LSU football's Brian Kelly explains what really happened with infamous accent | Toppmeyer

BATON ROUGE, La. — Expectations are building for Brian Kelly's second season at LSU, and why not? The Tigers are armed with two of the SEC's best quarterbacks to lead a proven offense, and the defense could improve after some key transfers joined the secondary.

I sat down with Kelly in June for a wide-ranging interview to discuss his fit at LSU, his season outlook and why he called that 2-point play in last season's upset of Alabama.

Here is a portion of that interview. Questions and answers are lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

OPINION: Inside Brian Kelly's plan to beat Nick Saban, his LSU 'dream,' and that accent | Toppmeyer

When LSU hired you, there were questions about fit and whether you’d be comfortable here. You seem comfortable. How have you been able to get comfortable as quickly as you have?

Kelly: First of all, let’s look at what I do, right? For 32 years, I’ve been coaching football where my primary focus is on player development. I started as a Division II coach, where you have to develop your players. Then I went to Central Michigan. You have to develop your players. Everybody has the same budget. Nobody’s got any advantages there. I went to Cincinnati, and it was a basketball school. I had to change everybody’s perception about that.

Then you go to Notre Dame, and everybody thinks, ‘Well, you’ve got everything.’ No, we had to fight for everything there in terms of changing the perception of, it’s just about academics. Now, you get here, and you have all these resources. This is the dream situation for a head coach that wants to provide resources to his student-athletes and actually has all those resources. So, yeah, it’s comfortable.

It’s now taking those resources and providing a high-performance environment for your players to succeed. What’s not fun about that to a guy that’s spent his entire career doing that and now having that resourcing? That’s what’s been great.

Is it culturally different? Sure. I think it’s a little different, but I was originally from Boston. When I moved to the Midwest, that was culturally different. When I go back to Boston, they speak funny, and I’m from there, you know? I just think that a lot of that was made because I was leaving a place like Notre Dame, and the perception of Louisiana is so different and so stark, but you know, at the end of the day, if you love your kids and you treat them the right way and you hold them accountable, they’re all about the same. I guess that’s my answer to perception is not reality sometimes.

Could you have worn khaki shorts and boat shoes to work at Notre Dame?

Kelly: No. No.

Never did?

Kelly: No. That’s different. And maybe that’s a really good point, right? You don’t feel as though you’re buttoned up every day. There’s much more of a relaxed feeling here – but it still doesn’t mean it’s sloppy or not thoughtful or insincere, but yeah, there are some differences there, culturally.

The perception while you were at Notre Dame was that you could be maybe a cantankerous guy. When I talk to folks here who interact with you regularly, they say you’re likable. Why do you think that perception existed while you coached Notre Dame, and have you tried to change your demeanor?

Kelly: Early in my career, there was this meme of a red-faced guy on the sideline, and that meme kind of stuck with me, and for all those years, it was seen as, he’s got this scowl on his face all the time. Look, Notre Dame is a polarizing place, in many ways. So, for those that are on the other side of that, that can build some momentum as a polarizing kind of view.

I didn’t really try to chase it down. I just kind of was who I am. Most people who are around me would say the same thing they say down here. ‘I didn’t see that, and that’s not the way he came across to me.’

I think there probably would have been a time earlier in my career where I was probably more fiery, because I was a play-caller, and when you’re a play-caller, you’re involved in each play a little differently than when you’re the head coach.

What's it mean to you and this program to beat Alabama in Year 1?

Kelly: I came down here because I wanted to play the best, and I consider, and many consider, Nick Saban as an icon and somebody that you measure yourself against. I know it’s not MMA.

I’d be curious to see how that would go …

Kelly: I don’t think anybody would have paid for it, and so I’m not trying to say it’s MMA, but you want to be measured against the best.

I just have a great deal of respect for Nick. So, that was awesome that we got a chance to play a great football game that could have went either way. It gave our guys a lot of confidence.

Why did you decide to go for 2 against Alabama, and why that play?

Kelly: A lot of those decisions that are emotional decisions, earlier in my career, I had a hard time making them. Sometimes, for the wrong reasons, I even went for 2 or kicked the extra point and should have went for 2. So, we have meetings 48 hours prior. We call them 48 Hours, where we discuss those things as a staff, away from the emotions, and we discussed that. We said, ‘Hey, listen, if we have a shot to win the game, are we kicking it, or are we going for 2?’

Generally, as you know, if the emotions are out of it, and everybody is in there, and you go, ‘Hey, what do you want to do? Do you want to kick it, or do you want to go for 2?’ Everybody wants to go for 2.

Of course, as you can imagine, when I said during the game, ‘We’re going for 2,’ everyone was like, ‘No, (expletive), what are you talking about? Kick the (expletive) extra point!’

The night of the game, that came up?

Kelly: “Oh, yeah. And I’m like, ‘No, we made this decision already. We’re going for 2.’ What it allows you to do, when you make that decision on Thursday, Thursday’s practice and Friday’s practice, you practice the same play like 20 times. So, I was like, ‘We’re running it. Call Snake. We’re running it. That’s the play we practiced. Run the damn play.’

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You've said you want to still play Alabama every year after the SEC goes to 16 teams and divisions are eliminated. Why?

Kelly: Again, I came down here with this specific mindset of playing in the SEC, playing in the SEC West and wanting to play the very best schedules in the country. Alabama is part of that, and if they’re not part of that, I don’t think you’re playing the best schedule in the country.

You’ve got a political science degree. Your dad was in politics. Would you have made a good politician?

Kelly: I was in it a little bit. When I graduated from college, I spent a year on the staff of Gerry D'Amico. He was the state senator for Worchester, Massachusetts, and I was on his staff full-time, so I worked on Beacon Hill.

What I did not like, I think, was the need to have a quid pro quo. Like, you had to do something that was transactional every day. I just didn’t like that. I’m much more about transformational, where I can help you be a better person or be the best version of yourself, more so than, ‘Hey, if you do this for me, then I’ll do that for you.’ And that was kind of the missing piece for me from politics to what I’m doing today.

So, I don’t think I would have done very well. That’s why I got out of it.

Do you actually say FAM-uh-lee that way, and when did you realize it was going to become a thing?

Kelly: I do actually say FAM-uh-lee, and I think it’s got to be a cross-section of some Boston, Midwestern accent. I’m a mutt, you know? It’s kind of the meme. I’m good for getting memes. I don't know. I would have to be really calculating to come up with a Southern accent on my own.

People don’t even know this, I don’t even know if I could talk, because I had to talk to Kim Mulkey before that, and she’s pretty intimidating. She’s like, ‘BK, we want to kick everybody’s (expletive) ass.’ I was like, ‘Whoa, who is this?’

If this team is better than last year’s product, why will that be? What’s the missing ingredient?

Kelly: It’ll be depth. We’re still not there yet. You can’t take 13 guys from the transfer portal on defense and not have a red flag. This program is still not at the level of depth necessary to withstand injuries and things you’re going to have to withstand in the SEC. We need to take two or three transfers to top off the tank, once in a while.

It’s got a chance to be more consistent. We’ve got better depth. I think you’ll see us not have the up-and-down November that we had.

When do you feel like this program will be ready to contend – seriously – for a national championship?

Kelly: We need another year of recruiting – one more really good year on both sides of the ball, I think, puts us in a position where, I think Year 3, the consistency piece, the depth of our program, the messaging, all the things we do on a day-to-day basis, puts us in a position to compete for a championship.

Year 2, the foundation is in place. I think there’s a really good confidence within the group. We’ve got good players. There’s some holes. There’s a little air coming out of the tire here and there. I think we’ve kind of patched most of it, but I think Year 3 is probably the year where I’ll feel, in terms of building a program, we’ve had enough time to really put the pieces together.

Most coaches claim they never notice their surroundings in games, but you’ve said you took off your headset and soaked in the crowd noise at times during that Alabama game.

Kelly: It was one of those deals where I’m like, all right, I’ve been doing this a long time, and this is really cool. This is really cool.

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: LSU's Brian Kelly explains infamous accent: What really happened