Over the last two decades, there has been no college football team I have despised more than Louisiana State University.

I would say about 99 percent of that is because my good friend Paul Panisko was a longtime LSU fan. His LSU fandom came with a huge dose of smugness and a smidge of snobbishness.

That snootiness carried over to the rest of the overrated Southeastern Conference, and Paul even defended the college football powers who gave us rematches of the SEC Championship Game as “National Championship Games.”

We argued about that live on KBOW many times over the years.

Paul is easily the No. 1 reason I cheer against LSU. Now that I think of it, I’m pretty sure he is the reason I root against every team in the SEC.

Likewise, I’m pretty sure his intense hatred of Notre Dame was fueled, in large part, by my smugness and snobbishness about the Fighting Irish. 

Up above, I wrote that that Paul “was” a huge LSU fan. I don’t believe he is much into the purple and yellow anymore. I am pretty sure that he gave up on the Tigers when LSU hired Brian Kelly away from Notre Dame after the 2021 season.

While I have never met the man personally, I have heard that Kelly just might be the biggest jerk in the history of college football. It seems like every coach knows every coach in the small fraternity of college football coaches. I have talked to multiple coaches about Kelly, and they all told me the same thing. 

The guy is a boob.

I watched about a half of an episode of “A Season With Notre Dame Football” on Showtime and came to the conclusion Kelly is not my kind of guy. 

He seems like a real-life David Simms. That is to say that he hates old people, children and dogs like Don Johnson’s character in the movie “Tin Cup.”

In postgame interviews, Kelly takes credit for wins and blames his players for losses. After a closer-than-expected win over Florida State in 2021, Kelly said that he wanted to execute his entire team.

He was trying to make a play on the great line by John McKay when he coached the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Many were offended because Kelly made a joke about killing students after being named liable for the death of a student videographer, who died after a hydraulic lift fell over while filming practice in gusty winds. That is not a good look.

More than anything, though, his botching of the joke so badly showed the world that Kelly is severely lacking in the personality and sense of humor departments.

Don’t even get me started Kelly’s creepy dancing video that he recorded shortly after taking over LSU. Or Kelly’s sudden southern accent after moving from South Bend, Indiana to Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

He made Hillary Clinton seem authentic when it appeared she was doing a Martin Luther King Jr. impersonation while speaking at a southern church.

Even though I had no choice but to be a Notre Dame fan growing up, I struggled to root for the Irish when Kelly was coaching.

There was just absolutely no way I could cheer for LSU if Kelly is the coach.

Until now, that is. Now I have no other choice.

Recently, 1989 Butte Central graduate Kevin Peoples left Missouri to coach the edge rushers at LSU. Peoples, the brother of Butte Central coaches Doug and Don Peoples Jr., followed new LSU defensive coordinator Blake Baker after the two helped lead the Missouri Tigers to an 11-2 record and a win 14-3 win over Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl.

I can no longer cheer against LSU because Kevin is just one heck of a good guy. I first got to know him when he was a teammate of my older brother in junior high football and basketball in the early 1980s.

Kevin was always nice to me back in the days when I was the dorky little brother of his teammate. So, I always liked Kevin. I even wrote a column to try to get him to apply for the Montana State head coaching job a few years ago.

I closely followed Kevin’s coaching career through his many stops over the last three decades. That includes the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Tulane and Indiana. 

When the Chicago Bears drafted Tulane receiver Darnell Mooney, Kevin called to tell me that I would love having him on my favorite team. Kevin recruited Mooney to Tulane and raved about the person the young man was.

Of course, Coach Peoples’ father is former Butte-Silver Bow Chief Executive Don Peoples Sr., who just might be the most important Butte person over the last half century. As the mines were closing in Butte and our economy was collapsing in the 1980s, Don Peoples Sr. reminded us all that Butte is the Can-Do City.

His steady hand of leadership led the Mining City through perhaps its roughest time.

So, unless he gets a job with the Green Bay Packers, I will cheer for Kevin Peoples’ team — even if his new boss is hating on old people, children and dogs.

Who knows? Maybe Kevin will convince me that I am wrong about Kelly.

That just leaves me with one team to cheer against: Alabama. 

The Crimson Tide are the only team that even rivals LSU in the despise department over the last 20 years.

I never met him, but I would bet anything that Nick Saban hates old people, children and dogs, too. Saban was asked about the presidential election the day after Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton, and he said he didn’t know there was even an election.

He was too wrapped up in his team’s next game to notice. Does that sound like someone who is going to stop and pet your dog?

Saban almost makes Brian Kelly look like he has a personality. Almost.

Even after Saban retired as head coach of Alabama following the Rose Bowl, there is no way I could cheer for Alabama. I don’t even like to say “Roll Diggs” when cheering for the Montana Tech Orediggers because they are stealing from Alabama’s “Roll Tide.”

Then Kalen DeBoer was hired as head coach of Alabama.

I have never met DeBoer, but I know former Montana Tech football coach Chuck Morrell pretty well, and he would lay down on the street for DeBoer. The two have been best friends for decades.

Chuck, who likes old people, children and dogs, said he wanted to stay in Butte and coach the Orediggers. There was only one person he would leave for, and DeBoer came calling when he was hired as head coach of Fresno State following the 2019 season.

DeBoer took Chuck to Washington with him as the defensive coordinator, and the two coached in the national championship game.

If Chuck says he’s a good guy, then he is a good guy. Plus, odds are that Chuck will join DeBoer on the Alabama coaching staff.

Just like with Kevin Peoples, there is just no way I could ever cheer against Chuck Morrell.

So, here I am stuck not knowing which college football teams to hate.

We live in such confusing times.

— Bill Foley, who will always have the Packers to cheer against, can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74. Listen to him on the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.