Brian Kelly talks tough to Alabama football, and why not? LSU gets what it paid for | Toppmeyer

The mockery of Brian Kelly’s phony Southern accent fell out of style around the time LSU defeated Alabama in overtime on a November night using a brilliant 2-point conversion play.

The narrative that a native New Englander wouldn’t resonate with Louisiana prospects dried up next. Three of the state’s top five prospects for the 2024 recruiting class are committed to Kelly’s Tigers.

Meanwhile, Kelly astutely mines the transfer portal as if he’s an NFL-trained general manager.

This week, he stowed another feather in his visor. Talented backup quarterback Garrett Nussmeier quietly endorsed the direction of Kelly’s program when he elected to stick with LSU instead of transferring to another Power Five program where he could have become a starter this season.

“Football is Fun!” Nussmeier tweeted after LSU’s spring game, when he joined starting quarterback Jayden Daniels in putting on a passing clinic.

Sure is fun lately at LSU, and purple-and-gold preseason Kool-Aid is in ample supply, delivered by a springtime hype train transporting flattery into the Baton Rouge station. The product Kelly is assembling appears worthy of this commendation.

If you harbored doubts in December 2021 about how Kelly would transition from haughty Notre Dame to an SEC full of crocs, I get it. I had some reservations then, too – less rooted in Kelly’s cultural fit and more centered on Kelly’s career-long inability to win the big game.

If you have doubts now, you’re stubbornly heeled in the haters-gonna-hate camp.

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Fact is, a year and a half into Kelly’s tenure, he’s smashing it. He dropped the faux accent, and he’s having no trouble speaking the Tigers’ language.

“I love beatin’ Alabama,” the Houston Chronicle quoted Kelly as saying this week during a speaking engagement at the Houston Touchdown Club.

The audience apparently ate it up, and that steam you see rising above Tuscaloosa, Alabama, is coming from Nick Saban’s ears.

And why not talk tough? The offseason speaking circuit is made for one-liners to fuel boosters and attract recruits, and, anyway, Kelly came to LSU to win championships, not to be Saban’s footstool.

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Kelly and Saban struck contrasting tones earlier this offseason when discussing their possible assigned rivals – Alabama, Texas A&M and Ole Miss for LSU; LSU, Auburn and Tennessee for Alabama – in a proposed nine-game conference schedule:

Saban bemoaned the inequality of the SEC's earmarked rivalry assignments. Kelly said: Game on.

Yes, I’d say a man who had never previously coached south of Cincinnati has assimilated to the bayou.

“I’m a lot more relaxed,” Kelly, while wearing boat shoes and shorts, said this spring during a Barstool Sports podcast about how he’s adjusted to his new digs.

More importantly, Kelly’s debut flashed the potential of his achieving his goal to win a championship. The Tigers won 10 games while Kelly rapidly re-established a winning culture.

But, more polish was needed, or as Kelly puts it, a second coat of paint.

Special teams were messy, and LSU’s defense got picked to shreds in losses to Tennessee, Texas A&M and Georgia. Kelly addressed the latter by signing a slew of transfers to shore up the defensive backfield. John Jancek will be tasked with ironing out the special teams after Kelly elevated the veteran assistant into a role coordinating those units.

Kelly fortified an offensive line that was in shambles when he arrived. The Tigers will be armed with playmakers on the perimeter. That’s almost a certainty at LSU, no matter the coach.

Oh, and I’ve buried the lede: With Nussmeier’s decision, LSU retains two starter-caliber quarterbacks, and a line of quarterback succession is apparent, with Nussmeier positioned to become Daniels’ heir in 2024.

No wonder expectations are soaring for LSU. This swift return on investment must be what LSU expected when it awarded Kelly a 10-year, $100 million contract to pry him from Notre Dame.

“No longer are we going to sneak up on anybody. We’re the SEC West champs,” Kelly said on the SEC Network after LSU’s spring game, “and everybody now has got their eye towards LSU.”

That’s what LSU craved when it hired Kelly.

Blake Toppmeyer is an SEC Columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY NETWORK: Brian Kelly talks tough to Alabama, and why not? It's LSU's time