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...help me with some background info here.

If I listened to major media, I'd believe that Kelly jumped south because he thinks he can win a championship in BR, and that he can get recruits at LSU that he couldn't at ND.  

So I looked up recruiting for the past decade on the 247 composite, and that doesn't seem to lend much support.  LSU has generally finished ahead of ND in the composite rankings, but ND is almost always in the Top Ten, I believe falling out of that range only once, and even then I think it was still top 15.  That's not a material difference in terms of raw talent.  

But he still wasn't contending for championships there, and I read he only had 2 wins against top 10 ranked teams in 9 years there.  Talent doesn't seem to be the problem, and schedule certainly wasn't.  Doesn't seem to fit the narrative that he can do better at LSU due to more access to talent, particularly when the SEC west schedule typically stands to be rated tougher than the average ND schedule.  

I ask all this because there was a lot to like about his first season in Baton Rouge, but also a couple of games where it seemed like he and his staff must've been playing cards all week.  No plan to speak of, and some truly head-scratching in-game decisions.  Some LSU fans have told me that's been a knock on Kelly, a couple games every year that are poorly coached and have a WTF? feel.  

I haven't had much time to pay attention to the Domers in the Kelly era, so if anybody here has thoughts about him, I'm interested to hear them.  Going solely by this season I feel far better about him than Orgeron, but if he routinely drops games he "shouldn't" then we're kind of right back at the tail end of the Les Miles era, which was supposed to be unacceptable and still didn't carry this price tag.  

Even with the tougher schedule I think he still has a better chance to win an NC in Baton Rouge than he did is South Bend because he'll generally get more chances.

Prior to the aTm loss, LSU probably controlled their own CFP destiny despite having two losses because of that tougher SEC-W SOS and the SECCG. 

11-2 SEC Champion LSU is going to the CFP pretty much every time. 10-2 non-Champion Notre Dame might never going to make the CFP.

That, I think, may be the real reason he left.

He was a good recruiter at Notre Dame, but there is a pretty big difference in a top ten recruiting class and a top 3 recruiting class.

ND can be 11-1and miss out.

He was a good recruiter at Notre Dame, but there is a pretty big difference in a top ten recruiting class and a top 3 recruiting class.

ND in large part can help anyone recruit. I don't think any school "recruits itself" but at ND- you can get in any living room and get in any battle anywhere in the country. Freeman has got them in that top 3 range. Why? He's a much better recruiter.

From what I've heard/gathered, Kelly really hates recruiting. Not that he's terrible at it- he just doesn't really try all that hard. He'd rather do other things and let his assistants do 99.99% of it- and that he rarely gets personally involved in many if any recruitments. That's a drastic 180 from how Freeman has attacked things.

At LSU- there are tons of recruits in his back yard- and most of them grew up wanting to play for LSU. He doesn't have to fly all over the country from middle of nowhere Indiana to California, Florida, Texas, GA, PA, NC, SC, etc., etc.. and kiss 17 year olds asses and beg them to come to Notre Dame- a school that is far away and if we're being honest fkn sucks. South Bend is an armpit. He doesn't even have leave his back yard and he'll have plenty of high level recruits from Louisiana begging to go to LSU. He has to beg most kids to come to Notre Dame. Won't have to do that in LSU.

He was a good recruiter at Notre Dame, but there is a pretty big difference in a top ten recruiting class and a top 3 recruiting class.

May be, but the difference could easily be negated by being stuck in a division with the perennial #1 recruiting team, and it's worth noting that LSU doesn't usually land in the top 3.  Top 5 pretty often, top 10 most of the time....top 3, iirc, not so much.  It also begs the question, if he was recruiting at a top ten level, why couldn't he beat top ten teams?  (Granted I don't know how often ND played top ten teams.  Only that they mostly didn't win those games when they did play them.)

Right, but what's in question is that he did recruit top ten classes consistently at ND, with an negligible difference in average than LSU over the same time frame, yet still didn't win big games apparently.  Which is why it seems like a flawed narrative to assume that he can do better in Baton Rouge.  

I don't mean to be argumentative, I'm just trying to figure out why "they" are so certain he'll be better here than with touchdown Jesus.