Brian Kelly is headed to the broadcasting booth.
This is according to Ryan Glasspiegel of Front Office Sports, who is reporting that the former Notre Dame Fighting Irish and LSU Tigers head football coach will be a color analyst for CBS this season.
It’s expected, according to the report, that Kelly will be a part of a three-man booth covering Mountain West games.
CBS Sports has the rights to one Big Ten football game a week, as well as rights to Mountain West coverage. Charles Davis will be alongside Brad Nessler on the Big Ten coverage, and Kelly, along with two others, will be in the booth for the other games.
“This move was partly foreshadowed when Kelly was a part of CBS Sports Network’s studio coverage around the NFL Draft. He will also be an analyst on the CBSSN weekday program, ‘Inside College Football,’ this season,” wrote Glasspiegel.
Kelly, 64, was fired by LSU in late October of the 2025 season after the Tigers dropped a home game to Texas A&M, 49-25. LSU had started the season at 5-3 and was only 2-3 against SEC opponents.
Kelly finished his time at LSU with a record of 34-14 in four seasons. Before LSU, he had gone 113-40 in 12 seasons at Notre Dame. His stint in South Bend included a trip to the BCS National Championship Game at the end of the 2012 season, where he and his Irish lost to Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide.
Can Brian Kelly win over fans in the broadcasting booth?
Speaking of Saban, he’s a great example of a not-so-recently retired former coach who has really done well on television. He doesn’t call games, but he’s brought a ton of value to ESPN as a studio analyst.
Kelly has the same football knowledge that Saban does, but does he have the personality to win over fans in the broadcasting booth? He’ll also have to work alongside two others in the booth, and that could be a tough transition for someone who has been the main voice in the room since he became the head coach at Grand Valley State University in 1991.
