"They are the most disciplined": When Brian Kelly opened up about difficulty of facing service academies

LSU Tigers head coach Brian Kelly knows the difficulty of playing the service academies as well as anyone. During his 12-year tenure at Notre Dame, Kelly played Navy every year. The Irish also played Air Force twice and Army once during that time.

Before the 2023 season, Kelly spoke of the difficulty of playing the academies as LSU was slated to play the Black Knights. Here is a look back at what he had to say.

“Jeff Monken does a great job. This is a difficult game. I played Navy every year (at Notre Dame) and look, they are most disciplined. They are our best leaders. They don’t make mistakes. You gotta beat them, they are not gonna beat themselves…

“This is not a game that you love putting in your schedule. (Athletic director) Scott (Woodward) and I had an interesting conversation about it but they were already scheduled. We won’t be seeing them again in my time here,” Brian Kelly said (27:13).

In the end, LSU dominated the Black Knights in a 62-0 rout. The Tigers caught a break, as Army starting quarterback Bryson Daily was out due to injury, leaving freshman Champ Harris to start his first game.

However, the Tigers' offense, led by Jayden Daniels at the time, was nearly unstoppable. They scored on six of their seven first-half possessions and racked up over 500 yards of total offense.

True to their word, Brian Kelly and LSU haven’t faced any of the academies since 2023.

Brian Kelly has a strong record against the Academies

Despite Brian Kelly’s desire to avoid facing the service academies in the future, his teams have a 15-2 record against teams from the armed forces.

His main rivals have been the Navy Midshipmen, the only academy a Kelly-coached team has ever lost to. During their 11 matchups in his Notre Dame tenure, the Irish had a 9-2 record against the Mids.

During his time at Notre Dame, he also faced the Air Force Falcons twice, in 2011 and 2013, with the Golden Domers prevailing both times.

As for Army, Kelly faced them twice at Notre Dame, once while at Central Michigan and finally as part of the LSU Tigers in 2023, with a 4-0 record.

While as Brian Kelly said, playing the academies requires a different type of preparation, and games can be demanding, his overall record against them has been solid while leading three different programs.