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this was kelly's first year at LSU. It's his 33rd year as a football head coach, 12 of which were at a blue blood. Considering Richt's first head coaching experience ever was being thrown into the SEC at UGA makes his accomplishments all the more impressive IMO. You hit on these things in your post, but then you conclude by going int he complete opposite direction. You say that as if it's a negative towards richt, and that this proves kelly is "more likely" to get things done. I have the complete opposite take away.

Richt had only coached in the SEC his whole career (I'm ignoring his brief swan song at miami when his health was already declining). In his 2nd year as a head coach he finished the season ranked as high as Kelly ever has in his 1A career. In his 7th year as a head coach Richt finished ranked higher than Kelly ever has. Richt has come closer to winning a natty thatn kelly has.

Take into account that only once (last year in 2022) has kelly had to run through an SEC season gauntlet, and it resulted in 4 losses.

Kelly did coach a blue blood, but it was Notre Dame. It's in Indiana and has academic requirements that are more like Vandy or Stanford than Bama and Georgia. It's possible to get them to playoff contention, but I'm not certain it was possible to get them to a championship level roster when Kelly was there. NIL might change that, since there's a lot of money there.

As for Richt getting closer to a title than Kelly, Kelly made the title game. They did get blown up by Bama, but I think that goes to prove my point above--given the conditions that existed when Kelly was there both on campus and in the sport, Notre Dame had handicaps that other blue bloods don't have to worry about as much.

Mark Richt was a great coach, full stop. When I say "get it done," I mean win a bunch of games. Winning a natty is hard, but I'll say this: the last 3 LSU coaches all won one, and 2 of them were idiots.