I had been a regular poster at NDN for more than a decade. I finally gave it up after yet another rude, crude, ad hominem attack on someone who had the gall to praise Brian Kelly. The embarrassingly profane response was not only allowed but celebrated. That's no way to represent or support Our Lady's University. So I have left NDN and plopped down my online tent here at UHND.
It seems there is an equal and opposite reaction among some posters here at UHND. Perhaps they too have been turned off by the National-Championship-caliber-or-bust insistence at NDN so they lump any BK critic into the "haters" category in a dismissive way.
Can't this forum be the place for a reasonable middle ground?
I don't like BK's personality -- I think he turns people off, drifts into arrogance, and has had many sideline displays that do not befit the public face of ND football -- and that's before you even consider Lizzy Seeburg and Declan Sullivan. Granted, most of those problems are now a few years in the past. I give him credit for (1) building up the program after the Davie/Willingham/Weis decline and (2) turning things around after the 4-8 debacle, though it seems Jack Swarbrick has intimated publicly that he was behind the remaking of the staff that brought in Chip Long and Mike Elko/Clark Lea, so one can wonder aloud how much of the credit Kelly deserves. Either way, he has accepted the change of staff and made the most of it. If this year's team can win out, whether or not there's a return trip to the CFP, Long and Lea figure to be in line for head coaching jobs sooner rather than later.
In this forum, the posts I appreciate fall into two categories: humorous quips and reasoned analysis. I try to make my posts one or the other; whether they succeed is fair game for all of you to judge. But when I offer evidence and try to draw a conclusion, I think it sucks when someone replies with a bald assertion that offers no evidence. Just a pet peeve, I guess.
In any case, wouldn't it be great to have a consensus that reasoned support or criticism of the coach and his staff are largely what a forum like this is for? I'll stop before I start sounding like Rodney King...