Presenting Brian Kelly, Southern gentleman

Brian Kelly’s been down South for all of 72 hours and is ready to challenge every last person who said that he wouldn’t be a culture fit at LSU. You want a culture fit? How’s a brand-spanking-new Southern accent for a culture fit? As Kelly took the floor at halftime of the LSU basketball game Wednesday night, he greeted the crowd by debuting a never-before-heard generic drawl. He must have eaten some life-changing Cajun crawfish for his first meal in Baton Rouge, because that man changed accents faster than the 11 minutes it took him to say goodbye to his playoff contending team.

I’ve had the misfortune of listening to this guy talk for 12 years, and I think that Southern Brian Kelly is going to be an absolute and utter delight to watch over the next three years before he gets fired. This new persona is fodder for unlimited and hilarious content, some of which I will include here if you haven’t had the privilege of seeing the various memes already made.

As a reminder, Kelly was born and bred in Boston and has coached his entire career in the Midwest until now. Apparently he’s been practicing those Coach-O-style “Geaux Tigahs” in the mirror this week to get all ready for SEC news conferences and meeting recruits’ moms in the Bayou (the memes about that were glorious as well).

Now if I remember correctly from my time in the Notre Dame dining halls, we were fed a strict diet of corned beef and cabbage every day except on Mardi Gras, at which point my Southern-born friends would complain of the hall’s weak attempt at jambalaya.

Jokes aside, Kelly’s “foreigner” status in one of the most uniquely cultured areas in the country truly may prove to be a challenge in his recruiting. He’s also got an all-but-empty coaching staff right now that he has to fill — preferably with Southern coaches who know the area and are able to recruit well, but the choice of nearly every ND assistant to remain in South Bend may turn some potential candidates off. Until then, I hope Kelly’s watching Knives Out every night on his journey to perfect the Daniel Craig quasi-Louisiana drawl.

As a non-Southerner myself, perhaps I’m not as up in arms about how bad Kelly’s accent was as I ought to be. But I am willing to acknowledge that this is objectively the funniest thing he’s ever done, and I genuinely hope it continues. I’d kill to be in the Orgeron household after this video dropped.