Joel Klatt Reveals 'Can't Lose' Game For Brian Kelly In 2025 As Pressure Builds

quote:

---

“Kelly needs a great start to the season and that’s exactly where the pressure point is. It’s time. Week 1, at Clemson,” said Klatt. “The opener at Clemson is the moment for Brian Kelly. He can’t lose that game and that’s an incredibly tough game. I actually think Clemson is a little bit better than LSU. So now we’re expecting him to take a team on the road, and go beat Dabo Swinney, who’s won a national championship, and Cade Klubnik, who has played a lot of football and just went to the College Football Playoff, and he’s got to win that game.”

“The Clemson game becomes massively important, plus we all think that Clemson is going to be the class of the ACC. If they’re in fact the ACC Champion, and you can notch a win in their building, what would that do to your playoff resumé? It would be pretty good! It would be pretty good,” said Klatt. “That’s why this is such an important game.”

“If he doesn’t, look up at the rest of the schedule. The rest of the schedule becomes so much more daunting, okay. The Clemson game is really the crux of the argument because now you look up and you still have Florida, that one at home, you still have to go to Ole Miss, you still have to play LaNorris Sellers and South Carolina, you still have to play Texas A&M, you still have to go on the road and go to Alabama, you still have to go on the road and play in Norman,” Klatt said. “Now, imagine for a moment, he loses that opener. Well, it’s a really good team and they’re on the road, and it’s early and, you know, you can say all the things about like, hey, you know what, it’s fine. I just don’t know if there’s going to be enough margin with those six games that I threw up on the board. The SEC is incredibly deep. They haven’t had the national championships in the last couple of years but that doesn’t mean that they’re any less deep. Those are tough games. They’d have to go 6-2 minimum just to be a 9-3 team and potentially make the playoff, and those are really tough t go 6-2 through that.”

---