Playoff or bust for LSU's Brian Kelly? Plus, Penn State doubles down with Jim Knowles hire

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Today, were talking about the offseasons early winner, Brian Kellys do-or-die year at LSU and changes to the College Football Playoff.

Lets go: All In fter reaching the College Football Playoff semifinals, Penn State looks primed to run it back.

The Nittany Lions already made offseason waves by retaining key players for next season, including QB Drew Allar, RBs Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen, DE Dani Dennis-Sutton and DT Zane Durant.

The Athletic s Stewart Mandel even ranked the Nittany Lions No.

1 in his way-too-early Top 25.

Advertisement And if Penn State looked like the winner of the offseason then, poaching defensive coordinator Jim Knowles from rival Ohio State this week solidified that title .

Knowles is a Pennsylvania native who has routinely smashed Nittany Lion offenses Penn State scored just 6 points on offense in Novembers 20-13 loss to the eventual national champs.

A few things to note from the buzzy hire: Now, lets take a look at Stewarts mailbag to address another program with lofty goals for 2025 .

Mandels Mailbag With LSU signing such a strong transfer class, expectations will be high in Baton Rouge.

Would another four-loss season force athletic director Scott Woodward to admit that the Brian Kelly experiment has failed? Andrew G., Houston I feel confident saying Kelly wont have a job in 2026 if he loses four games in 2025.

Winning eight or nine games every year is far below LSUs standard.

Kelly got a free pass last season because expectations were modest to begin with after losing Jayden Daniels .

There will be no excuses next season, with QB Garrett Nussmeier and most of the offense returning and a No.

1-rated portal class arriving.

I had the Tigers No.

4 in my early rankings, and I could have justified ranking them higher.

It also helps Kellys cause that both Alabama and Georgia (less so) are at their most vulnerable states since he came to LSU.

When he arrived in 2022, Georgia was coming off of the first of back-to-back national titles and Nick Saban was still rolling in Tuscaloosa.

Catching up to either or both programs felt less attainable then.

Texas has obviously presented a new obstacle, but LSU doesnt play the Longhorns next season.

Kelly will be reasonably expected to reach the Playoff next season.

That will require being one of the top three or four teams in the conference.

It wont be easy, as a bunch of other programs ( Florida , South Carolina, Texas A&M) are also well-positioned to take a jump in 2025, but LSU is at no disadvantage relative to any of them.

Read the full mailbag here .

Playoff Changes, Already? The inaugural 12-team Playoff was a success in some areas, but it also drew the third-lowest TV audience for a title game since the CFP began in 2014.

So what should stay? What should change? Stewart and Ralph Russo discussed how the Playoff should look moving forward.

Here were a few of the key discussion points: Number of teams: Twelve feels like the right number, but that doesnt mean it will stay that way.

I liked Stewarts reasoning for why 12 teams works: It gives everyone something to play for: four byes, four home games, four just get in.

But as Ralph points out, expansion might be inevitable.

Lets just keep it to no more than 14 teams! Advertisement Seeding: This was the Playoffs most glaring problem, illustrated best by the No.

4 team (Penn State) getting a lower-ranked quarterfinal opponent (No.

9 Boise State ) than the No.

1 team did ( Oregon vs.

No.

6 Ohio State).

The top four teams in the CFP committees final rankings should get the top four seeds, and I suspect we arent far from that change.

Schedule: The championship games low viewership was surprising.

Especially since the game pitted two of the sports biggest brands against each other.

But perhaps the season stretching out two weeks longer than usual had something to do with the dip.

There are a lot of interesting suggestions for how to fix this.

Stewart suggests shifting the season one week earlier.

Ralph suggests the same, while adding more games to conference championship weekend (for example, the Big Ten No.

1 plays No.

2 for the conference title, while No.

3 plays No.

6 and No.

4 plays No.

5 for auto-bids).

That would solve the TV networks rebuttal of not wanting to move Rivalry Week off of Thanksgiving in exchange for a 10-game conference championship slate.

I thought this 10-game season suggestion from commenter Michael Z.

was interesting, but as others pointed out, it would decrease TV and ticket revenue: I know this is crazy and would never happen, but what if we only played 10 regular-season games? Do that and move the start of the season up, and we can play the first-round playoff games over turkey weekend for the ratings.

And all it has to cost is a couple nothing games per contender.

I feel like we can live without ND vs.

Miami (OH) and OSU vs.

Rutgers (ND might be better off avoiding the MAC anyway).

Read Stewart and Ralphs full story , which also touches on auto-bids, sites and more.

Quick Snaps In non-football news, Nebraska volleyball coach John Cook announced his retirement yesterday after a 25-year run that included four national championships.

Former Louisville coach and Nebraska alumna Dani Busboom Kelly will take over the power.

Alabama and Georgia lost their upper hand this season.

NIL spending was part of it, but theres more to consider .

Advertisement Last season featured self-inflicted public relations blunders, a six-game losing streak and three losses by more than 30 points.

So why did UAB decide to bring back Trent Dilfer , who was coaching at a high school two years ago ? The Until Saturday podcast handed out grades for the latest coaching cycle on todays episode.

A B+ for Bill Belichick? Listen here .

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(Top photo: Stephen Lew / Imagn Images).

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