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We're now a team that is expected to contend for top 10 finishes, 10+ win seasons, and upper level bowl games. Brian Kelly has shown to be one of the best at taking underrated talent, and making them into solid collegiate players, several of whom became NFL players as well.

We're still not championship level material, though, and it's going to take a few superstars to get us to that level, in addition to developing the upper 4 star and 5 star talent that we do have.

My main knock on Brian Kelly, is that It took him far too long to reach the level that he has at this time, and the biggest problem came from his holding onto his dear friends as assistants for too long. Holding onto Paul Longo and Brian Van Gorder for that long basically threw us in reverse during the 2014-2016 years.

If it weren't for a very nice offensive output in 2015, and for having a once in a lifetime talent the likes of Jaylon Smith on defense, that year could easily have been a disaster as well.

Fast forward to today, where both the offense and defense are well stocked with solid, if not spectacular, players. We're about where Georgia was at the height of the Marc Richt era, where he was competing for the above criteria, and doing a good to very good job almost every year.

The problem is, though, that this is Notre Dame, and you're expected to regularly be a factor in competing with the big boys on an equal basis. While we can compete with them, the odds aren't in our favor at all, and most of the time, we come out of the contest feeling good about having a close loss.