It has taken a decade, but ND Football is now finally in an enviable position:
We (that’s right “we”) have top flight assistants - I wouldn’t trade our DC for anyone not named Venables, and across the board, we have top tier coaches who are both good at their job and good at recruiting
We have top flight facilities - the whiners at NDN won’t admit it, but the changes brought about by Swarbrick and Kelly have been a huge success and major improvement. We are the Fighting Irish, not the Fighitn Amish, and we successfully transitioned into the next century.
Kelly himself has learned to adapt (to a degree). He finally replaced some of his longtime friends who followed him from from Cincinnati with competent assistants, and he has grudgingly over time learned to hand over most of the control of the offense and defense.
Now, was it worth it? Tulsa was an event worthy of termination. So was Clemson in the hurricane and Northwestern and Louisville. The 2012 bowl prep was a mess, and the whole 2016 season was also worthy of being fired. Further, Kelly’s daliance with the Eagles on the day after getting his ass kicked in 2012 was pathetic. The Declan Sullivan incident was a horrible accident that could have been prevented with some common sense, and while unintentional, the legal minded defensive response of the AD and Coach was very disappointing.
(I purposely left out the vacated wins because that was purely NCAA political bullshit).
So basically, Kelly has achieved a good position finally, but he did so by “The Groundhog Day Method”.
Any other coach in any other program would have been fired several times by the time Kelly was able to find his way. By a trial and error method almost as patient as evolution, he has created a program that is in great, but still not perfect position.
So would you trade him for anything short of a top 4 coach now? While he has had patience not afforded to other coaches, “he is where he is” now. ND has paid a high price though.
I do know three things from this last ND Football decade: 1)Brian Kelly should be saying a prayer of thanks that he ended up at ND every single day, 2) ND should have no trouble hiring it’s next high profile coach given the patience that it has demonstrated, and 3) the Sullivan Family set a bar for love, forgiveness, and class that should leave us all humbled.
We've come along ways, we've updated facilities and adapted to alot of things. And Brian Kelly can Recruit better then almost anyone, maybe even the best. Some will be quick to argue that Saban or Swinney are easily better, but that's where you are wrong. It's not hard to Recruit to a Top Program with a winning track record. "Hey Son you wanna come win Championships and have the time of your life?" Notre Dame is alot harder to recruit to. The Academics are Tough, The Weather is Cold, The amount of Good looking girls are lacking, The South Bend Police are horrible. The List goes on. Yes we as mature adults can say, but you have to think about the 4 for 40, and that the cold weather gets you prepped for NFL football, and the Education is there to fall back on, if you don't make the NFL or retire, get injured. But as a 8 year old kid, they don't that far out. So for Kelly to do what he has done is very applaudable. Weis was a great recruiter also, he just didn't know what to do with the kids after he got them, he couldn't develop them. He was good at X's and Ox for Men already developed. I liked Weis, just couldn't get the players to develop and elevate. These ND Teams we've had the last few years have had some solid talent. Even the horrid 2016 year, that roster was stacked, and the Schedule was weak as hell but we went 4-8. But Kelly is the Problem, yes he's done great things. But if our end goal is to win at least one damn Championship, Kelly is not the guy. The stage is too big for him. He can't coach with the big boys. His offense's are boring and predictable, and I don't care if yo say the he's not calling plays anymore, the shit is the same shit for the last 9 years. He's also too F'ing narcissistical. If he get's a QB, he wants the QB to change to his game plan, instead of changing the game plan to match the QBs skillset. Thank You for what you've done, but it's been past time to move on. People who became a fan in 1996 I can probably see why you like BK, but Us older guys aren't of with Mediocre, well at least most of us. And that's all we'll be with Kelly, sure we get lucky every once in awhile and our schedule completely craps out, and we look good, but only if you're bias and ignore reality. and 12-0 ain't crap if we're just get flat out blown out and embarrassed. Which is all that we've had under BK. We don't even compete, no close losses, just Flat out blown out and jokes about how over rated we've always been, how we live 3 decades behind. NAd they have a point. I'm not looking for Bama like and Celmson like success, sure it would be nice. But Damn it, get us at least one SOLID justified Championship, and at Least compete in the top 10 with reasonable losses. That's a realistic goal. But with Kelly, it's never going to happen. Kelly is the Problem.
Go Irish. ND4Life
•If he wins 3 or 4 championships in the next 10 years, then hell yeah it was worth it and I was a dumbass for calling for his head so many years
•if he wins 1 championship in next 10 years, ehhh maybe-maybe not worth it and debatable if I was right or wrong
•if he's here for 3, 5, or 7 more years with no championships then we completely wasted 13-17 years
At this point we've veered way off the charts of our success model keeping him as long as we have, so might as well ride it out...as long as he keeps putting up 10+ win seasons consistently the talent will swell to the point where a championship will eventually come.
But if he can't keep the 10+ win seasons coming, he needs to go...for real.
Yeah, I'm just not comfortable with just 10 win seasons , no championships, and continued blow out embarrassments. He needs to go.
Notre Dame should not be providing on-the-job training.
Perhaps it was a home run and the program is farther along. Recent history suggest, it would have been a bad hire or at best, another BK who has a "learning curve".
Either way, hindsight is 20/20 on BK. Glad the program seems to be foundationally strong for the first time in a long time and has a chance to grow. At this point, regardless of how it got there, it's all the matters.
Let me repeat that: Stoops will be coaching an XFL team next year.
My sense is that there really are some guys with experience winning at the highest level who would come to ND if asked.
Hard to imagine the program being in better shape had someone come in to start 2017, but who knows.
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That whole season was just gut wrenching, and we had the talent. he looked like he was coaching to get fired.
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So, yes
That said, I wouldn't really call it a learning curve with Kelly...he had ND at 12-0 at year 3. The problem was that he took the foot off the gas at that point, which ultimately led to the 2016 debacle. That was the wake up call needed to get him back on track.
turu. Other than that he has done a solid job with little help in the way of scheduling, school rules that were never applied in my time there, and competing against teams that were clearly more talented.
Bottom of your letter? Very turu?
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himself, IMO. Many, if not most, coaches are reluctant to change in big ways. Kelly, perhaps reluctantly at first, made
some changes, followed by more / bigger changes, which have lifted the program to where it is now.
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The closest we have come to winning a NC is two blowout losses to the eventual champions.
That's not good enough. Period.
Sullivan, the academic and violence scandals are troubling.
The disturbing lack of QB development is absurd.
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1.) Kelly seems to have grown most in his “Coach as CEO” role. He has improved the most with administration of the team (Hiring, facilities, training table, etc), but his gameday/game prep portion of his role has a long way to go still. Some of this can be accomplished via delegation, but the truly elite coaches seem to excel at both.
2.) At this point, I’m not sure there is anyone else that would take the job that would be better. (I’m actually starting to worry about what will happen once Kelly retire in 4 or 5 years.)
job.
Also look at easy jobs out there, i'm not kidding when i say easy, because these jobs have everything for success (local talent, money, low academics) and look at the lack of success they've had recently, it's tough to find a good coach.
Texas, Texas A&M, Southern Cal, Florida State, Florida, Auburn, LSU, Tennessee
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Agree with everything you said.
We have shown credible signs of being a consistent Top 10, occasional Top 5 program. Will be tough to crack the code on the Alabama's and Clemson's but we are close given our challenges recruiting. I also consider Georgia a notch ahead of us at this time but we will see in three months.
We also have to hope and pray last season wasn't an anomaly. We will know that shortly as well.
Hopefully this improved level of play/results will lead to improved QB recruiting as well. We still do not recruit QBs like a Top 5/10 school should.
Amen brother
Pyne should move up in the rankings--he looks better than advertised.
And ND recognized the need to get at least one QB in each class when taking Clark in 2019.
To me, I want to see better QB development. The talent pipeline is there.
We are wanting to consistently be Top Ten, an occasional Top Five, and make the playoff with some level of regularity.....
We arent getting the level of QBs Alabama, Clemson, Oklahoma and Georgia are getting.....
AND you are right, we also aren't developing them
since at most he has the talent of say an 8 quite nicely. Recruiting the best QB is not easy. Even Sunshine and Tua did not start initially.
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And he wont lead us to a NC
He is serviceable.......
He'll find a role as a third string somewhere and appear in games. If Kizer has a spot, Book can play. Kizer has "prototypical" size, Book can actually play QB and hit receivers where they need the ball.
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He won't see the NFL.....but he doesn't have to, he can still lead us to the CFP
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