You won’t know if you bought the right pair of shoes unless you put them on your feet to see if they fit.

Ever since Brian Kelly stepped off the plane at the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport, he was quickly labeled as the “wrong fit” at LSU. Why is that? Is it because he is not from the South? Is it because he has a Boston accent instead of a Cajun one?

The world may never know.

Brian Kelly isn’t the first coach from up north to coach the Tigers. Before he became LSU’s head football coach, Nick Saban had never coached or even stepped one foot below the Mason-Dixon Line. Everyone thought LSU was crazy for not only hiring Saban but also giving him the whole bank to take the job.

You want to know what happened?

Well, Saban only won two SEC championships and won LSU its first national championship since 1958 by beating Oklahoma 21-14 in the 70th edition of the Sugar Bowl in 2004. Saban also laid the groundwork on how to recruit the state of Louisiana, including the New Orleans Metro Area where LSU had a hard time recruiting football players out of New Orleans.

Another coach who did not fit the culture of Louisiana was none other than Les Miles, Saban’s successor. Miles is from Ohio. That’s nowhere near Louisiana at all. He had also never coached in the Deep South. However, he continued to use Saban’s blueprint and he won 2 SEC championships, won one national championship and appeared in another. His recruiting success led to LSU becoming “DBU” as he helped develop Patrick Peterson, Tyrann Mathieu, Morris Claiborne and Jamal Adams to name a few.

I think people, including the media, forget about that. The day before LSU announced it poached Kelly from South Bend, USC were also making money moves. USC hired Lincoln Riley away from Oklahoma in a stunning move due to the fact that no one had any idea that Riley and USC were in contact.

However, the thing that is more stunning is how the national sports media covered USC’s hiring of Riley compared to Kelly’s hiring at LSU. The media kept saying it was the perfect hire. Riley was a young coach with swagger and his offenses at Oklahoma produced two Heisman trophy winners in Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray, so I really can’t blame them. In my book, that was a fantastic hire.

One thing Lincoln Riley has never coached in the state of California. He also has no direct ties to California at all. Riley is from a small town in West Texas. As someone who has lived in California and has visited Texas in the past, trust me, California and the state of Texas are nothing alike.

How can you say Kelly is the wrong cultural fit for LSU but then go on to say Lincoln Riley is the right fit for USC?

Now let’s go over the coaching hires that were deemed the right fit by national sports media members. The last three USC head football coaches before Riley were Lane Kiffin, Steve Sarkisian and Clay Helton. They all have one thing in common: all of them are either from California or they had been longtime USC assistant football coaches. You want to know what else they have in common? Believe it or not, they were all fired.

Another example of the perfect coaching hire is none other than Nebraska’s favorite son Scott Frost. After leading UCF to a “national championship” in 2017, Frost returned back to his home state of Nebraska to lead the Cornhuskers back to glory. Frost was the star quarterback of the 1997 Cornhusker team that won the national championship. He’s easily the perfect hire. Right?

Unfortunately for Nebraska’s native son, he may be the worst coach in Nebraska’s storied football program. Frost’s coaching record at Nebraska is currently 15–30, with a 10–26 record in conference play. He is also the first coach to record four consecutive losing seasons since Bill Jennings. Jennings’ last season coaching at Nebraska was 1961. That was 60 years ago, and Frost’s seat is just getting warmer and warmer by the minute every time he calls an onside kick up by 11 points.

The right coaching hires aren’t made due to that person’s cultural and geographical background, but by their commitment to excellence and to have a plan for every situation. Even though Kelly might not fit the mold of somebody from Louisiana, Louisiana has embraced him due to his business-like demeanor and his desire to put LSU back on the throne of college football.

If you talk to everybody in Louisiana, that is how you fit in.