GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
When Brian Kelly left Notre Dame for LSU three years ago he spoke of wanting “to be on the Broadway stage,” competing for national championships in the Southeastern Conference.
To conclude his third season, Kelly and his unranked Tigers (8-4) will be decidedly off Broadway in Houston at the third-tier Texas Bowl on New Year’s Eve (2:30 p.m., ESPN) against unranked Baylor (8-4), which finished in a tie for fifth in the Big 12 at 6-3. LSU finished in a six-way tie for fourth in down year in the SEC at 5-3. The game will be at 72,220-seat NRG Stadium – the home of the Houston Texans.
Alabama (9-3, 5-3) took a spot LSU fans were wanting in the ReliaQuest Bowl against Michigan (7-5, 5-4 Big Ten for seventh-place tie) in Tampa on New Year’s Eve (11 a.m., ESPN). LSU and Michigan have never played in football.
The Crimson Tide did not make the new, 12-team College Football Playoff format on Sunday, largely due to an embarrassing, 24-3 loss on Nov. 23 at Oklahoma, which finished 6-6 with a 2-6 finish in the SEC for a 14th place tie out of 16 teams. Alabama also lost to Vanderbilt, which finished 6-6 and 3-5. LSU beat both Vanderbilt and Oklahoma, but lost to Alabama, 42-13. The Tigers played in the ReliaQuest Bowl last season and beat unranked Wisconsin, 35-31, in the final minutes.
Kelly will square off against Baylor head coach Dave Aranda, who was the Tigers’ defensive coordinator when LSU won the national championship in the 2019 season. Aranda announced he would become Baylor’s coach the day after LSU beat Clemson for the national championship on Jan. 13, 2020, to finish 15-0. Aranda had been LSU’s DC since the 2016 season. He was briefly considered to replace Orgeron before LSU hired Kelly.
LSU finds itself in the Texas Bowl for the second time in four seasons. When the Tigers finished 6-6 and 3-5 in the SEC in 2021, they lost to unranked Kansas State, 42-20, in that bowl with only 39 scholarship players. Coach Ed Orgeron had resigned under pressure that he would be fired that season and coached the last five regular season games, going 2-3. Offensive line coach Brad Davis was the interim coach for the bowl. Kelly had been hired, but only watched the game.
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