Way to Geaux, Brian Kelly!

We just wanted to drop a note to offer our congratulations to Everett native and former Chelsea resident Brian Kelly, the new football coach at Louisiana State University, for the gutsy call he made in overtime to defeat Alabama Saturday evening in one of the most exciting college football games in many years.

Alabama scored a touchdown and kicked the extra point to start the overtime period, but LSU responded immediately with a touchdown of its own.

But rather than kick the extra point and continue into another overtime, Kelly decided to have his team go for the two-point conversion — a win-it-or-lose-it proposition.

LSU made the conversion, thus defeating mighty Alabama for LSU’s first home victory against the Crimson Tide since 2010 and possibly setting up LSU for a shot at qualifying for the national championship, despite a slow start to their season, if they can win their remaining games.

Brian Kelly was well-known in Chelsea as a youth. His father served on the Board of Aldermen and Brian and his siblings attended the local elementary schools and played in Little League. He graduated from St. John’s Prep in Danvers and then played football at Assumption College before embarking on a coaching career of almost 40 years that took him from small college programs in the midwest to Cincinnati, Notre Dame, and now LSU.

We know we’ll be joining with college football fans throughout the Greater Boston area who will be cheering on the Tigers because of our local coaching connection. Geaux Tigers!