Speculation around Detroit Lions coordinators regarding head coaching jobs is nothing new, and it's the product of being a successful team. With Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn both gone to head coaching jobs, defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard is starting to surface as a candidate for a promotion.
As was the case with Johnson and Glenn, it's a matter of when, not if, Sheppard becomes a head coach. Making the jump after just one season as a coordinator seems unlikely at first glance, and Sheppard may not want to leave Dan Campbell's staff that quickly anyway.
Last Sunday, LSU, Sheppard's alma mater, fired head coach Brian Kelly. The school is sure to try to get a big name as their next coach, but Sheppard has surfaced as a potential candidate. He was guaranteed to be asked about it when he had his weekly session with the Detroit media.
Kelvin Sheppard addresses LSU speculation in expected fashion
When asked about other jobs, coaches tend to speak in cliches and not say anything one way or the other, lest they ultimately be revealed as not having been truthful. Some get defiant when asked about other jobs. Nick Saban once said he wasn't going to be the next head coach at Alabama. Shortly afterward, he was.
If we've learned anything about Sheppard, from when he spoke to reporters as Lions' linebackers coach to now halfway through his first season as defensive coordinator, it's he is an open book.
On Thursday, when asked if he learned anything from Johnson and Glenn becoming popular head coaching candidates, Sheppard had a detailed answer. But he summed things up by saying, "if you start to look out and stretch out looking for other things, you will lose the things that you hold on to currently."
When asked if he is paying attention to what's going on at LSU, Sheppard acknowledged he is.
"Obviously, I've kept up with them. That's my alma-mater. I keep up with them every year. Every week. When you cut me open, I kind of tell people, because this thing's running right now -- you cut me open, I'm not going to lie to you. I spent five years, six if you include the year down there coaching. That place molded me into the man that I am today and still becoming. You cut me open, I'm a Liger. I think that's what they called it. Half lion, half tiger."
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Sheppard was then directly asked the million-dollar question: Is he interested in the LSU job?
"I can't be interested in something I have no idea about. I'm interested in beating the Minnesota Vikings...There are a lot of things you can get into and speculate about. But the truth of the matter is, nobody has contacted me about anything dealing with a job, outside of anything I'm doing right now. And that's the honest truth."
Sheppard did not hide his love for his alma mater, while also saying no one has contacted him about the head coaching job (yet?). He addressed the questions he had to know were coming about LSU in the fashion he answers every other question, this or any other week--directly, fully and honestly--just like the man he works under and has fierce loyalty to.