Brian Kelly, who was born and raised just outside of Boston, is not from the south. He played at Assumption, also not in the south. Kelly then coached at Grand Valley State, Central Michigan, Cincinnati, and Notre Dame — none of which, you guessed it, are in the south.
Brian Kelly faked a terrible southern accent to impress LSU fans
Bless his heart.
James Dator has been covering a wide range of sports for SB Nation for over a decade, with a special focus on the NFL.
The Bayou is a strong place though, and it took only 48 hours for Kelly to develop a stunningly thick southern accent. Weird.
This is hilariously bad. It’s Nicholas Cage in Con Air bad. It’s Lucas Black in Friday Night Lights bad. The whole thing is surreal. I cannot fathom why Kelly thought he had to fake a southern accent just to ingratiate himself to Louisiana. Believe it or not, people from the south are used to hearing people talk in different accents, and they don’t hold it against them!
As someone who moved from Australia to North Carolina I can attest at times things were lost in translation. Sure, I had a classmate in college think I was a skiing expert because they didn’t know the difference between Australia and Austria. Absolutely there were times people couldn’t understand what I was saying — but I never felt the need to go full Foghorn Leghorn to win friends.
Just in case you think this is everyone piling on Brian Kelly, he deserves it. Jeff Darlington did a breakdown of Kelly saying “family” TWO DAYS AGO at Notre Dame, compared to last night.
Hoo boy this is going to be interesting to watch. This week Bomani Jones and Spencer Hall discussed Kelly going to LSU, and why relationship really should not mesh.
So, aside from the cornball accent taken out of a terrible acting class, how are fans going to receive Kelly saying “I haven’t even won all MY games yet”? It hasn’t been a week and he’s already setting this up to tell people that it’s all about him. Sorry, let me translate that into Kelly’s new parlance ... ahem.
I do declare it ain’t been a week yet and Brian Kelly’s flappin’ his gums sayin’ it’s all about him. It’s enough to give me the vapors.
It’s okay Brian, you’ll soon learn about “bless your heart.” It’s a seemingly innocuous phrase dripping in sass used in the south to soften the blow of an insult, or just wink at those around you to let them know your condemnation. So Brian, you really don’t need to pretend to be from the south ... bless your heart.
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