Yesterday, news broke of a story told by New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh, reminiscing of the times he was a graduate assistant under Brian Kelly at Central Michigan.
He says that Kelly forced him and current Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur (who was also a GA at the time) to shovel snow and park cars at one of his Christmas parties.
Not gonna lie, the story made Kelly seem like an absolute asshole, which is not surprising considering how he conducts himself in interviews and on the sidelines at times.
However, according to the New York Post, Saleh did not mean to throw shade at the guy, he just meant it as a funny story.
He said:
“I feel terrible because that whole thing was taken out of context. When you’re coming up in this profession, part of that article was to tell a funny story of Matt and I as GAs.
Part of being a GA– every single coach in this profession, there’s a rite of passage when you’re a GA, a (quality control coach), and that was a funny story and not an indictment on how Brian treated us. Brian’s a phenomenal man.”
Saleh even said he tried to go back and coach for Kelly when he first got the Notre Dame job, and LaFleur did work under him as a quarterbacks coach in 2014.
He continued:
“There’s a reason why Matt went back and worked for him, there’s a reason why I tried to go back and work for him.
He’s a really good man, he treats his people the right way. I know people are probably upset with him now and there’s never a right way to do things of that nature.
I’m always one of his biggest fans.”
Kelly was just hired as the new head football coach of LSU, and has been under a lot of fire over the past couple of his days after his abrupt departure at Notre Dame; Mainly because of his brief 11 minute meeting he had with the team, letting them know that he was going to LSU.
