Short answer: I have no idea why Brian Kelly would leave a perfectly good job at Notre Dame, where by all accounts he was comfortable and well appreciated, to come to a strange, foreign land that may or may not turn out to be a better job at LSU.

Still can’t figure it out.

LSU Athletic Director Scott “The Closer” Woodward must have some kind of hypnotic powers.

And don’t look at me all smiley-smug and rub your thumb and fingers together in that know-it-all universal sign for big $$$$$$$.

Yeah, there’s always that. I’m not totally naïve.

But there has to be more to it than JUST that.

Still — money grab or not, what’s “best for his family” or not — Kelly is about to get dragged straight through the mud and raked over the hot coals for it.

He already is. This involves Notre Dame, so it’s a big story beyond the bayous.

And that’s fine.

He’s a grown man, very well compensated too, even before heading South.

And do you know what that is?

That. Is. His. Problem. He can deal with it.

And it will pass.

What it is not is LSU’s problem. Or concern.

With LSU, it was nothing personal, just business.

And, like it or not, that’s the way that business is done.

Woodward needed a football coach and went out and bagged himself one, apparently a very good one.

No apologies needed. The Tigers paid a king’s ransom, but they didn’t kidnap anybody.

It may be inconvenient for Notre Dame, particularly the timing, but the Irish aren’t signing many of Woodward’s pay checks these days.

Woodward can parade Kelly around like a trophy wife at the class reunion if he so chooses.

Now, from Kelly’s end, it’s a little different. For Kelly it was personal with Notre Dame, if not with the fans then certainly with those players.

Hard to look at it any other way than he left the Irish players whom he recruited high and dry at a crucial juncture in their college experience.

As Kelly said Wednesday, “Leaving is never easy … that you could say that, hey, it’s always the right way to do it.”

But this one could be tougher than most.

The team he left behind needs something less than the Luck of the Irish to make the College Football Playoff.

Take Alabama, Oklahoma State and Cincinnati. If any two of those three lose conference championship games this weekend, theoretically Notre Dame should be in.

All Kelly could do was wish them well on his quick exit out out of South Bend and, after arriving in Baton Rouge, endorse their chances.

“They deserve to be in the playoffs,” he said.

You doubt it soothed many feelings at Notre Dame. In fact, his legacy there as the Irish’s all-time winningest coach is no doubt forever tarnished.

“I own it,” Kelly said. “It’s 100 percent my decision.”

“Legacies are not part of what I spend my time thinking about.”

Again, his problem. Not LSU’s.

He and his conscience will have to deal with that and get on the recruiting trail.

But it gets trickier yet.

Difficult as it is for most college football fans to scarf up much sympathy for Notre Dame, the CFP selection committee might have cracked the code here.

In releasing its penultimate rankings this week, the committee’s latest head-scratching zinger was that among factors it would take into consideration for Sunday’s final four were “coaching availability.”

Wait. What? Are we reading this right? So now Kelly’s absence could be THE reason Notre Dame gets left out?

And that punishes … who? Not Kelly. He’s not going to be there anyway.

But way to step up, CFP. Now tell us again how you put the student-athletes’ needs first and foremost.

That’s not just unfair. That’s cruel. That’s sending the orphans to bed with no porridge.

One more time: Not LSU’s problem.

But if it happens the committee would at least have to share some blame with Kelly.

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Scooter Hobbs covers LSU athletics. Email him at scooter.hobbs@americanpress.com