Kelly mostly restored a home field advantage. Freeman has lost it.

last week would happen in Year #3 of his tenure. It's one thing to have bad week and lose to some Power 4 team, but as I've said repeatedly, there is really no excuse and it's just unacceptable to lose to a MAC school. What I've liked about MF is that he went out and surrounded himself with good coaches and coordinators that have a lot of experience. As one of you said on a below thread, not sure if Golden and Denbrock are helping to mentor him or not, but I would think they give him advice. I can't imagine them being afraid to speak up. Another positive is his first two recruiting classes were decent. This 2025 class ranking seems to be dropping which is concerning. How ND responds against Purdue will say a lot. They really should throttle Purdue, but for whatever reason, the offense overall and QB play specifically needs to step it up big time. I'll conclude, it besides me why ND continues to to hire a HC with no HC experience. It's just stupid and that is a big part of what we've been seeing over the last few seasons. I hope MF can turn it around. With his personality, winning will cure a lot of ills, especially with recruiting. If he doesn't succeed, ND needs to quit screwing around and go out and get the best coach possible and fork up the cash. Money talks and I still believe it's a very desirable job, but the school needs to fully back the program.

...at least when he was fully engaged and chose to do so.

Going with a first-time HC (yet again and certainly against my preference) meant that there would be a learning curve, even if ND got lucky and found the unpolished diamond.

Year 3 is indicating that they have missed yet again (who could've thunk it?). So my only qualification is that some of this disparity could've been predicted (up to now)...BUT now it won't abate and will continue through year 5. (See Faust, Davie, Weis...as we all know...having lived it.)