Booger McFarland saw the writing on the wall at LSU long before Brian Kelly’s firing became inevitable.

The former Tigers All-American turned ESPN analyst revealed on The Ringer’s The Press Box podcast with Bryan Curtis and Joel Anderson that he’d been warning Kelly about fundamental issues with the program for the better part of two years. And in doing so, McFarland painted a picture of an LSU legend trying to help his alma mater’s coach — and watching those warnings fall on increasingly deaf ears.

“I’ve always been loyal to the three letters. I’m loyal to LSU,” McFarland said. “I’m not loyal to the coach. So, every coach that’s been there, starting with [Gerry] DiNardo, who I played for, I’ve always had a good rapport. Like, I text, I call, I tell them what I see.

“I told BK two years ago we were a soft team; we couldn’t run the football. And it was masked because Jayden Daniels was a running quarterback. But LSU hadn’t been able to run the football in a couple of years, but you couldn’t, you know, you win 10 games, you win 10 games, you win nine games, OK…”

LSU opened this season at Clemson’s Memorial Stadium and won 17-10, with Garrett Nussmeier throwing for 304 yards and the defense forcing three turnovers. The Tigers were 1-0 and looked capable of contending in the SEC. McFarland watched the game on his iPad and saw something else entirely.

“I text him, ‘Hey, man, it’s not right,’” McFarland said.

Kelly had been at LSU three-and-a-half years by that point, winning 10 games in 2022, nine in 2023, and nine in 2024 while making the SEC Championship Game in Year 1. The program won consistently, but the issues McFarland identified kept surfacing. The conversations between the two became repetitive, with Kelly’s explanations never changing.

“I knew he was in trouble based on the tenure and the time he’d been there, and the fact that his answers to me over that period became a little redundant,” McFarland continued. “At that point, a leopard’s not going to change its spots. At that point, I knew it was only a matter of time.”

McFarland wasn’t keeping his concerns private. Every time LSU came up on ABC’s college football coverage — and it came up regularly — he said the same thing publicly that he was texting Kelly privately.

“I’m echoing the same things to him that I’m saying on television,” the former Tigers defensive lineman added. “I saw the writing on the wall. And finally, the wins didn’t add up to protect what he was doing, and so here we are…”

Kelly’s record masked what was happening on the field. At the time of his firing, LSU ranked 82nd nationally in scoring offense, 96th in total offense, and 122nd in passing offense. The defense collapsed in back-to-back losses to Vanderbilt and Texas A&M, culminating in a 49-25 home blowout that sealed Kelly’s fate.

This is the same coach who built his reputation at Cincinnati and Notre Dame on pro-style offenses and quarterback development. LSU’s last three national championship coaches — Nick Saban, Les Miles, Ed Orgeron — won by dominating the line of scrimmage and imposing their will physically. Kelly never bridged that gap.

“The end-all be-all is wins and losses,” McFarland said. “So, if he would’ve won enough, he could’ve masked it a little longer. But you can’t win this game without being physical, without having that connection to your players. The game is too hard.”

Kelly finished 34-14 at LSU, reaching the SEC Championship Game in 2022 but never making the College Football Playoff despite its expansion to 12 teams. The Tigers went 4-11 against ranked opponents under Kelly, with only one team posting double-digit losses to ranked opponents, having a worse winning percentage in such matchups over that span.

The wins looked respectable in a vacuum. But McFarland had spent two years watching the foundation crack beneath them, and when Kelly finally got fired, he wasn’t going to pretend the problems were invisible.

“Brian Kelly didn’t work hard enough in Baton Rouge,” McFarland told ESPN’s Tony Kornheiser. “I don’t even know if he knew what gumbo was. Like, if I’ve got to explain to you what gumbo is, you probably don’t need to be in the south.”

It was never just about food, either.

Brian Kelly spent four years trying to make LSU something it isn’t. Booger McFarland spent two years telling him it wouldn’t work.

He was right.