Quick triggers

 Up in South Bend, where the memories are long and charity is sometimes not next to Godliness, they're still giddy with schadenfreude over Brian Kelly getting the heave-ho at LSU. And, yes, I get it.

You get dumped like a bad habit, there will be a certain ... well, bitterness. This is especially true at Notre Dame, which is not used to being so cruelly spurned for some tarted-up Southern floozy.

But Kelly did spurn the Irish, and now he's done at LSU, with four games still left in the season. He's the latest in a string of mid-season -- even early-season -- firings this fall, a trend which suggests some schools have A) delusions of grandeur; B) extremely itchy trigger fingers; or C) a certain recklessness with the checkbook fueled by the former and resulting in the latter.

The correct answer, of course, is D. As in "all of the above."

Hell of it is, that's really not anyone's fault, from the schools handing out ridiculous contracts to the coaches signing on the dotted line.

That's because when Big Dough University starts flinging dollars around like confetti, Coach is going to go chasing after it. He'll accept the itchy trigger fingers and delusions of grandeur, because at some point they become his delusions, too: They're paying me goo-gobs of money, so I MUST be this good. I CAN win two or three national titles in a row here, because Big Dough really IS the premier program in the country.

Which was basically the Kelly situation in Baton Rouge.

LSU fired him two-thirds of the way through his fourth season because, essentially, the Tiger had lost three of their last four games. That those losses were to three top-ten teams with a current combined record of 22-2 was inconsequential. That two of those losses happened on the road was inconsequential.

LSU brought in Brian Kelly to win it a national title (which is exactly why Kelly was coming there). And he hadn't yet delivered it. Surely four years was time enough.

"When Coach Kelly arrived at LSU four years ago, we had high hopes that he would lead us to multiple SEC and national championships during his time in Baton Rouge," LSU athletic director Scott Woodward said in the official release. "Ultimately, the success at the level that LSU demands simply did not materialize ..."

And then he said this: "I continue to believe LSU is the best football program in America."

First reaction: He's kidding, right? 

Second reaction: If he's not -- if he's really hallucinating this badly -- then of course it makes sense LSU pulled the plug in mid-stream, thereby essentially giving up on the season. And of course Penn State did the same to James Franklin after a couple of bad losses ... and of course Florida did the same to Billy Napier ... and of course Oklahoma State did the same to longtime coach Mike Gundy three games into the season.

In all, 10 FBS coaches have been fired so far this season, and we're not yet out of October. Seven of them have been Power 4 coaches. That their schools couldn't even wait for them to finish out the season  -- and that so many are on the hook now for contracts that in some cases were recently re-negotiated upward -- is a reflection of the hurry-up landscape of college football in the era of NIL and the unrestrained transfer portal.

Quick fixes are in. Programs that have never been powerhouses (i.e., Indiana, Vanderbilt) are suddenly powerhouses. It's all happening at cartoon speed, which explains why so many athletic administrations are operating at cartoon speed -- especially ones who have spent so recklessly on their next presumed saviors.

Now LSU owes Kelly $54 million. Penn State owes Franklin $49.7 million. Oklahoma State owes Gundy $15 mill; Florida owes Napier $21.3 mill.

It's insane. It's irresponsible. It's throwing away money that could be better spent elsewhere -- although, let's face it, we crossed the football-uber-alles bridge a long time ago.

Because you know what?

The alums who are smoking the same funny stuff as their ADs will pony up the cash to get rid of Coach Hasn't-Won-Us-A-Natty-Yet. And three or four years down the road, they'll do it again when Big Dough U. fires the next Coach Hasn't-Won-Us-A-Natty-Yet three games into the season.

And on the mad carousel will spin.