Jets coach Robert Saleh only worked at Central Michigan with Brian Kelly for one year, as a defensive assistant in 2004, and it was not a happy one.
Saleh and now-Packers coach Matt LaFleur, the older brother of Jets coordinator Mike LaFleur, were on Kelly’s staff as low-level assistants in their 20s. According to a 2019 ESPN article, they thought they were invited to a party at Kelly’s house, only to realize they were the help.
“We shoveled the snow and parked all the cars,” Saleh told ESPN in 2019, when he was still the 49ers’ defensive coordinator. “Then, at the end of the night, we had to go get the cars again.”
In an article published in 2020, Kelly did call Saleh “special,” but also seemingly went out of his way to tell an embarrassing story about Saleh passing out from dehydration.
It’s the classic high-handed, shameless behavior from Kelly that everyone has gotten to know from him over his rise from the mid-majors to Notre Dame coach. And it’s one of many anecdotes that recirculated this week after Kelly bolted on Notre Dame for LSU, made his former players meet him at 7 a.m. the next day, and left campus after 11 minutes.
Kelly obviously has more serious stains on his record, like Lizzy Seeberg’s suicide after accusing a Notre Dame player of sexual assault and Declan Sullivan’s death while filming Notre Dame practice in high winds. And unlike the players Kelly is so fond of trashing, at least Saleh and LaFleur were adults getting paid to be there. But it’s a neat encapsulation of the type of guy Kelly is, and it left such an imprint on Saleh that he was willing to trash his old boss to a reporter over a decade later. In fact, Saleh told ESPN that Kelly was the gold standard for a bad employer.
“We decided that when we’re in that position,” he said in 2019, “we’re never going to treat people the way we got treated.”
Kelly, who agreed to a 10-year, $95 million deal with LSU, will be officially introduced at a press conference Wednesday.