LSU’s Season Could Turn Around Saturday Night Vs. No. 3 Aggies, And Many LSU Fans Don’t Want That | Glenn Guilbeau

October 25, 2025 Glenn Guilbeau LSU Football News 0
LSU football coach Brian Kelly could erase a lot of the malaise of the 2025 season in three hours Saturday night against No. 3 and 7-0 Texas A&M in Tiger Stadium. (Tiger Rag photo by Michael Bacigalupi).

GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor

LSU fans are a curious lot.

Most extremely passionate, all-consumed fan bases are. But there’s still something different about this one.

There’s something in the water. Well, actually, there are a lot of things in the water, but that’s another story. There’s definitely something in the food. And ghosts live in Tiger Stadium – ghosts with whiskey.

And there’s something else. LSU football fans love winning and hate losing as much or more than any fan base, but what sets them apart is, they want revenge.

This is a fan base that went to the Texas A&M game in Tiger Stadium on Nov. 28, 2015, expecting a going away party for LSU coach Les Miles as athletic director Joe Alleva had been trying to fire him for weeks. And they cheered and pulled for their national championship coach of the 2007 season and 13-0 SEC champion, national runner-up in 2011. The Tigers smashed the Aggies, 19-7, to break a three-game losing streak, and Miles got carried off on his players’ shoulders.

FOOTBALL WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA NO. 1 GAME STORY OF 2015 – LSU 19, TEXAS A&M 7

And then LSU kept him to the chagrin of much of the fan base and a surprised media contingent.

Because the LSU Nation’s mind was made up on Miles. And once its mind is made up about a coach, it’s over … sooner or later.

And LSU fans’ and many media members’ minds are made up about current LSU coach Brian Kelly. Right or wrong, they want him gone.

My friend and former co-worker Scott Rabalais at the Baton Rouge Advocate said it best when Miles was on his way out for more than two seasons before he finally ran out of escapes, and the residue of previous seasons got him after a 2-2 start in 2016.

“At this point, much of the fan base would rather be right about their own beliefs than see their beloved team win,” Rabalais had said in 2015.

Yes, and that’s how they feel about Kelly right now. A win by the No. 20 Tigers (5-2, 2-2 SEC) and their No. 116 rushing offense would save Kelly this season – much like Miles’ 10-7 upset by his No. 24 Tigers over No. 3 Ole Miss in Tiger Stadium on Oct. 25, 2014, after a 2-2 start in the SEC, saved him. He lost his next two to finish 8-5 and 4-4, but he survived. And people were upset all over again as they were before that Ole Miss game. Just like they were upset all over again after the 2-2 overall start in 2016 following Miles getting their hopes up with the 2-0 finish to 2015 with the A&M win and a 56-27, offensive-explosion win over Texas Tech in the Texas Bowl.

Former LSU tight end great Richard Dickson (2006-09), who played for Miles, said it best on 104.5 FM in Baton Rouge on Friday.

“I’ve talked to a lot of people that are pissed off like everybody else and don’t feel good,” he said. “But they go, ‘This is just the type of game (Texas A&M tonight) that LSU’s going to win to get my hopes up for the rest of the season, just to let me down again.'”

So, they would rather LSU just lose, so they and their team can stay down. And maybe they’ll get a new coach.

Well, too bad, because if Kelly pulls out this game, he’s likely coming back next season, even if he loses two or three more. Because maybe there is just too much money invested in him by an athletic department and a school deep in financial issues and voodoo economics and void of a president to let him go.

Yes, Kelly’s LSU career arc is starting to resemble Miles’ without a national title, and that of a previous Scott Woodward hire at Texas A&M in Jimbo Fisher. But even with all of A&M’s money and Fisher’s $76 million buyout in 2023 compared to Kelly’s $53 million exit fee this year, A&M still didn’t fire Fisher until he was in the midst of a 6-4 and 4-3 season in 2023 AFTER a losing season the previous year at 5-7 and 2-6 with a loss to Appalachian State. Kelly hasn’t had a losing season yet and no embarrassing loss to a lower level program.

But still this fan base is ready to hit the eject button. During the latter years of Miles, wins were frequently viewed as prolonging the inevitable … like now. The bottom line is it’s not over until it’s over. And it’s not quite over for Kelly, even though it feels like it could be.

And the best observer of LSU athletics in the business – 104.5 FM’s Charles Hanagriff – picked an LSU win over A&M on Friday.

“This kind of stuff happens all the time in college football,” Hanagriff said. “One team looks like they’re on the way down, and the other team looks like they’re on the way up. I think LSU wins this game. I cannot provide you with the offense versus defense numbers, or particular match-ups as to why I think this. If I did that, I’d pick Texas A&M. I know about the emotion of college football and the road swings.”

And the heavy rain in the forecast throughout today and shortly before kickoff could slow the Aggies’ offense down. The LSU offense is already slow, so advantage LSU. And Kelly has made the right decision in starting true freshman Carius Curne at left tackle for injured starter Tyree Adams (ankle surgery) over D.J. Chester, who struggled last week.

An LSU win over A&M would not be a shock, though, I would not bet on it.

If it happens, who knows what’s next?

“It does not mean that I think everything’s fixed,” Hanagriff said. “It does not mean I think they’re going to the playoffs. It does not mean I think they’re going on a run. I just think LSU wins Saturday.”

Funny, as much as the LSU fan base loves to whine about negative media, the fans are now more negative tan the media. And Vegas sees LSU as having a much better chance tonight than the sad sack LSU fans. This is why the Tigers are only a 2.5-point underdog and not a 17-point dog, which is the number differential in the two teams’ rankings.

“We get lost in it because we’re so close to it,” Hanagriff said.

The hard facts are this. LSU has played poorly for the most part all season, and its only two losses are by a total of 12 points to ranked teams, and both were not in Tiger Stadium.

Kelly boiled it down to this.

“We’ve either played really good defense and not well enough on offense, or had some flashes on offense, and then didn’t play at the same standard on defense,” he said Wednesday. “And that’s why we are where we are. And Texas A&M is undefeated. But we get a chance to play them on Saturday. And look, at the end of the day, we just need to be the better team for three hours.”

Then he gets an open date to prepare for a trip to No. 6 Alabama.

TIGER RAG RADIO PODCAST ON TEXAS A&M GAME

Meanwhile, Texas A&M has a tendency to fall apart about this time of the season. It’s not quite November yet, but the Aggies are known for “The November Fade.” As Olin Buchanan of TexAgs.com said on Tiger Rag Radio this week, “Turkeys have better months in November than the Aggies have had.”

SO WHY ISN’T TENNESSEE COACH JOSH HEUPEL ON THE HOT SEAT?

And, meanwhile, at Tennessee, coach Josh Heupel is 5-2 and 2-2, too, as he will lose two or more SEC games for his fifth straight season. That is similar to Kelly, who has lost two or more for the fourth straight season, but never more than three. Heupel has gone 4-4 twice in the SEC.

Heupel inherited a bad program, yes, as Jeremy Pruitt was 8-5 and 3-7 in the two seasons pre-Heupel before NCAA probation took away the wins. Tennessee had losing seasons over the two seasons pre-Pruitt, too. But Kelly also inherited a similarly poor program – 5-5 and 6-7 before his arrival – and just 39 players on scholarship after a mass exodus.

While Heupel has been significantly better against ranked teams at 11-12 to Kelly’s 5-10, Kelly’s overall numbers are better. Heupel is 42-17 (.711) in his fifth season at Tennessee and 22-14 in the SEC (.611) and 0-1 in the College Football Playoffs. Kelly is 34-13 (.723) in his fourth season at LSU and 19-9 in the SEC (.678) with no playoffs.

Yet, Heupel being on the hot seat is not even discussed, and even laughed at. This is because Tennessee last won a national championship in the 1998 season and hasn’t scratched since 2001. LSU has won three over that span (2003, ’07 and ’19 seasons) under three coaches and played for a fourth in the 2011 season.

And Heupel looks like a genius compared to the goofs who coached Tennessee after Phillip Fulmer and before him, and Kelly just looks like a goof next to Miles and Ed Orgeron, who were goofy at times but recruited significantly better than Kelly and won national championships.

Three hours on a Saturday night is all Kelly needs to shut the goofs up, including me … for at least the next two weeks.

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