LSU athletic director Verge Ausberry slams former coach Brian Kelly while praising Lane Kiffin

While LSU coach Lane Kiffin has been the target of many fans’ and media members’ ire over the past few days thanks to his Vanity Fair interview, one man has been squarely in his corner.

Unsurprisingly, Tigers athletic director Verge Ausberry had his new head coach’s back while trashing former coach Brian Kelly and his inability to relate to boosters or fans during his time in Baton Rouge.

In an interview with USA Today, Ausberry went scorched earth, saying the program needed a complete change of direction after parting ways with Kelly.

“It’s going back to the Saban model,” Ausberry told USA Today’s Matt Hayes. “(That means) running the whole program. Then, you have to go do some things with alumni and do things with boosters and do things with fundraising, with NIL. You have to be a part of that.”

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Though he never mentions Brian Kelly by name, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who he’s referring to during his diatribe.

“That’s what Lane will do,” Ausberry continued. “He’ll go out there and have that conversation with the donors and the people who support the program and (say), ‘We need your help,’ and give them his cell number.”

“He’s not one who’ll say, ‘OK, I don’t want people to contact me. I don’t want people to touch me. I don’t want people to be around me.’ That’s who we had. That’s why we got what we got. There was no feel, there was no connection between the LSU football program, the coach, and the fans.”

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Pretty scathing stuff from Ausberry, but not entirely baseless based on what has come out of the program as well as the tangible results during Kelly’s tenure.

LSU remains one of the easiest programs in the country to recruit talent to, given its bevy of resources and diehard boosters, yet Kelly’s recruiting classes never matched those of his direct predecessor, Ed Orgeron.

According to the 247Sports recruiting composite rankings, Orgeron’s average class ranking as head coach at LSU was 6.8. Kelly’s, by comparison, was 8.75, with his classes getting progressively worse every year aside from his very first class (often referred to as a transition class, which is usually put together in the span of a few weeks).

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If Kelly really was that standoffish with boosters and donors — and I have no reason to believe he wasn’t, given his reputation as a prickly guy — then it makes sense that the program wasn’t able to recruit to the standards it had become accustomed to.

College football, especially high-level, SEC football, is a money-driven league, and donors aren’t going to be as eager to open up their checkbooks for a coach they don’t like or can’t relate to.

Kelly isn’t exactly known as an ace recruiter either, so he likely needed those donors to step up even more so than previous LSU coaches to help him close on the trail.

Now, as far as the Lane Kiffin side of this story, that remains to be seen.

It’s early, and the honeymoon phase is still in effect in southern Louisiana for both coach and program, but Kiffin will have to show results quickly.

To his credit, Kiffin is the main reason the NIL apparatus at Ole Miss reached the point it did, and the early returns for LSU’s roster, valued at roughly $40 million, seem to suggest Ausberry is on to something.

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But, the sentiment on social media, particularly from Rebels fans, paints a different, less rosy picture.

That could be sour grapes, or it could be a genuine warning. Only time will tell.

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During a time when Lane Kiffin once again became the target of fans everywhere, his new AD stepped up and circled the wagons.

Something tells me that won’t be the last time he has to do that, so it’s good he’s getting his reps in early.