Ole Miss Has Hired Brian Kelly's Son For 2026 Season

2026 is primed to be the first year since the early-80s without Brian Kelly coaching football somewhere. But while Kelly might enjoy taking some time off to enjoy his massive LSU buyout, his family will still be a part of college football this year.

According to his X profile, Patrick Kelly - Brian's son - has accepted a position as assistant director of football support at Ole Miss. Patrick spent the last four years working in a staff position for his father at LSU, first as an offensive graduate assistant, then as a recruiting specialist and most recently as the football support and operations coordinator.

Among the first to offer his congratulations to Kelly was his now-former boss (and the former boss of the place he's now heading), Lane Kiffin.

"Congrats," Kiffin wrote on X, sharing a party popper emoji.

Kelly at LSU

The saga of Brian Kelly's tenure at LSU and his downfall was among the most-talked about events in college football last year. After a 29-11 run in his first three seasons with the Tigers, the team got off to a 5-3 start this season and Kelly got fired.

But due to an historically large buyout for Kelly, the governor of the state of Louisiana publicly railed against his contract and even tried to fight against the school having to pay it out.

It was the first time in Kelly's 35 years as a head coach that he had been fired from a job. Yet despite being one of the most accomplished candidates out there, he decided not to seriously pursue any vacancies and is not expected to coach in 2026.

Whether he intends to come back in some capacity in 2027, either as a head coach or some kind of consultant, remains to be seen.

As for LSU, the ensuing coaching search quickly settled on Kiffin, which began an even more bizarre saga around Kiffin trying to coach Ole Miss through the College Football Playoff all while being the official head coach at Baton Rouge. Ole Miss ultimately refused to let Kiffin continue coaching the team and promoted assistant Pete Golding to head coach.

In a bizarre twist of fate, Golding actually led the Rebels all the way to the national semifinals of the College Football Playoff, bringing the team closer to national title glory than anyone in decades.

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This story was originally published May 6, 2026 at 12:11 PM.