’s able to move with the job as the job becomes difficult at times or ever-changing. And that’s a great quality that he had.”

Kelly, who still owns a lake home in Michigan less than an hour from Notre Dame, doesn’t plan to be a regular in South Bend. He joked that you won’t catch him running around the lakes on campus to get in a workout. He added that he still has seats in Notre Dame Stadium, even if he’s unlikely to ever use them.

For Kelly, this fall will be about watching and listening. Kelly said he wouldn’t rule out being an assistant coach for the first time in 30-plus years. He also said he didn’t need to take a job offer from one of the few programs with a realistic chance of winning a national title.

“I don’t think I’ve closed any doors in my own mind,” Kelly said. “And I think that’s the most important thing. I’m very open-minded about what the opportunities might be for me. I have a lot more to give.”