In a sudden matter of minutes on Monday night, Brian Kelly was gone from Notre Dame. After nearly 12 full seasons the coach has decided to leave for LSU and what is reportedly a very large bag of money. We’ll have more on his legacy in the coming days and weeks.
Speculation on who will replace Kelly is already dominating the college football news cycle and as we await a press conference from athletic director Jack Swarbrick this morning at 10 AM Eastern (see the embedded video below), I wanted to get some thoughts on the site about moving forward.
I think it was normal to assume when the time came for Brian Kelly to leave Notre Dame that there’d be a more concrete timetable in place with the appropriate and necessary time to flesh out his successor. This crazy sport is rarely that forgiving.
My most immediate reaction is that Notre Dame is now forced to decide, possibly within a matter of hours and certainly within a few days, how it wants to move forward with their coach gone.
Watch Swarbrick’s Press Conference Here:
At this very moment, we’re likely looking at 3 options for Swarbrick:
1) Hire Marcus Freeman
2) Hire Luke Fickell
3) Hire Someone Else
It wasn’t too long ago that Notre Dame grabbed a Cincinnati coach who was undefeated at the time and ruffled some feathers by leaving before their Sugar Bowl game. However, with the playoffs it does feel like there’s a difference in the perception of Fickell leaving the Bearcats with that carrot still being dangled. Perhaps Notre Dame will wait and see if Cincinnati trips up this weekend against Houston and/or waits to see if Cincinnati makes the playoffs as an undefeated anyway? Either way, I have a hard time seeing an announcement for Fickell when we don’t know Cincinnati’s fate.
If Swarbrick decides to go with someone else we’re assuming this process could take a little longer and stretches well into December. Can they wait that long?
Right now as the AD it has to be a huge internal struggle to balance doing what is best for the program long-term with the fact that technically this 2021 team is still alive for a National Championship, could very well be in a playoff game soon, and is at least locked in for what could be a very winnable (and fun!) major bowl game. It’s not like Notre Dame is #1 in the country right now, but man, going on a long coaching search right now feels weird knowing it’ll likely crumble the Irish’s chances to close out this season.
This brings us to Marcus Freeman.
Just over 3 months ago I was the guy saying let’s slow our roll with the hype around Freeman or making him Head Coach In-Waiting or anything like that. Results needed to be shown on the field before making any further assessments.
Today, it may be time to pull the trigger and hire Marcus Freeman for this job.
Some Brian Kelly thoughts…
Big picture, he pretty much lived up this ceiling, no? Modernized ND, won a lot of games, and made the job a lot more attractive as he’s leaving.
— € Murt (@EMMurtaugh) November 30, 2021
There’s also another dichotomy at work with Notre Dame right now. On the one hand, Brian Kelly raised Notre Dame’s profile in a big way since 2010 and with all the recent unprecedented poaching going on there’s a very real possibility the Irish make a big and bold move in the coming days that knocks everyone’s socks off.
Coming off the success of the Kelly era, perhaps you’d even expect that type of move. God knows there will be a certain section of the fan base up in arms if this doesn’t happen.
On the other hand, Notre Dame does feel suddenly constrained in its choices and passing over Freeman could have some disastrous ramifications in the short-term that would really force Swarbrick & Co. to nail Kelly’s successor in a way I’m not sure the landscape is offering a solution to right now.
With Kelly and Freeman gone, you’d think just about every assistant will be moving on. The recruiting could crater suddenly. And remember, we have a big post-season game coming up! This isn’t skip-bowl-season-time at Notre Dame.
I’m personally not that smitten with Fickell and wouldn’t be too excited about him coming to South Bend in addition to the weird timing to deal with for him. The likes of Matt Campbell, Dave Clawson, Dave Aranda, Kyle Whittingham, P.J. Fleck, Jeff Brohm, or Clark Lea aren’t terribly exciting right now. We’ve kind of known this is the situation for a couple years, it’s not a great job market for high-ceiling proven coaches within Notre Dame’s grasp.
Unless there’s a plan for stunning moves* with big names like Dabo Swinney, Ryan Day, Mario Cristobal, Nick Saban, Kirby Smart, and Jimbo Fisher the choices out there are pretty meager.
*Obviously, some of these would be bad fits and not happening but from a pull perspective these are massive hires.
Therefore, I’d be shocked if Marcus Freeman isn’t named interim head coach at this Swarbrick press conference, at minimum. Not doing so seems aggressively reckless. With the support we’ve already seen from current players and future recruits for Freeman since last night–plus plenty of smoke among the beat writers–it’s very possible Freeman is announced as the new permanent head coach not soon after I hit send on this published article, too.
This feels like the right decision.
I don’t feel like this is settling. Freeman’s ceiling could be very, very high and he has shown a number of elite traits as a coordinator that could translate to big things at Notre Dame. He’s young, good looking, motivated, articulate, and as a black and Korean man has the ability to transform the culture and cool factor in South Bend that is incredibly enticing for a place that still struggles with being a place for white, stuffy rich people. In this vein, Freeman being hired feels very inspired and worthwhile.
If Freeman really is a strong recruiter and things don’t work out as head coach the risk seems worth it to see if he’s that kind of star. If not, the roster should still be in a very good place and Notre Dame will look for a new head coach down the road.
HIRE FREEMAN NOW
My official stance going into this press conference is that I’m team #FreemanEra, but I do think there are other ways to get through this and be okay on the other side. So hopefully Freeman gets it, but no rending of garments from me as long as we get someone unobjectionable with high potential.
Post press conference I’ll add that I’m definitely not on team #ProtractedCoachingSearch but also that I have full faith in Jack’s ability to mislead the media about how long this is going to take. If he gets it done in the next 8 or so days so that the coach has a week before early signing day then I retract all my complaints about timeliness.
If Fickell’s the target then the timing is rough. We’re all aghast that Kelly would leave a team that had a chance at the playoff, Fickell’s chances at Cinci are better. He’s not leaving before he plays the games, and would he play them with one foot out the door? No idea. This is crazy.
Why would ND let him play out the playoffs? We absolutely should not do that.
Letting him play Saturday before it’s announced is fine, but he needs to be ND’s full-time employee come mid-day Sunday.
I’m not aghast that Kelly would leave a team that had a chance at the playoff. I’m guessing LSU didn’t give him the choice to wait until after the playoffs. I wouldn’t expect him to turn down $100MM just to make sure it didn’t affect the team’s playoff chances.
I’m aghast. But then, I am totally pissed at BK. For a ton of reasons, all of which have to do with the forgotten virtues in our modern world — faith, loyalty, — and the omnipresent vices — greed, ego. I am even more pissed at myself, for drinking the Kool Aid about BK. I hated the ND Nation “hate Kelly/Shanty Irish” crowd, but now I wonder if they were right all along… but listen to me, grumble, growl, piss and moan.
I need to switch gears, and go positive. So, 18 Stripes, where is our thread where we plead with Fortune to put us in the playoffs, and we follow Matt Balis’ cue and turn anger into intensity, and Kyle comes back because he loves Marcus, and we shut down the Dawgs because they can’t score, and then we face the Skunkbears in the Finals, and we do what ND should do… where is that thread???
AFAIK credit to Godbacker on TOS.
I think Freeman would be comparable to Ryan Day at OSU. You’d get a boost of excitement, boost in recruiting, and plenty of hiccups with a first time HC. A reasonable risk.
Lincoln Riley, too. The blueprint of ‘highly-touted young guy comes in to blue-blood program and replaces successful HC soon after arriving’ has already worked quite well twice. Not to say that guarantees Freeman’s success, but those are both very clear marks that it can work.
I think Jack will essentially be forced into hiring Freeman. The timing here is just awful — playoff rankings come out tonight, signing day is just around the corner, Fickell is preparing for a conference championship game and a major bowl of one kind or another. Slow-playing this seems like a great way to end up with Jeff Hafley or Matt Campbell.
Freeman is exciting but very very risky.
How many assistants do ya’ll think kelly is taking?
This may sound weird, but with the collective brain trust around, I think freeman would have plenty of wisdom on which to help him get up to speed. Plus his personality and aspirations seemed geared toward a marquee gig anyways. Maybe it was divine providence kelly left a year after freeman came in.
Also, maybe this is a hot take, but I legit trust swarbrick to make the call; he got Kelly in 2009 as a splash hire, and I think hes a strong enough personality to understand the gravitas of the situation.
Hopefully few to none (although there are a couple I wouldn’t mind if they really liked gumbo).
Sounds like they’re none too happy with Kelly, so we’ll see.
Reports that Kelly is after Freeman and Rees already.
Rees he can take. I assume Freeman is gone unless he’s the new HC.
We’re going to get stuck with Del Alexander, aren’t we?
Haha, this might have been the best comment that I have seen on the boards in the past 24 hours
Can’t imagine the short-term turmoil if it’s not Freeman then Jack is essentially embracing a complete rebuild of the most successful, steady version of the program (in terms of five straight 10+ wins). Of which it’s no guarantee Campbell or whoever they hire even gets them back off the ground and ND is really back to the wilderness.
Gotta be Freeman. The program ideal kinda had to be he would take over in 2-3 years in a smooth transition. It’s not that smooth and accelerated but it’s the right call.
(Also still sticking with the idea to bring in Hartline or bring back Tony Alford as OC for max recruiting/upside shoot for the moon coaching).
I’m not clear why Dave Aranda isn’t exciting option. He’s coaching a top 10 power 5 team, obviously has the head coaching experience that’s making some people twitch away from Freeman. Plus he seems like both a stand-up and energetic guy. If we end up with someone from “the field” he’s probably my top choice.
I don’t think he’d be a terrible hire. I wouldn’t classify him as an exciting option at all. Granted, I know almost nothing about his personality but I do know he’s not exactly setting the world on fire recruiting-wise.
I agree with all this. You gotta try Freeman at this point. At worst, which from what I’ve read on him seems not likely, but at worst, Freeman leaves a stocked roster. Best case with the other options is they hit the same ceiling as Kelly because they dont get enough high level recruits. If Jack or the university are serious about trying to win again you have to try to up the recruiting level and the way and time to try is with Freeman now when the program is rock solid.
Not naming an interim, and if they did the interim would NOT be a candidate…is this so they avoid naming Freeman interim and then not “disqualify” him because of they said that?
I think so? I also wonder if it’s to avoid giving momentum to any candidate.
it’s really weird.
I agree with your point above. It could also be that making freeman acting and then picking someone else would annoy a lot of people, especially the players.
Also — being hopelessly naive — we do recruit the school and not the coaches, for some of them that will still resonate…
some of that is definitely true but it’s not not sufficient to keep a whole class together.
I do appreciate that, which is why I qualified my remarks.
Seems like it. Also, Freeman is out recruiting and not on campus. It would be weird to make him head coach over Zoom which I guess I didn’t even think about.
Seems appropriate in covid times.
Not untrue.
How can you recruit when you don’t even know if you’ll be with the team next year? And everyone knows you might not be there?
It seems really odd to be continuing to recruit while there is no head coach and no plan for one.
Yeah but the protocol for every team is that assistant coaches try to keep the class together until they know they aren’t sticking around. It’s never nice and clean because you never know and they’re worried about their jobs.
This is a concern for me too. It’s not like Signing Day is 9-10 weeks away like it used to be, either.
This is going to be a tough sell, IMO. “Hey guys, I know you might not have a job in 2-3 weeks but let’s keep recruiting out there and oh by the way prepare for a possible playoff game with no head coach.”
Right if signing day was Feb. 4. Different situation. I hope Jack doesn’t make the mistake of treating the signing difference as no difference at all. I fear that would have serious negative consequences.
Also, other programs may poach these guys ASAP anyway. No one should feel obligated to stick around.
Right, though with a Feb. 4 deadline guys may be a little more patient in waiting to see who the new coach is.
Now, they are going to have to commit for good without even knowing who the guy is let alone have a week or two to connect with him???
They don’t have to commit on early signing day. I assume a few, but not many, would if we didn’t have a head coach.
They don’t have to but the vast majority do now from what I can tell.
They kinda do, 13 players in the ND class are planning to enroll early. Those players are going to sign and start college in January somewhere..
Players used to enroll early back when NSD was in February. I presume they can still do that.
They obviously have to make a few decisions. But they have options.
in the strict sense, that’s true. But they also might miss out on spots in classes from other teams if they don’t commit on the early signing day, that is, to make a decision to go elsewhere might be needed on this date.
Swarbrick basically blowing up all of my questions LOL.
If you can keep your head while all about you are losing theirs…
I’m seeing $95mm/10 years. Isn’t that what MSU just gave Mel fuckin Tucker Jr?
It is, that’s some serious cash
Differing amounts of serious, though. MSU doesn’t have the pockets/prestige of LSU & Mel Tucker doesn’t have the resume of CBK.
I think we’ll eventually get more contract details that make the total compensation package for BK to be more than that. But it does seem really, really weird.
IMO, Kelly wanted to leave to chase a title in his final act. Whatever, it’s fine.
He done gonna be chased outta da bayou, cher.
If he ever tries to come back to the Bend, I will help organize the tar and feathers…
Well, consolation prize is him getting forcibly retired in four years with a huge buyout. Only downside is that he won’t get a warm reception at any of his former schools.
Yup. Kelly tryin to pull a Borque to Colorado. But it feels way more like Hossa to Detroit. Hope he gets exactly what Hossa got
A huge contract and three championships?
Wasn’t aware he won three with Detroit. Missed that.
Would be something to watch Kelly win 3 natty’s at LSU.
Not something enjoyable. But something.
He got like $7M for one season in Detroit and then went to the Blackhawks and got $60M and three championships. Borque to Colorado is a trade in a guy’s last season so I kinda get the connection albeit BK probably plans on coaching 5+ years still. Hossa was a player who was already traded the year before to the Pens, signs a one year deal, then goes on to even bigger success. Analogizing him to Kelly doesn’t really fit.
In this scenario, Kelly leaves LSU after next year to sign with idk, Georgia, and then wins three championships.
alright man. You got me. stop kicking a man when he’s down LOL. It was a bad analogy
Yeah but think of what it’ll be like when we just spoke Kelly to Georgia into existence
I just threw up in my mouth
Kirby to uhhh… UCLA. You heard it here first
Hossa left Pitt for more money to win it with Detroit after losing to them. Pitt turned around and stuck it up his ass and it was awesome. That’s all I was going for. I apologize the rest wasn’t a good fit. Good on you for calling me out
Nice run down, thank you!
You da real MVP
I wonder if because Freeman is out on the road everything is vague until he gets back and can chat with Jack. Maybe you don’t name an interim because what you WANT is to name Freeman the HC, but you can’t say that until you’ve talked to him about all these things and what his plan is, etc.
I hope so because the timeline for all of this seems pie-in-the-sky. It sounds like the right thing to do. Like “calm down. We can’t rush this and need to find the right guy.” whereas in reality you might torpedo this and next year (and a few years down the line with a poor recruiting class) to take this cool, calm and collected (slow) approach.
Yeah you can’t simply ignore early signing day. I don’t know. Unintended consequences of the signing day shift. Well intentioned but not sure this is better for recruits .
So where is Freeman and how hard is it to get him back to south bend to have a face to face conversation with him to offer him a job?
That’s what I think is the logical conclusion. It fits everything Jack said.
“No assistant coaches have resigned.”
Well that seems good, though I imagine at least a couple follow BK
Polian at least. He’s like a mini-BK.
Yeah Polian is the main one I had in mind but there are a few others.
Seems like one of two things about this press conference are true:
(1) He is being a little misleading; or
(2) That was a really bad press conference
Either way, we’ll likely know in about 24 hours no? If Freeman isn’t hired or reports of the hire then we know he meant what he said and he’s going to take his time, etc.
I don’t know, might be reading between the lines but it sure seems like Jack is fine with a long search, talking to outside candidates like Campbell, maybe even waiting until Fickell is finished for the season and then seeing.
I would think if Freeman was the direction they wanted to go the path would have been to at least establish the continuity of making him the interim at this point. Perhaps like Eric and others have said here that isn’t feasible in this situation with Freeman currently away from campus…But it leaves me unsettled that Swarbrick is taking more a broader focus that’s more open-ended.
I have a hard time taking anyone at their word in this sport. I took it more as a “the state of the program is strong” type press conference. For example, there’s no way they haven’t started extending interviews already.
My interpretation is that if the search takes a long time, then the job is going to Fickell (or they completely bombed out without real interest from their top candidates). In that scenario, you would think that Jack would have a handshake agreement but would be letting him coach the playoffs.
If it is anyone else, the search should be relatively quick within a couple of weeks (barring the notoriously slow ND background check / official hiring procedure)
But, like, why? Why in the world would we want that or agree to that? If we’re a serious power school, we tell him he has to do what Kelly just did and leave his team after Saturday.
Because ND has no leverage to dictate that. Fickell isn’t going to be without opportunities going forward.
ND is the one in the bind, not Fickell.
Nah. This isn’t 2009 where there’s one guy who would come who clearly raises above the rest. Fickell’s value right now isn’t notably higher than Freeman or Campbell. ND has leverage over Fickell – he allegedly wants two jobs, and one of them is available. If he’s not willing to fill it by Sunday mid-day, you snooze you lose.
He’s also the coach of a probably playoff team that’s about to join a supposedly P5 conference. Yes, ND has some leverage, but I wouldn’t say he feels he has to jump.
The big leverage is that unless Ryan Day gets NFL-itis, tOSU isn’t opening any time soon. So if Fickell really does want to move to one of his two choices, ND now is the option. You ask–you see what you can work out–and you do it or don’t. But a lot depends on what happens Sunday. If they lose, he’s ours. If they win, then Jack’s walking a tightrope if he gets an agreement, because what happens in the unlikely situation that they win?
Possibly both?
It would be hilarious and on brand for Swarbrick to NOT have an acting head coach in the playoff/bowl game to make a point.
I got the impression from the way he said it that there is a non-trivial chance that the groundskeeper from Rudy will be making the coin-toss decision in the Bowl games.
[wins National Championship]
[puts up Jack Swarbrick statue in the stadium]
My god he’s going full Barry Alvarez.
Really curious how that convo with freeman went one year after kelly convinced freeman to not go to LSU for more money. Really torn on how i’ll view kelly long term. I mean the program just won 10+ games for a fifth straight year which is absurd given the 1996-2011 run. I also think Kelly hit HIS ceiling at ND. if he ain’t gonna recruit like gangbusters at ND he wasn’t gonna get over the hump. there are plenty of nd fits that go elsewhere, pretty much ohio state and clemson. hell throw baker on the 2017 team and they probably win a title.
anyways i’m rambling, kelly can go live it up in baton rouge. Would honestly be really disappointed if someone like elston followed him there
My view of Kelly right now is pretty neutral, but that could change. It depends on what comes out from players and asst. coaches in the next few days.
HIS ceiling is perfectly said. I agree Kelly wasn’t going to do much more than he did. I think some will take that to mean ND can’t do more, but they’re wrong.
yes, the point about HIS ceiling is a great point.
They may be wrong.
His ceiling/ND ceiling debate will be determined in a 1-3 years
I’m pretty sure he sees LSU as a place where an NC can be won, and he knows it can’t be done at ND.
We have a lot of data on that.
What he’ll have to navigate through is the near term scandals Ogeron left behind, thus the over the top money they’ve given him.
I’ve heard a lot of comments about recent scandals at LSU under coach O, but I have never heard what happened. Is there an investigation? Was he paying players?
Much of it extends from before Orgeron, he just didn’t do much to clean it up. But also he had his own issues. There’s been an ongoing Title IX investigation dating back to Miles, which got Miles fired at Kansas. Everything from Miles telling the staff to hire “big-boobed blondes” as secretaries so horny 17-yo recruits chose LSU to allegedly having an on-campus apartment that he regularly invited college student female staffers to trying to get in their pants.
So with that as backdrop, in comes O, and he’s not exactly known as a sedate, buttoned down guy. He wins the NC 2 years ago and everyone forgets what was going on, and he gets a divorce in the middle of it, and with the invincibility of being the NC coach kinda goes wild. Everything from hitting on the wives of major trustees at a gas station to bringing girlfriends to practice and letting their kids participate in drills. Was it anything ILLEGAL or against NCAA rules? No, but it was certainly a distraction (especially last year in the middle of COVID protocols…what are you doing bringing non-staff to practice?) and a continuation of the kind of atmosphere a Title IX investigation is trying to get rid of.
That they kept O on staff with a fat check and minimal job requirements (he has to appear at an LSU event once per year as a kind of cheerleader) tells me they wanted him out but they also wanted him quiet, so who knows what else is lurking in that athletic department.
CBK hasn’t lost a conference game since 10/25/08. Maybe he just wants to see if it’s even still possible.
Except for the CCG. Every once in a while I think about how sweet it would have been to pull that one off.
Don’t know what you’re even talking about
He means that exhibition rematch against Clemson last December that didn’t count for anything.
Competition in the Freeman hiring sphere from some guy in Louisiana:
This is another reason why we can’t have a protracted coaching search. You are going to miss out on candidates and if you are leaning going with someone in the program you are going to lose even more assistants before that happens and so the continuity will be less than it could have been.
Yup, it’s the obvious move for BK. Nice bit of spiting by LSU after we got him last year too
And Tommy being targeted! That makes sense for everyone, wouldn’t be shocked to see him going with Kelly. Hopefully Kelly doesn’t poach Freeman, but I’d have to imagine the odds that Freeman is LSU DC next year are way higher than him being ND DC..
Northshore Notre Dame grad going to LSU sounds like a hilarious culture shock waiting to happen. Same with lace curtain Boston Irish Kelly going to LSU. I don’t see it working out.
saw a few references to LSU neck last night so looked that up. oh man college football is the best but agree kelly gonna be in a for a way different environment. gonna have to be more aggressive in recruiting, better not start 8-5, 8-5, and that purple face shenigans shut wont be tolerated down there.
He often said nd shops down a different aisle and they certainly do and there are a ton of LSu players I really like and want my son to look up to but damn there gonna be a lot of trouble mixed in
LSU turned on Miles, who won them a championship, and basically never seemed to happy with Coach O, a native son, and more or less (1) had to be strong armed into hiring him to start and (2) canned him as soon as they could despite their crazy championship team. Yeah there’s evidence Kelly has a hire ceiling and wins a title but it’s also a much trickier road and much less patient program.
If the purple face matches his bengal-embroidered polo shirt, it could be kind of fun.
I think the odds of Freeman being a DC anywhere next year are way lower than him being a HC somewhere next year.
Given the option I’d prefer to keep Rees at OC. I’d be incredibly interested to know what’s in his head concerning regard for ND vs regard for BK.
This is exactly why a head coaching hire needs to be made now. Not a few weeks from now.
With this and the news above about Freeman also being sought by “LSU Coach Brian Kelly”, I don’t know what Swarbrick is talking about he doesn’t need a interim head coach and the structure of the staff is strong, etc. Best case is both of your coordinators are now actively mulling over taking a new job while the playoff is still on the table to go be with the guy who just left and has the notion that all he has to do to win a National Championship is transplant his staff to a better recruiting ground.
Yep, I agree. Hopefully a bit of deception and misleading by Jack not revealing his whole hand, because it can’t just be “coaches stay out there and recruit and there is no coach and oh yeah, maybe we’ll hire him one day at a date to be named later”. Has to have someone in place soonest.
Right. The optimistic take on the press conference is “he’s completely full of it”, which is kind of darkly amusing.
I guess the only thing said by any of these guys that can be trusted is nothing short of “with that said I’d like to introduce the new Dick Corbett Head Football Coach at the University of Notre Dame…”
Freeman will be either the HC at ND or the HC at CIncy next year.
I think Eric is right that it *feels* like we would have to wait for Fickell, but, like, why? LSU just hired Brian Kelly despite us being in the playoff hunt. Why shouldn’t we be in the same position to do similar things? If we think we’re a destination job, we need to act like it.
Maybe we can’t demand he interview this week given his game, but by the end of literally today we should have extracted a promise from him that he will take the job if offered and will take it on Sunday regardless of Cincy’s result.
It is a full-blown, epic screw-up if ND does not have its next head coach named a week from today and he is not on the road recruiting next week.
I agree. This is straightforward (unless there’s some shocking candidate like Bob Stoops in the mix).
If Fickell wants the job, it’s his. But he has to take it by, like, tomorrow. Preferably today.
If not, then Freeman.
Done.
We have absolutely no leverage to force him to do anything.
if I’m Fickell I see Oklahoma as a better job.
Oklahoma might be a better job, but there has been no Fickell-to-Oklahoma talk. All indications are they want to hire Clemson’s DC. Fickell also allegedly views his dream jobs as (1) Ohio State and (1b) Notre Dame. Unfortunately for him, though, ND has options who would take the job by this Sunday. He should have to as well.
When Swarbrick said he would have a student athlete advisory group, I imagined the video below, with Lisa as the students, Bart as the fans, Marge as Swarbrick, Homer as maybe the board of trustees or whomever has to approve the hire/salary (minimum wage), and of course, Grandpa as Lane Kiffin.
https://youtu.be/2AnxJ3tUYbM
I watched the press conference too. I thought it was about what you would expect. I didn’t expect much truth to come out of it.
I think the range of plausible results for a Freeman hire is Lincoln Riley to Jimmy Lake. He is the high-variance hire.
The ceiling with Freeman is higher than Riley. Never winning a Natty then bolting to USC isn’t a high enough ceiling to excite ND fans. The up-side is Dabo without being a weirdo, that’s why he’s exciting.
Pump the brakes a little – Freeman as defensive Riley is basically what we’re shooting for if we hire Freeman. And you have to weigh it against the downside of him being Davey 2.0 – maybe a great D coordinator but the lack of HC experience crushes him.
I don’t think we’re on the same page terminologically. The average result of hiring Freeman factors in things like lack of head coaching experience. The absolute best outcome (what I meant by ceiling or up-side) of hiring Freeman has to be winning National Championships or else why are we considering him?
I presume we’re talking about reasonable expectations because otherwise the floor with Freeman is him literally never losing a game and winning every championship or the floor is him losing every single game until fired. I think Riley could have won a championship at OU if he managed or bothered to hire a good DC. The SEC move is what really irked him and got him to jump ship as far as I can tell. I agree that we have to consider if Freeman can win a national championship, I think he can, but he is coming with a bigger downside risk than say Fickell.
I think people largely underestimate my willingness to move forward with a plan that involves never losing again, hahaha.
Anyway, I get your point about considering the whole range of outcomes when considering a high variance possibility.
Jack should be flying out to Freeman if he isn’t coming back until Friday.
Maybe he is…what aliases does he use?
I am sure he has already spoken with Freeman. I am also sure he will be back sooner than the rest because of this.
This is bullshit. FIRE KELLY
I’m not sure if anyone else has brought this up, but the reason for BK leaving has to be the LSU lazy river, right? Gotta have your priorities
https://www.nola.com/news/education/article_b3c49345-9eb2-50e3-a8ed-9cf3a9d4ca2a.html
Is this the list that Swarbrick is using for this search?
https://18stripes.com/the-list-updating-the-2020-rankings-for-notre-dames-next-head-coach/
Chris Petersen time, baby!
For the record I still have Pat Fitzgerald behind falling off a mountain and being bitten by sharks on my list of next Notre Dame head coach and will be functionally inconsolable if he’s hired as Matt Fortuna was pushing on the last Shamrock.
Pat picked the wrong year to go 3-9 instead of 9-3
The best thing that could happen for Notre Dame football over the next month is to hire Freeman, get back-doored into the playoffs, win the championship, and then erect a Freeman statue with the inscription “winners never quit and quitters never win.”
Or maybe I’m just being spiteful.
How bout we drop Clemson from next year’s schedule and replace them with LSU?
No, I liiike it!
This is a better petty suggestion than the other one I’ve seen floated several times, to recognize the vacated wins to reduce BK’s win total below Rockne’s.
The idea that someone needs head coaching experience to be successful at a top job is not reality these days. It may have been in years past, but the current crop of the best coaches clearly shows it is not a requirement.
Prior HC experience:
Saban – did technically go from coordinator to P5 HC, but that was DC of the Browns to MSU HC, so I don’t think it really applies.
Harbaugh – San Diego HC to Stanford HC
BK – long path to ND, lots of HC
Coordinator to HC
Dabo – Clemson AHC/WR/OC for 2 years to Clemson HC
Riley – OU OC for 2 years to OU HC
Fisher – LSU OC for 6 years to FSU OC for 3 to FSU HC
Smart – Bama DC for 8 years to UGA HC
Day – OSU OC 1 year to interim HC to OSU HC.
Many of them were only P5 coordinators for 1-2 years.
Good points. With respect, part of the issue on this was sort of unique to ND — a particularly difficult place to coach. “Special” demands as Swarbrick alluded to in today’s presser. Maybe that’s no longer an issue, but I am not sure.
Booster and media demands here have to be a real consideration. Not like Texas or LSU crazy, I imagine, but something to weigh compared to say Michigan State or Cincinnati
It’s even more, academics, Du Lac, dorms, and even a deeper strain of fundamental expectations.
Bingo!
None of those things are going to be learned as a HC at another school.
Yep. If anything Freeman, already having dealt with it for a year, has an edge here.
Here’s a really stupid idea — since Freeman and Fickell’s interests are kind of opposed to each other, why not play them against each other a bit?
Tell them both that ND is prepared to hire one of them as HC at $X million per year. Because of the unfortunate timing, whoever accepts first will get the job, and will start immediately. HOWEVA…
If they decide to work together, with Fickell as HC and Freeman as DC, we will pay them both significantly more.
Yeah, right, they’d sure be bamboozled by that!
The decommitment train has started down the tracks…clock is ticking.
Have we lost our first?
devin moore
Bummer. Hope we don’t lose too many
For context though, it’s a 3-star safety from Florida. UF has a new coach, Billy Napier, who is a good recruiter and visited the kid yesterday before the Kelly news crescendo’d and now he decommits from ND and likely is staying at home. I don’t really think this is much to be worked up about. It’s certainly nothing like the decommit train about to leave station if Freeman takes the LSU DC job.
Yea just saw about the UF visit. Not ideal either way, but understandable. Your last point is very true though. Things have been pretty quiet the last few hours. Has to be a lot of negotiating going on.
Pretty much every player and recruit is tweeting in support of Freeman getting the job and their excitement for such a possibility, so I’d say that is what stage it is in. Everyone just kinda waiting to see what Swarbrick is going to do. It’s really not going to be pretty if it’s not Freeman. Emotions can always blow over so we’ll see, but the football program is basically back to square one of building again if they don’t hire him.
Your last phrase might be a tad over the top, Hooks. I would hope so anyway.
Maybe so, probably more relative to recent standards, where even this rebuilding season yielded a lot of success. That’s going to be gone for a bit, I suspect. We’ll see just how much turnover happens when all the pieces get put into place but it’s going to be a dramatically different 2022 outlook than 48 hours ago.
So let’s let the emotional18-19 year old kids make the decision? They have very short term skin in the game. The university has the bigger picture to take care of.
Didn’t say to let them make the decision, just that it would have an extremely negative short-term effect if Freeman isn’t hired.
They’ve got much more relevance to the decision than you or I do. You can bring in a “good coach” and win 9-10 games a year, maybe even get to the playoff and lose by 30. Isn’t the point to progress beyond that? For that to happen, you have to have a coach on staff–HC or coordinator at least–who can bring in classes that compete with the Bamas, UGAs, and Ohio States. Freeman is that level of recruiter. Fickell by many accounts is that level of recruiter, and has the tOSU experience of what that level of program looks like. For me, it’s got to be one of those two. When you’ve got 95% of the kids in your #4 ranked recruiting class saying “yeah, we don’t really care that the HC left, we’ll stay if Freeman stays,” you can’t ignore that. It doesn’t mean you let that be the only factor, but it absolutely should be a major one in consideration. The ideal would be Fickell and Freeman, but that’s not going to happen. Take either. Third choice is Matt Campbell I guess, and he’s a good coach, but I’m not sure he’s any different than what we had, and we won’t keep Freeman, so yes, it feels like we’re starting somewhat from the beginning there.
So far everyone has overlooked one factor — Father Jenkins (that is to say, The University) gets a vote. That has been true of ND for a century. IMO it hasn’t changed much. That matters because it brings ND’s values into play.
My guess is that might favor Freeman, actually — depending on what the administration has seen of him behind the scenes.
I think that’s why basically everyone immediately dismisses Urban.
I wouldn’t want him even if this wasn’t the policy.
Concur!
If Urban was just a bit of a flake and likely to leave after four years, I’d say go for it. But he’s much more than that and I think that school and a big part of the fanbase say absolutely no – rightfully so.
For the fanbase (excluding ToS) – winning solves all problems.
For recent data on this see Kelly, Brian circa 2017.
I would take Urban, warts and all.
It would be a fun ride until it was full of cringe.
Downside, only 66% of his prior stops have survived his tenure.
(edited for forgetting Utah, though still disregarding BG)
Gotta take the five year picture with Urbs, not the three year. Winning a championship (or maybe just a playoff game) isn’t really worth it if it brings scandals and issues and a dumpster fire when he leaves.
Agreed that’s the risk. A fun ride until it isnt.
Who among us
I am not proud, but that voice is there. That is the La Vida Loca Urbana
Totally! Urbie was possible before Florida, totally not possible since.
Hey it wouldn’t be the first time Jenkins has put aside the University’s stated values for the sake of popularity.
(I will not be elaborating)
Loud and clear
Not to get too deep into this but I have a lot of concerns about Jenkins’s judgment. I hope he’s not super involved in this process.
I can’t trust a man with that bad of a handshake
I don’t put much stock in Dodd’s tweet, but Fickell did give a very long-winded non-denial. I think things are shaping up like this:
Even if Kelly is offering to make Freeman the highest paid DC, ND could be offering to make him an even higher paid HC in a few days here. So he can wait a couple days. I think Swarbrick will wait to see the playoff rankings tonight to decide how he’ll approach Fickell about timing. Then talk to Fickell, see if he’ll agree to a timeframe, and if not, hire Freeman later this week.
There’s no reason to wait for the playoff rankings. He should be figuring out with Fickell’s agent if Fickell will be full-time on Sunday or not regardless of Cincy’s result. If not, they should stop talking and just hire Freeman. If so, interview both and weigh it and make a call on Saturday.
When Rees moves on to a head coaching job I’ll wish him the best, but I don’t want him moving laterally away from ND. I think we should be able to beat the current offer by enough to extract a promise not to answer anymore 225 area code phone calls.
This gets into recent talks here about what the school wants but frankly between the school and fanbase, Notre Dame really should not be getting outbid by anyone, especially on coordinator pay which is comparatively small / has a more narrow gap than HC pay.
I really don’t think Rees warrants this kind of interference with whoever the new HC is.
If the next head coach is Freeman I suspect he’d be happy to keep Rees. If the next head coach is Fickell and Freeman leaves then keeping Rees can definitely contribute to calming player and recruit nerves. Either way keeping Rees is a positive to me.
If we were trying to import Aranda or Clawson with an entire P5 coaching staff I would agree this is may be irritating interference, but I don’t think we’re leaning that way.
I dunno, man. Signing an OC before you have an HC? That’s really odd. Maybe Freeman already knows the job is his and wants to keep Rees.
Signing an OC before a HC is a great way to lose a HC unless that HC has made it very clear they want the OC to stay. I don’t remember for sure but I’m pretty positive VT announced hiring Fuente before they announced keeping Bud Foster, for example.
Or at least keep Rees long enough to get through next year and get established, then he can “move on to other opportunities” and Freeman can bring in who he wants.
Not that I think he’s bad but I do really think Rees is replaceable as a coach and can be upgraded from as a recruiter. Nice to keep around for continuity but not a deal breaker.
I’d say he’s the fourth most important coach to keep around right now, and as we lose guys from the one to three slots he moves up in importance.
No Del?
I do agree with that ranking but I think it’s a big gap from 1 to 2 and 2 to the rest.
I’d move Taylor above Rees – promote Lance Taylor.
One can reasonably swap 4 and 5, but there is such a huge cliff from 3 to 4 here it’s barely comparable.
What does it mean to keep Rees without a head coach? Presumably the new coach would want a say in who the OC would be? Why would Rees agree to an upgraded contract only to be fired soon?
Does this imply that Freeman is the guy already then? That would make the most sense.
Similar questions would pertain to Balis but a little bit less I would think.
I think it implies that talks are ongoing to keep things together as best they can, probably under Freeman. Jack might be thinking that if he can keep the staff together for the most part then they have a chance to win the bowl/outside shot at the playoff. But if he can’t keep Freeman than might as well blow it all up at that point (but keep Balis)
Despite what Jack said today, listening to the II and Shamrock Podcasts today it seems to be perception among some of those guys that ND admin are not staying even let alone ahead of the curve on infrastructure and organizational things that even low-to-mid level P5 programs do/have (updating the Gug Athletic Complex specically so players have enough places to study in house and an onsite dedicated training table being mentioned specifically). Listed as possible reason Kelly may not have “felt wanted enough”.
Maybe admin didn’t want to put the money into all that for Kelly, a guy who wasn’t gonna move the needle anymore on recruiting (maybel something like, “he is where he is recruiting and they are winning so why should we invest when he’s gonna maybe retire in five years”). I don’t know.
And I don’t know why Kelly chose to leave (the money is not much more for what he probably was really getting already), and I don’t know if this non-investment stuff was a reason, but I do know that if ND does hire Freeman or some other super recuiter who CAN get the players needed to win a Championship, the admin better clear out any impediments that exist with infrastructure and operations (whatever you want to call it) for that coach. If that isn’t done with that hire they should just instead hire Matt Campbell or Pat Fitzgerald or whoever else wont take ND to a higher recruiting level but will be a stable 8,9, and maybe sometimes 10 win coach best case so we all know where things stand.
I think Fortuna especially was being pretty unreasonable on the Shamrock today. The Gug is dated and needs to be the next major renovation, but ND has a three year old state-of-the-art indoor practice facility built to the football team’s and BK’s exact specifications and just finished a $400 million stadium renovation. So two of the three buildings that matter to the football program ND is in the top 10 nationally, and the one that hasn’t been renovated recently they aren’t.
Clemson and Ohio State’s stadiums don’t even encompass the field. Michigan’s has a single absurd concourse. We can’t recruit because one building isn’t state of the art? That’s nonsense. Especially when we have two top recruiting classes coming verbally committed for the next two cycles.
That said, the Gug is the next facility to be renovated. Sure, everyone agrees with that. That doesn’t mean Fortuna’s “ND isn’t trying anyway so just hire Pat Fitzgerald, who wouldn’t come anyway because ND isn’t big time enough” rant is in any way reflective of reality.
Fair. It possible Fortuna is off base. My perspective is, with all of ND in-built impediments that stem from its traditional and preferred identity of academic and athletic excellence, why, as an administration, would you drag your feet on the impediments you can remove to recruiting that don’t take away from what you want to be. ND should continue to be ND, but should also put its best foot forward when it can, right? And, even if Fortuna is wrong, the fact it is being used against ND in recruiting per assistant coaches who feel it is getting traction with recruits (otherwise why mention it), means the admin isn’t trying to do that to the fullest possible extent.
Pat Fitzgerald? Good lord. That is unhinged.
Yeah they were working out some emotions from being out of the know and lack of sleep on the podcast.
FWIW the recent players on the Twitter thing last night said the opposite.
Yeah, upgrades are a never ending battle, but it sounds like ND has a ways to go for basic creature comforts..Pete Sampson wrote these passages today:
Swarbrick can be proud about how nice NFL scouts says the practice building is, but they need some day-to-day improvements like other top programs.
When was this said? I seem to remember (though my memory may be faulty) that he had been saying this early in his tenure, but slowly things began to improve culminating in crossroads.
I think you’re right about the crossroads project being a smash success and the practice area is great. But they still need more dedicated space and investment for football specifically in training tables, study/mental performance, food areas+nutrition and probably also recovery.
I believe Sampson and others had said before the Gug is in need of expansion already just so they have enough room to not have to share spaces and be crammed/confined and flipping different areas throughout the day. I’m sure it’ll get done, but I can see why Kelly in year 12 would be restless about fighting tooth and nail to just barely keep up and function like other programs…When he can go to a place that is inclined culturally to provide it more freely.
I’d guess it’s less about actual facilities and more about fights to increase team support staff, like recruiting, sports psych, analysts, etc. Not to mention the frequently brought up private jet situation.
This is a never ending arms race in CFB. The facilities will always need upgrades because other schools are always one upping each other. I’m sure some ND facilities need upgrading. Other aspects will always need tweaking to stay “state of the art”. Most of us though would be in awe of how well these athletes are taken care of. And if we were to get a look at the budget $$$ for these things our jaws would hit the floor.
This isn’t to say ND doesn’t need to keep up with the Joneses. Just that ND’s poor facilities and treatment of player’s needs is being a little over blown here. IMO. It isn’t that long ago I remember ND releasing videos of their new updated training table. Now, it’s antiquated ?
Yeah I thought that the training table was one of the first things Kelly “fixed” when he came in.
But that said, I kinda get it with the things like study space, etc. The demands on kids’ time–especially at ND where we actually expect them to play skool–are immense. I’m a PhD candidate and I live 15 minutes from campus and I never go anymore because the drive + parking + finding a place to set up and work costs me a few hours a day I don’t need to do when I can sit at my desk here at home. Is it THAT much time? No, but it’s enough to be a pain in the ass. The players practically live in the Gug, between practice prep, meetings, film watching, etc. With classes online more and more in today’s world, they don’t even need to go to physical classrooms much of the time. Books from the library can often be downloaded as PDFs. So if they can do all they need to for school from anywhere, might as well give them the space to do it at the Gug. The whole line about players laid out in the hallway doing homework is ridiculous. We can do better.
I would love to know what the “Freudian slip or two along the way that sort of grabbed my attention” that Swarbrick mentioned were.
Did BK start talking a lot about jumbo or sounding like Coach O? Walk by his office and catch him watching YouTube videos of Neck? Hear him tell his wife about how nice Louisana is? Funny to think about
There was the one comment about Freeman being a coach in waiting or something about him being the next head coach. I am sure there were others privately.
I remember a public comment about Freeman being the next head coach.
Allegedly Kelly said “the next coach” and then later clarified to mean “a next coach” or something, trying to say he didn’t mean a successor per se, just that he’d be a HC someday soon.
I too often refer to potential replacement coaches as “a next coach” generically
I mean, it’s weirdly phrased but that was BK. He wasn’t always gooder with words.
Hmm 2 LSU coaches in a row like that.
Yabut they actually understood the last one down there.
I lived in that state for 2 years. We laugh but I would love to be a fly on the wall watching BK interact with that fanbase.
Absolutely, I didn’t live in LA but in East Texas.
DACOACHKELLYGONNAEATALLDASPICYGUMBOFODAKROOTSANGETTDAHESRTBURN
Boom! Back in the win column already. Let’s go:
First good news in ages. Would have been a devastating loss.
Great news, and I’ll be the person to say it: this seems to be a pretty strong indication that Freeman would be the coach. Any other coach presumably would want to have final say over who their S&C coach is.
That’s how I read it as well. Can’t imagine that this would be finalized if there was too much uncertainty.
And ND football’s Twitter just posted a video of “Built By Balis”
https://twitter.com/NDFootball/status/1465814903906869256
That’s pretty definitive–it’s obviously from today, and he’s talking about harnessing that anger to destroy whomever they play next.
“The most powerful motivator is love, but right now you’re angry, so you’re going to use that anger. That’s a good thing.”
Is it cursing if it’s in a tweet?
Damn !!!
ND Football verified account was just told to put this out. The video is Balis telling the team he’s staying and pumping them up. Kind of seems like the kind of move we’d make publicly if the defensive coordinator was going to be the next head coach.
“An angry team that cares about each other and loves each other and decides, no matter what happens, we’re going to get s*** done, you’re going to destroy any opponent you go against.”
“This is where I want to be. I want to die here. If I can die in here coaching you guys… this is where I want to be.”
And I see I was beat to it haha.
Anybody ready to run through a brick wall?!?! Wooo, boy.
Great news
Matt Freeman at ISD reporting that Kelly made a play to take Balis and ND retaliated with a raise to keep him in South Bend.
https://twitter.com/mattfreemanISD/status/1465812476667310088
So Kelly’s just trying to bring the entire staff down to LSU, I presume
At least the key pieces as he sees it. But he lost at least one battle.
Just saw on Twitter that Kelly’s meeting this morning lasted less than two minutes. He took no questions and walked out
“I’m just here to collect my stuff from the office. I’ll message those of you who might want to transfer to LSU. Peace”
He did not, in fact, let the door hit him on the way out. So he did that bit correctly.
Harsh, but I don’t know there’s a right way to leave or handle it. He didn’t want to be there, just had to at least face them and say peace out. Pretty shitty to make them get up and come in at 7am so he could go about the rest of his day bugs me more than anything. Not like he was going to have a hug and handshake for everyone like it was senior day again.
Who was that coach that left the recruits at a restaurant? Was that kiffin?
Tubs, I think.
Yeah, left in the middle of dinner to go to Cinci.
Surely Cincy screamed their heads off about the injustice of that.
Ahem, that’s Senator Tubs.
(This career turn will never not be hilarious)
I mean, it’s tragic, but yes, also hilarious.
I see that Senator Tubs is here amongst us. Hi Tommy!
That’s certainly disappointing.
Funny is funny.
(I think you might have to click it to see the pic, but it is worth it for a laugh)
Del Alexander while everyone is trying to be poached except him:
Seeing Jaylen Sneed and Tyson Ford tweeting support for Coach Freeman, so…
come on Jack. You know what needs to be done.
#FreemanEra being used.
https://twitter.com/nolanziegler24/status/1465695848939995137
(Nolan Ziegler)
Add Drayk Bowen to the list of recruits tweeting commitment to Marcus Freeman.
This..this should be a no brainer. Maybe you don’t pay him $10M in his initial contract so you can get him a top OC (if Tommy leaves). Is Brian Hartline an option? Does he even want to be an OC or is he a WR coach and recruiter? Either way, shell out and steal him. Give 4M a year to Freeman, 2M a year for each coordinator, and get it done. Unless Freeman has a higher offer than 4, then go 5…or whatever.
Joe Moorhead.
I think he’s taking a G5 HC job.
HC at Akron, or OC at ND? I don’t know if that’s a hard choice really.
Hey, Twitter being used for good!
I don’t know the names of every recruit but if you search that hashtag it’s kind of overwhelming and I bet a lot of them are on board.
A new Irish blessing: if you leave on the eve of finding out if you make the playoffs, may every former assistant spurn you, except for Van Gorder
Is this gonna backfire really badly on Kelly?
Money is great, but he basically just showed every assistant coach in the country not to trust him.
And while yes you can go into the SEC as a non-Southerner and win and be fine, he’s…not the most baby-kissing, media-friendly guy.
Can you IMAGINE what the LSU talk radio will do to him the first time he flubs some quote about executing his players? Like, overall ND fans kinda got hit. They’ll turn him into gumbo.
He sold his entire legacy for $70 million over 7 years that he’s repeatedly said he doesn’t want to coach during. It does seem like the kind of thing that could backfire.
“Come work for me, I probably won’t bolt for a new job while you’re in the middle of a recruiting visit again!”
Of all SEC teams I kind of liked LSU (familiarity bias, I was stationed in NOLA for 3 years). Switching to schadenfreude mode now.
This is BS, right? I thought Freeman was on the road and not around, I thought.
It’s absolutely not true, but it’s one of those things where I don’t care if it is because I want it to be.
Extremely not true
Zoom call?
Doubtful. But also, if Kelly was only in there 2 minutes as was noted by multiple sources, what, he bitched out Kelly for 30 seconds of that? We all would like to make it fit in the mythology but I’d be shocked if one coach “chewed another’s ass”
Yeah, not sure Kelly would be trying to hire Freeman away to LSU for all the money if the latter publicly berated him in from of the team.
I took the post to mean Freeman threw BK under the bus after the 2min pleasantries, like “F*** him, we be doin’ our shizzo, yo!”
Hypocracy
Apropos of nothing, but…
How awkward is it going to be for BK to go back to campus in May for his daughter’s graduation?
I would think… very.
Or for his daughter to remain in his absence…
I thought of that as well, poor kid.
Well, I can’t imagine she will leave her last semester. MVG stayed another year and a half, didn’t he? He was probably disliked as much (?) as Kelly.
I don’t think people were going to hate MVG for his dad getting fired. Probably took pressure OFF if anything, since they were no longer complaining about him. This is the opposite situation. But maybe BK’s getting generational wealth will make her feel better, because it’ll be hers someday.
MVG is still a big Notre Dame advocate. Excluding the year-to-long thing that firing went as well as any could have.
I think most people realize that most of our parents do stupid things we don’t agree with and don’t blame the kids for it.
I’m sorry have you met America or The Internet?
Apparently not.
But I think it would be different in person rather than over the internet. (But maybe with this younger generation there is no distinction.)
I get to regularly hear from my dad down in Florida being harassed for taking recommended health and safety measures that some have turned into political statements. I’ll leave it at that, but I don’t have much faith in the niceness of people over many things anymore.
That’s from Pete Sampson and Matt Fortuna at the Athletic this morning.
Same article has a transcript of all 3 minutes, 42 seconds of Kelly’s goodbye speech.
I thought well of what he said.
It was…fine. It could have been an email. It didn’t do anything positive, even if it also didn’t do anything negative.
Fine, is good description. I mean he obviously is naturally good with words so I’m not sure what else to expect.
The politician in him coming out. At that point, it was all he could do. It still bugs me he made them come in at 0700 for it, because it fit into his day and he needed to get down to LSU. On his own terms the whole way.
It was done to make him feel better about it/make it look for the press like he did something. I don’t know that there’s ever a good way to do this, but it did nothing to help the players deal with it.
On the flip side, it seems pretty certain that for the most part the player response was “um…okay. So, Coach Freeman, right?”
It gives them some closure to at least hear it from the horse’s mouth and see him out. I was pretty impressed with the “Inside the Garage” podcast that Hamilton, Hart and Wallace recorded on Monday they were all pretty understanding of Kelly’s decision. Shocked but not like angry. I’m sure some were very upset, maybe at least Kelly’s speech gave them some sort of goodbye.
Better than nothing and a total ghosting, I suppose.
Gotta wonder whether that anger rears it’s head if there are some conference championship upsets this weekend but ND nevertheless gets left out of the playoff because Kelly left.
Not doing anything negative is pretty much what one goes for when leaving a job.
Not to give Kelly props, but I think coming in and saying it in person was better than saying it in an email or text. It doesn’t take away from the shittiness of it all, but, it’s something. As for the content, what more could he say. And, the players likely would not have wanted to listen to him say much more than that.
As you said, it was fine.
Making them get up and come in at 7 AM for 3 minutes of words kind of undercuts that for me.
Ye maybe would have been better if he said something like “if you want to say goodbye, or hear my explanation I’ll be available at this time” instead of just expecting them to come.
I did like that clearly the team went to work out with Balis. Hah.
There seems to be a ton of outrage about 7AM, but that seems ideal rather than having people wait around continuing to read the internet. Basically the first possible and reasonable time he could tell them.
Isn’t 7AM pretty normal for football team activities? I assume they currently have some time off with no upcoming game, but 7AM just doesn’t sound bad to me.
I think it’s all a Rorshach test you could read how you want, and probably the people in the room are reading it all different ways. FWIW Pete and Matt on their podcast just dropped said that the sense they get is that players were more upset afterwards than they were going into the meeting.
I would imagine. It’s finally official and they would have to start processing it. Hard to come out of that meeting feeling better.
I guess I assumed that part of that was perhaps 8am classes and that those guys are probably up already doing other normal football related activities that early.
But if not, that I’d agree that’s a bad way to do it.
Well this is encouraging since they already worked out a deal to keep Rees. That makes way more sense if they are negotiating a HC deal with Freeman than if they are planning on hiring someone else.
Already worked out a deal with Rees? Where do you see that?
That article just said Rees is perhaps open to being OC for a defensive minded HC. I think his true status is still up in the air. He’s still weighing options and seeing what is available and in the process of deciding, IMO.
Perhaps a good sign he hasn’t bolted just yet for LSU, but I didn’t think Rees was confirmed to be staying on, unless I missed something…(If so, total agreement, very good sign for Freeman era!)
He’s referring to the video published by ND’s twitter account yesterday with Balis saying he’s staying and working with the team. This was right after it was reported that Kelly tried to get him to move. Presumably the official account isn’t tweeting that out if he’s not staying.
They’ve worked out a deal to keep Balis. I believe they’ve got Rees sitting on his hands with various promises right now waiting for the next domino to drop.
That was one of the first updates I saw. That they had talked to Rees, or maybe it was they were talking to him.
I believe there was a fairly long discussion of it on either this article or the one before, mostly about why would you secure and OC if you don’t have a HC.
Naw, this isn’t accurate. They’ve met with Rees and presented him the options and had discussions with him, but Rees staying on at Notre Dame is not official at this time. That’s still being worked out.
Balis is the only staff member who has confirmed to be in for ND at this point.
I don’t think anyone said it was “official.” Just that Swarbrick had talked to Rees, at the time Rees was also reportedly being offered $400,000 above his current salary by Kelly. No one is saying they signed anything. But Rees hasn’t taken the LSU offer, so it seems that Rees is interested enough in staying to see how things develop the next few days.
I also saw somewhere that Duke had some interest in Rees as their HC. So who knows.
OK. I thought it was official. Read that Jack was working out a deal with Rees. Assumed that meant it was getting finalized.
Either way, makes sense that they would already be working on a deal with Rees if Freeman wants him, even if it isn’t finalized. Would have made much less sense if they were hiring outside the program.
It’s possible that Freeman and Rees are possibly interviewing with Jack (along with other possibilities like Matt Campbell and Fickell)
At the risk of stating the obvious, Swarbrick is in a tough spot. I mean, sure in a vacuum he appears to have some good options from a coaching replacement standpoint. But I’m not sure the situation allows him to really pursue any of it. The facts are, (1) the #Freemanera fervor is becoming fever pitched; and (2) a decision needs to be made soon, given the looming playoff potential (especially with the relatively weak playoff pool this year and the recent statements from the committee regarding the coaching situation being a factor in the CFP decision). Given those two things, Swarbrick is almost forced to hire Freeman, no? He knows that bringing in an outside HC will not only piss off those of us who want Freeman, including probably some good recruits, but it also will basically ensure that ND will lose any chance at a playoff spot this year…..which will piss people off even more (I gotta believe that even if Swarbrick could convince Fickle to jump ship before the playoff, the committee will eliminate ND from consideration based on the lack of continuity, especially since that hire would probably mean we lose Freeman, Rees, and maybe Balis). So, he’s kind of in the position of either he can find a total homerun hire in the next few days (a coach so elite that nobody will care about anything else), or he’s gotta hire Freeman. From a coaching selection standpoint, maybe that’s not really a problem, since Freeman may be the best choice of the available options anyway. The problem, however, is Freeman knows all this too, so good luck negotiating THAT contract. And, I’m wondering if Swarbrick’s press conference hedges weren’t all just a bit of a desperate attempt to throw SOME speculation in the air just so Freeman doesn’t 100% have him over a barrel once the numbers start getting discussed.
It’s only “forced to” if it’s a bad decision.
Given the evidence we have, Freeman wouldn’t be a “bad” decision.
Would it be the best decision? Can’t know. But Freeman was going to be a HC somewhere, most people thought, this year or next year at minimum. So it’s clearly not a “bad” decision to hire him.
No, I totally agree. In fact, I think it’s a great decision. I’m just saying, that from a contract negotiation standpoint, Swarbrick is in a tough spot because Freeman knows he’s the only logical choice. That’s a lot of leverage. He’s gonna get PAID.
Freeman’s options:
Stay ND DC with Fickell as HC for a raise. Not bad.
Move to LSU and make $2.5M. Not bad.
Wait for an offer from tOSU to be their DC, because it will come. Not bad.
Take a HC job–likely Cinci if Fickell leaves, or any of the many others open. Not bad.
Wait for things to shake out and be HC at ND, to the acclaim of literally all players and recruits, and much of the fanbase. Obviously best (for him).
It’s good to be Marcus Freeman this week.
Yup – he’s got great options. And from a negotiating standpoint, his options are even better, because he can tell ND “if you hire Fickle or anyone else, I’ll happily take the money from LSU.” Good news for Freeman, bad news for Jack…….again, from a contract negotiation standpoint, not a coaching standpoint. From a coaching standpoint, hiring Freeman is good. Just going to be expensive, and more so than if Kelly left after the season was over.
He’s supposedly got a great relationship with Fickell, so if ND matches the money for him to stay as DC then I don’t see him going to LSU just to chase Kelly. I think the bigger decision is between being a HC and DC. He has to know the support he has from players/fans/recruits, and that’s what gives him leverage. As good as his relationship is with Fickell, he may tell Jack “look, I want to be a HC…I can do it here, or I can do it elsewhere with the places calling my agent. If you want Luke, then I wish you the best.”
Self-reply but this is why the first phone call Sunday night needed to be to Fickell’s people to find out if he’s interested and what it would take. You have to know that before you can negotiate with anyone else.
I think Freeman will either be the HC at ND or the HC at CIncy next year.
I don’t seem staying at ND as DC for Fickell. Why be a DC at tOSU when you can be an HC at a peer to tOSU or an HC at Cincy?
Re; tOSU.
Well, it would be because A. you’re an alum B. you didn’t get the ND HC job and C. you don’t want the Cinci HC job (or it’s not open). I don’t think it’s likely, because HC is on the table. And in the unlikely event we get Fickell AND keep Freeman, it’s because we’ve given him HC money to be a DC for another year or two.
Listening to the Athletic podcast now, and apparently in regards to Marcus Freeman as a recruiter, he went out and bought the entire defensive staff Vans shoes and the recruit reaction was supposedly “this is awesome, you get me” and I gotta say as a 40+ year old I feel like that appeals more to me than the current HS generation, which I would expect to be more Jumpman or whatever.
Or, maybe, ND is only recruiting absolute dorks?
Fierce competition with Northwestern and Georgia Tech.
Talking about BK leaving UC: “No one wouldn’t leave for ND, maybe Luke Fickell now.”
Fortuna not thinking ND could get Fickell borders on unhinged. Fickell very nearly asked for the job yesterday when he tried to give a rambling non-denial while earning 40-ish percent of what ND was paying Kelly.
How many minutes is it taking everyone to scroll through the comments?
A while. A new thread might be helpful…
Makes you miss the days of just typing Z on SBNation doesn’t it?
If you leave it open, new comments get highlighted in yellow until you hover your mouse open. That’s what I’ve been doing.
Another pro tip: it takes less time to scroll through all the comments if you’ve made a significant percent of them.
This is what I’ve been doing, sometimes it won’t update though so I have to reload the page and all is lost.
IF THEY WOULD JUST HURRY UP AND ANNOUNCE FREEMAN ALREADY IT’D BE FINE
It should be easier for them to keep it from leaking if Freeman is the guy, no?
So we should just think all the negotiating is just all super secret and Freeman is the guy, right?
Otherwise, one might wonder why we don’t see reports of ND favoring this or that candidate.
If the plan were to install Fickell, Aranda, or Clawson on Sunday I’d think they could keep that pretty tight too.
Aranda and Fickell are both defensive oriented guys too, so they fit with the leak about Rees, although maybe to a lesser extent than Marcus would, since they have OCs on their staff they’d likely want to consider.
Yes! I have run out of things to listen to and read and can only scroll through all of twitter’s nonsense so long.
On that note tho, if your looking to kill two hours easy, check out Chris Zorich’s podcast with old players from last night, it was pretty good. People who remember Holtz Era probably appreciate it most. Some hyperbole, some nostalgia, but also alot of good nuggets in there. Go for Tim Brown and Rocket, stay for Corey Mays, Rusty Setzer, and Wes Pritchett, and just skip over Theismann’s bits.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ny2gj41AH8
I have a dissertation chapter to write and a job to apply for. Right after I listen to that podcast.
KG, I gotta say, the positive in all this c__p is that it’s got you posting up a storm!
I can’t handle the dual stress, so I’m leaning into this one.
Same boat over here. Three kids coming home from school soon and my nightly dissertation work and yearly progress report to my committee looming, but but but there’s a new The Shamrock podcast did somebody say??
Oh man. Yeah I’m on a deadline to get a chapter in to my adviser (which will also be my writing sample for this app for a position at a certain school in Columbus that ALSO hates Xichigan as much as I do) and this coaching search has just destroyed all my plans.
A request: can we have a new article each day? There doesn’t need to be much content, but it can be “coaching search day 3” or whatever. I would agree this thread is becoming a lot. 😁
Pretty sure this thread already has the 18S comments record
ND football has been pretty drama free in the #18StripesEra
I mean, 2016 was pretty dramatic. As maybe the whiniest “fire Kelly” person here, I didn’t help.
I didn’t think we played football in 2016? Didn’t it slip off into the ether like 2007?
We got off to a rough start but you’re right!
lol scrolling up to see what the new comments were, I was wondering what our comments record was.
It’s been shattered.
yea a new article/space to comment would certainly be helpful.
We need a new, empty post every day with this picture at the top until the white smoke post.
lol. exactly.
HERE!
https://18stripes.com/five-wide-fullbacks-what-to-do-when-brian-kelly-breaks-up-with-you/