WatchND highlights:
My first instant reaction in the last three games and I get to write about another one of these. Fine.
There is no excuse for kicking the field goal to go down 1 against Navy with seven minutes to go when you know they have no interest in scoring again. There isn’t. It was the wrong call. And everyone knew it at the time except the head coach.
The Irish didn’t turn the ball over, they punted once, and they lost. They averaged about five yards per carry, not great but fine, and they lost. DeShone Kizer was 19/27 for 223 yards and three scores without a pick, and they lost.
The offense wasn’t mistake-free. Kizer missed a throw to Kevin Stepherson that would’ve put the Irish up two scores at one point. That turned out to look pretty darn important. But on the whole the offense was fine – just in time for the defense to go back to looking VanGorderish. ND had six offensive possessions, the fewest for an FBS team since Northern Illinois had six in 2008, also against Navy. Navy ran for almost six yards per carry
Notre Dame didn’t make Navy punt. Not once. Well, sort of once. Naturally, the one time they did, a boneheaded coaching mistake resulting in the 12th person not getting off the field in time gave Navy a 4th and 6 instead of 4th and 1, they went for it, and got it. Any time Navy needed a first down, they seemed to decide to run a play they knew ND wouldn’t or couldn’t cover correctly, and they converted those plays 100% of the time.
Is there really much more to say? I’ll refrain from my usual screed about the relative intelligence of keeping Brian Kelly beyond this season except to say, please do not listen to anyone who says this is his first bad season. If you aspire to the level ND claims to aspire to, 7-5 is a bad season. So this is at minimum his third bad season.
Notre Dame will play Army next week in San Antonio in a game that might be half-filled with fans. It’s the last game this year that they will enter with a realistic chance to win based on the level of play we have seen from ND this year. A season that began in the top 10 is going to finish with four wins or fewer unless something dramatic happens in the next few weeks. Virginia Tech fans will probably take over Notre Dame Stadium on Nov. 19. USC has improved enough that the idea of them reprising the beatdown they handed the Irish two years ago is not unrealistic.
It’s just been a really rough year. No mater what happens in the off-season, Notre Dame will not be in a good place when the 2017 season kicks off. I don’t know what more can be said.
Well, at least the playoff committee got it right with
Texas A&M…Why is it always the coaches fault when a player screws up?
Depends on the situation, circumstances, consistency of mistakes made, etc. etc.
I definitely agree its not always the coaches’ fault. At the end of the day, the players are the only ones on the field.
On special teams in particular though, when you just look at the sheer variety of mistakes and number of different guys making errors, it just seems more systemic.
“I’ll refrain from my usual screed about the relative intelligence of keeping Brian Kelly beyond this season except to say, please do not listen to anyone who says this is his first bad season. If you aspire to the level ND claims to aspire to, 7-5 is a bad season. So this is at minimum his third bad season.”
I’ll trust the commentariat on this site to form their own opinions on who to listen to.
To at least give the editorial management credit, it would be easy for Eric, et al to try to force their writers to all think one direction or the other. While I may not agree that all “bad” season are created equal, nor the way that Andy phrased his statement (which is basically “if you don’t agree with me that Kelly needs to be fired this second, you’re dumb”), I appreciate that 18 Stripes is neither “blind-Kelly lovers” nor “NDN Fire Kelly” at either extreme.
Yet behind the scenes I’m like…
Just kidding, at this point with the season I’m like…
For whatever it’s worth I didn’t intend to say I think people who don’t think Kelly should be axed are dumb. I think they’re wrong , but I can see their points.
I do take vehement issue with the people (and these are not ND people, mostly) who have said ND can’t make a change because of “one bad season”. Not that we are Alabama or Ohio State right now or even close, but there are a fair few programs for whom 7-5 would be near catastrophic, so to exempt them from the category of “bad” is something I can’t stand.
Navy did punt once but…
As mentioned in the game chat, Michigan State is even worse off than we are and their awfulness (September 17th aside) is a good reminder that sometimes well-run programs have inexplicably bad years.
But in year 7, I’d argue only two of Kelly’s seasons have truly met the expectations of where Notre Dame football should be. That just doesn’t cut it.
I think we’re in a better place for a good coach to take over and have instant success than ND was in 2009, but that doesn’t mean the current staff should continue to benefit from that when their decisions are costing games against lesser opponents (on paper at least).
I think that 8-5 seasons are sort of meh in themselves, with judgment of them dependent on the seasons around them. 8-5 for a couple years after taking over the program, followed by an undefeated regular season? Just fine. A couple of injury and suspension-plagued 8 or 9-win years followed by a 10-win season that came very close to being even better and earning a playoff berth? Not that bad. 8-5 wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t bad when it was the floor of the program, with the team making some major bowl games and seemingly poised to break through into regular contention. Now, however, with the team and program a mess, those 8-win years start to seem like the average, rather than the floor, and ND isn’t a program that should be content with an average of 8 wins.
Totally agree.
8-5 every once in a while is just fine. You get a pass on years one and two when its clear some building needs to be done and once things are up-and-running there will always be a rebuilding season or a year with a ton of injuries, etc. Heck, I could even convince myself a season like this would be somewhat acceptable if it came off a few ten-win years in a row and we looked poised to bounce back. Its continuing to shuffle through the muck to hope for a top ten team every third year that hurts.
2011 was a Bad Season. That it didn’t affect 2012 is fair enough, I guess, but that season should not be treated as an OK coaching job.
And yet, the losses:
23-20 to USF in the flat weirdest game ever, and the beginning of the Dayne Crist meltdown.
35-31 in a last-minute loss to Michigan, a Michigan team that lost 2 games and won the Sugar Bowl. Possibly overrated and should not have been in a BCS game, and a frustrating game to lose, but not, in hindsight, an “embarrassing” loss.
USC, 31-17. USC would also lose only 2 games and finish in the top 10. Of course we were all upset at the egg we laid (and the 2nd Dayne Crist goal line fumble run back for a TD of the season), but again, not an “embarrassing” loss.
Stanford, #4 in the country, 28-14. No one’s happy to lose, but again, not a surprising loss.
So, since so many people against Kelly seem to want to say “bowl games don’t count, they are meaningless, he doesn’t get to count those in the season” I’ll point out that the above is 4 losses, not 5. You can’t say they don’t count as wins, but they do as losses. Of course, we lost–18-14 in a Citrus Bowl against FSU that for my money was the most frustrating loss of the season, since we clearly should have won.
As I said, no one likes to lose. And no, 4 (5) losses isn’t “acceptable” or “the goal.” But given 2009, then 2010, then what happened the next season in 2012, 2011 seems perfectly reasonable to me–not quite putting it together, dealing with the Crist/Rees drama, ND made progress but fell short of where they could go.
If anything, 2014 (and, of course, this season) are much worse indictments of Kelly than 2011. Call it a “bad” season if you want, I won’t disagree. But a “bad” 5-loss season with one wacky weather game and 4 losses to respectable teams is one thing; losing the last 4 in a row, including in OT to a bad Northwestern team and being blown out by an “average” USC team and Arizona State, is “bad” in the “moving in the wrong direction” bad.
Like last year, that was a super-talented team that did quite well in S&P+ (11th) without the record (or memorable wins, for that matter) to show for it.
At least we beat Navy that year.
Like last year? The 10 win season last year?
Look, I agree that the “only 7 points from the playoff” is less an indicator of our season last year than “barely beat BC” but now you’re going from “2011 was a bad year” to “2015 was a bad year”?
No, last year was a good year and the team was fun to watch, but, given the talent (which I recognize Kelly was responsible for acquiring), the results were just minimally acceptable to keep it as one of the two seasons clearly in the positive column for Kelly.
With respect, I think your grading scale is a bit off.
we lost to three better teams, Clemson, Stanford, tOSU.
we were beaten badly by tOSU and in squeakers by the other two.
Often times our expectations do not equal reality.
Stanford was not a better team.
Even taking your statement as a given, that is exactly what I meant – those were the only 3 games that Kelly could have possibly lost and kept the season as a positive season – i.e., that was the minimally acceptable positive season. If we don’t beat Virginia or Temple, last year should have been viewed as a poor season overall as well, considering it was a This Is The Year kind of year.
$400 to watch ND kick a field goal when they needed a touch down to win. That was very fun ustrating. To top it off, our seats were on the Navy side. I got to listen to all my f the crap from the Navy fans.
Sorry you had to suffer through Jacksonville. And that game. But mostly Jacksonville.
Thanks KG. Jacksonville isn’t horrible. Watching Navy beat ND, for the third time in my lifetime, is horrible.
One of the most satisfying times in my military career, was when I was a squad leader in 1/75 Ranger BN. This is an elite unit, and everyone in it had to volunteer multiple times just to get there. The final stage of volunteering is a 3-5 week course, run by NCO’s in the unit. It’s designed to both prepare guys for the unit, and cull the ones that won’t make it. By the time these guys got to me, they already had an idea of what to expect, and they had already shown that they could physically perform the minimum standards expected of them. So my job is pretty easy right? I just teach them how to perform certain tasks and how those certain tasks fit into the overall unit missions. If I’m explaining this correctly, it should look pretty similar to what position coaches do with a football team. So, having said all of that, I still had guys in my squad that called anchors because they always had self imposed limits on how hard they would strive to complete whatever training exercise we were doing. These could all perform physically, but they had that mental limit that would cause them to throw out the anchor and slow everyone around them down. I watched Jaron Jones very closely today and he didn’t seem very physical to me at all. It looks to me like Jaron Jobes might be that anchor kind of guy. He has all of the physical tools to excel, but something inside his head gets in the way and slows him down.
Thanks for your service Ranger!
You make an interesting comment. Our guys just don’t seem to have it this year with the chips down. Example is Kizer in our last possession. We’re in the red zone or very near it, first down, and Kizer threw three straight bad passes. Two were overthrown badly, the last was well behind Stephenson who made a great catch, one handed behind his back, but well short of a first down due to the poor throw (IMO). Then the field goal, in hindsight wrong call, but we had opportunities to stop Navy’s last drive at least 4 times and could have won with a FG if we’d done it just once.
Our offense has had the chance to win the game on our last drive in just about every loss this year, but doesn’t come through when it has to. Guess we have some anchors there too.
I’m watching a recording of Bama – LSU. Both teams have studs all over the field.
It appears that KG made a smart move when he changed his screen name from Kelly’s Gyros. Leared from TonyAlfordSwag, I guess. That and he cursed this team, apparently.
You got me.
First Eric and Andy I would just like to say how much I enjoy this site. I have never stepped foot on the ND campus,but I grew up rooting like crazy for ND along with my dad. I live and die with ND every week. Now I hope you will allow me to vent some because I am completely fed up with the football program at this point. One thing that drives me crazy is this manufactured ethusiasm that we get now every week on the sidelines,it just comes off as phoney. Can anyone picture one of Aras or Lous teams doing this. When I think of great players and legit tough guys like Stonebraker or Pritchett or so many others, I cringe at what the current state of ND football has become. I dont care if they get the greatest defensive coach in the history of the sport next year, it wont matter. This is a ruterless ship with no direction. They no longer play for this coach, So if hes back next year nothing will change, the agony will just last another year. One more thing its time ND joins a league for real in football. Independence has run its course,I actually think its hurting the program at this point. Playing Navy and Army the first two weeks in November is a joke. Even if ND was in the playoff hunt,can you imagine all the national media types taking shots at ND for playing them back to back. I know Navy is much tougher then alot of the bottom feeders in the big 10 and acc,but playing both Navy and even more so Army in Novenber when everyone else are playing big conference games does nothing for ND. I think playing in a league would help NDs schedule balance and actually give the football program a much needed dose of toughness.Maybe I am way off on this,but there just seems to be an overall lack of caring or spirit or something on the players part. I know one thing this is not a smart football team from the coaches to the players. There has to be someone out there who would be right for this program and would take pride in leading it back to greatness,or maybe that is just wishful thinking from someone who has so many distant happy memories all the great games,coaches and players that meant so much to so many. Thanks for letting me vent.
There is so much here I disagree with it would be hard to tackle it all, so I’ll simply say this:
“One more thing its time ND joins a league for real in football. Independence has run its course,”
No. Frankly, we could go 3-9 the next 10 years, I would be less upset than if we full-joined a conference and gave up our identity. The only acceptable reason to join a conference is if, by RULE, one must be a conference champion in order to get into the playoff. That, and only that, would be a legitimate reason. And the conferences can stuff any criticism of playing Army when the SEC routinely has it’s SEC-FCS challenge every November.
The giving up our identity is so overblown. NDs identity was more tied to winning ,winning big games,being sucessful. Ohio State,Michigan,Alabama give up nothing because they are winning. If ND was in a conference and winning their name would stand out above anyone else in that conference because they are Notre Dame. The fact that u would be ok going 3-9 the next 10 yrs just to stay independent is what is truly wrong here. The sec playing cupcakes in November has nothing to do with it, Do you think ND having to prepare for two options teams before going back to playing teams that will spread them out helps them? I was never for ND joining a conference in the past but things change,they are basically in anyway. ND would still keep USC on the schedule,they could still play a big game early against a top team from another conference and they could rotate Navy, Stanford,etc every few years. One more thing if making the playoff is the goal, and it should be the only goal you can say goodbye to having any chance unless ND goes undefeated, so why evryone else gets to at least still be in the fight with 1 loss ND has to play by a different set of rules. But I guess it doesnt matter since its ok 3-9 every year.
So winning is more important than anything. Cool.
You realize that by joining a conference, ND literally gives up anything that makes it special in today’s CFB world, right? You probably don’t. You probably don’t think we’d simply be a Duke or Northwestern. Sure, let’s give up the one thing that makes us unique. Joining a conference in no way helps us win more games. It takes away the few advantages we have, such as being a “national” program. But whatever, I’m sure being the next Georgia Tech sounds like a good idea.
Please dont talk down to me just because I would actually like to see the program do something they used to be known for doing, which is winning. For crying out load they havent won a national championship since 1988. I would love for ND to stay independent,but I am also open to anything that might help them get back to being a consistently sucessful program. If you think Nd joining a conference would somehow turn them into Duke or Northwestern you really are clueless. You know what would ensure ND staying a national program,winning. winning against a top 10 team,winning on the road against a top team,those things would help. You keep using the word “us’. Are you on the team? I am just a part of the “subway alumni”,but I love the school and what it represents just as much as anyone who may have had the chance to graduate from there. Turning out 8-5,and 4-8 teams every other year makes you like Georgia Tech more then joining a conference ever will.
Willing to do anything to win?
Anything?
The independence issue doesn’t seem like an issue right now but I’m sure you don’t want to walk down the “anything to win more” road.
“I am just a part of the “subway alumni”,but I love the school and what it represents just as much as anyone who may have had the chance to graduate from there”
But if it means 10 wins, you’d be happy to dump it in the trash. Cool.
Dump what? But thats ok,COOL
I’m not exactly pro-conference, but I really don’t agree with this.
Might be time to Row That Boat.
Don’t suppose an inquiry from Jack to PJ’s agent, through a third party, of course, would hurt.
Absolutely. Based on the in-game chat, the “who would we hire???????” response to the Fire Kelly crowd (of which I am a member) seem to think that it would take months to set up a coaching search. That is ridiculous. He (or his people) could call agents this week and at least get a sense of who might be interested. And he should be putting out feelers to, at a minimum, the pipe dream candidates (Bob Stoops, John Harbaugh, Chris Peterson, etc.), but likely should be hitting up those further down the line (Gary Patterson, PJ Fleck, etc.) as well. He could figure out what the options likely will be and, if the potential-coach landscape is really as bad as some commenters think, that’s good information to know. If you find out that one of the pipe dream guys is willing to come, though, hooray, and bye bye BK.
I’m one of the “who would we hire?” group, based on the fact that we’re competing with big programs like LSU and Texas who will throw money we can’t match and have more attractive situations for the top candidates. It’s less that it takes “months” to set up a coaching search, and more that ND needs to lay groundwork to overcome our disadvantages relative to those sorts of programs. Also, since we’re not likely to just outbid for Herman or whomever is the obvious candidate, I feel really uncomfortable making a snap firing and ending up with, oh, say, an NFL Offensive Coordinator with no understanding of the college game. I’d be much more comfortable if we had time to evaluate serious candidates, talk informally to them to gauge interest, and be ready to jump next year.
The “who would we hire?” group, at least in my mind, isn’t saying “oh, you don’t even think about it” because if that’s the case, we’re right back here next year unless the new DC is a miracle worker. You make those calls you mention, and have options lined up.
Also, Stoops? Really? I….why don’t we call Gruden, too? Maybe Lou would come back.
By pipe dream I mean total pipe dream – i.e., less than 1% of them expressing interest, much less actually coming. But this is a situation where there is no harm in asking, even if it leaks out: it would be no surprise to anybody that Kelly is on the hot seat, so it’s not like there would be a negative affect to recruiting that hasn’t already been priced in. And it might assuage those of us who are concerned that the administration remains fairly comfortable with how things stand at the Gug.
Yabut…a call to Stoops (Bob, not his brothers) was a pipe dream in 2010. I doubt 6 years has increased our chances, rather than decrease. Stoops is the 2010 NDN wet dream, completely ignoring that Stoops also runs the spread. And last I checked, Oklahoma gave up 50+ points last week. Stoops is a good coach, but the suggestion that A. he’d leave and B. he doesn’t have many of the same problems as Kelly is kind of silly.
This is exactly why you don’t make a knee-jerk reaction, but you spend some time to gather a list of realistic choices. Fire Kelly now, we fall flat on our faces trying to shove money at Saban, Stoops, Meyer, with no shot at getting them, while LSU, Texas, etc. get the reasonable candidates, and we end up with Mike Riley or something.
Wait, are we supposed to think Brian Kelly is a better coach than Mike Riley? I would think that would be a clear upgrade on a number of levels.
Wait, he’s the one at Nebraska–I meant the guy now at Oregon State. Riley had been at Oregon State. I can’t keep their shuffle with Wisconsin a few years ago straight.
Riley (at Nebraska) would be a lateral move. Nebraska is ridiculously overrated. My point is that we’d be left with a “meh” hire–Rikley wouldn’t get me excited, though I meant someone not as good. We’d be getting leftovers.
I mean, just to be clear, I’m not even sure that PJ Fleck would come to ND if we were gauging interest. I do feel that he would be a short-term (at least) program upgrade, though – if nothing else, he is significantly more likable than BK, and it seems like the program could use a boost of positivity.
Any new coach (assuming it’s considered a good hire) is going to give a boost. There’s simply too much young talent. It’d be like Weis coming in and having two good seasons. So yes, in the short term Fleck would be an upgrade. I don’t know enough about him to have an opinion on whether he could sustain it.
What are the odds that Kelly is the coach at the end of 2018, conditional on his being the coach at the beginning of next season? I’d still put that at well under 50%. So, then, I’d rather have excitement and new energy in 2017 and 2018 instead of a 9-3 season next year, total apathy around the program (“We’re headed in the right direction!” – Jack Swarbrick) and a bleh recruiting class, and then a mid-season firing in 2018 following a 2-2 start.
See, this is where we (cordially and respectfully, I’ve enjoyed this discussion) disagree. It all hinges on the DC hire, and if our D could be anywhere close to this LSU D Aranda has playing tonight, we could be very very good, very quickly.
Well, I don’t disagree. If we have a new defense that kicks ass next year, we’re winning more than 9 games. I just see no reason to have any faith that Brian Kelly would hire a good and effective defensive coordinator.
Given the choices to date, I can’t fault your skepticism.
Geez guys, look where he’s coaching. Nowhere near the level of competition we face. Another Cincinnati-like hire. Might be the best we can get though.
Oh, he definitely would be another Cincinnati-like hire. My view is that you hire the likable unknown now instead of waiting for that perfect moment that will probably never come. Because the program has been inconsistent at best for 20+ years now, there is no coaching tree of note to pull from (Bob Diaco would not be a better hire than Fleck, duh). So we’re almost certainly going to be making Cincinnati-like hires regardless.
The current Cincinnati-like hire has run his course; on to the next one.
I mean, 2009 Kelly at least had a longer track record to rely on. 3 straight double-digit win seasons, instead of one. Head coach at three different schools. I’d argue he was a safer bet than anybody available right now, even more than Herman.
That’s not to say we shouldn’t take a chance on someone like Fleck, but “Cincinnati-like” might even be a stretch.
I’ve seen enough. After 7 years BK still doesn’t have a defense that can make Navy punt 2 or 3 times in a game. That’s proof enough for me that Kelly is an average coach at best. There’s much more that I could present as evidence to back that claim up.
Holy Sh!t was that awful today. Purely AWFUL.
In the spirit of the first week of November, and the fact that Brian Kelly was a p0li sci guy who worked on a Presidential campaign (Gary Hart lol), I thought I’d try to reframe my thoughts on coaching as if it were an election race. BK is the incumbent, with all the good and bad that comes with that. Those that opposed his initial election on ideological grounds (ND Nation, the “RTDB” crowd) were never going to be on board with his platform, no matter how well recruiting (employment rates) went up, we improved performance relative to competitors in wins (international rankings), etc. Conversely, a section of the populace were all in on his policies and support him regardless of actual results, because “well he’s so much better than the last guy!” Some hate the way the system works, and want “someone else” just for change’s sake. Others think that while the “nation” isn’t where they’d like, too much change could make things worse. We’ll assume, for discussion purposes, that all or most of us here are somewhere in the middle. So where does BK rate on the issues: Employment (Recruiting): Others who follow it more closely can chime in, but my overall impression is that BK’s recruiting classes have been, on the whole, more highly rated than those of his predecessors. That said, he hasn’t gotten a whole lot of “home run” 5-star difference makers, and has been inconsistent getting critical building blocks on the defensive side of the ball. ND has significant recruiting hurdles (academics, location, lack of “hostesses” on recruiting trips) and significant recruiting advantages (academics, tradition, NBC deal, etc.). Overall, BK has probably done an average job–ND should be where it is at in getting in talent, but arguably could do a better job at getting ELITE talent. The argument could be made that the last few administrations did so little in recruiting (except on the golf course) that BK’s improvement looks better in comparison than he should get credit for. Education (Talent development): Mixed. Some players have developed well under BK’s regime: Niklas, several O-linemen, Harrison Smith, Zeke Motta, Jonas Gray, Theo Riddick, etc. I’m working off the top of my head, so maybe more good stories. Others have started out good, and gone bad: KVR’s freshman year vs. last year, Golson’s saga, the Dayne Crist meltdown, Rees. Overall I think there’s been better development than the past regimes, but some frustrating cases. It’s telling that we’ve had NFL draft success above what you’d expect from our records on the field. So while some players are developing well, it’s uneven and not resulting in on-field success necessarily. National Security (Defense): Not this President’s forte, so it’s depended on the Secretary of Defense. 1 good SecDef, one bad one. The bad one outweighs the good one to me, because he should have realized much earlier the problems under BVG and done something last off-season at the latest. A classic case where one problem area can… Read more »
I loved it KG, very clever.
Agree with Russell: that was a fun read.
In terms of substantive nits, I’m not sure Kelly is clearly outrecruiting Weis, at least in terms of overall recruiting rankings, but I do think he has done a better job of balancing classes.
And, in terms of actual diplomacy (i.e., winning the press conference), he’s quite bad and getting worse.
Yeah, you pick your poison, I suppose–Weis got some bigger 5-star guys, but his imbalance left us seriously weak in places. At least he wasn’t doing his recruiting on the golf course like other past coaches.
Oh yeah, great caption and picture Eric.
Im sorry Andy. Great caption and picture.
Im sorry Andy. I loved the dead horse picture.
Watching this Bama-LSU game, I’d throw every penny we could at Aranda. Holy crap. This is a clinic on how to play defense, by both teams.
I’m on the make sure we can get a better coach before we fire this coach wagon too. But damn, this guy has made some really bad on field decisions lately. I still can’t believe we kicked a field goal that didn’t even give us the lead near the end of the game. You can apply some twisted logic to it I guess, but Navy was my moving the ball all of the second half. It felt like a bad decision to me at the time.
Are there many examples of long-tenured coaches who have an abysmal season and then come back to Do Good Things again? Holtz basically blew up in 1994. He lingered a couple more years but the magic was definitely gone.
Mike Brey!
LOL@alstein
At ND (in football), no. In football, at other schools, yes. Guys like Gary Pinkel at Mizzou are the usual counter-example given when lamenting fanbases who are too quick to want a coach gone. Heck, you could use Frank Beamer as an example as well. Part of the problem is that if a fanbase/the general public thinks a coach has lost it, it more often than not becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; recruiting suffers, the team doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt in the polls on the media, any good thing is explained away and any bad magnified. That doesn’t mean that every coach in all cases should be given more time to turn it around–that’s ludicrous. But we are more and more in a “give it to me now” society, so what was considered normal patience before is not the same today.
This defense is so bad CBS was able to unironically compare Will Worth to Tim Tebow. That’s just really sad (with all due respect to Worth who was good yesterday).
I usually bash Kelly’s in game decision making, but I don’t even think it matters. Even if they go on 4th, get it and score a touchdown, would the defense have been able to stop Navy anyways? Doubtful.
I think I’m into the pity stage of this, just feel sorry and disappointed for those associated with this group. They’re trying but they’re making mistakes at the worst possible time and the offense isn’t good enough to cover up for how dreadful the defense is.
With much respect – I do think one needs to give Navy some damn credit. Their coach has an offense that can be and often is exceptional at adjusting – and in very rapid, very clever, really hard to deal with ways. The secondary is key on those reads and those are very young guys who have never seen this before. And at the end of the game when we needed them both Love and Tranquill were out with head injuries – both absolutely critical players and remember the savage attrition the secondary has already suffered.
And for goodness sakes – Navy only scored 28 f…ing points. They deserved to win as their scheme management was masterful but I disagree that our defense has gone back to BVG levels.
For sure Navy does deserve all the respect, they are excellently coached and executed almost flawlessly a great game-plan. I didn’t mean to take anything away from them, even though my initial comment did read a little backhanded.
However, the ND defense might have “only” given up 28 points, but they also allowed 5.7 yards/carry, forced no punts and gave up first downs on 12/13 times when they got Navy to 3rd downs and got dominated in time of possession in the 2nd half.
I disagree the defense deserved to win, they only got Navy off the field without points 1 time, really (not counting the 30 second drive at end of 1st half). The only other time Navy didn’t score was the game-clinching last drive that they most likely eventually would have if they had the clock to do so.
I will credit Navy for playing well, but reserve disappointment that ND couldn’t prevent them from doing so. I’m not saying overall the defense is back to BVG levels (option teams present unique challenges) but on yesterday there wasn’t too much difference.
Hey everybody — GREAT posts, great discussions. As usual, I am sure this post will be OBE as Eric will put up another super piece and no one will read this one, but, WTF, here is the view from the cheap bar on the Left Bank where I watched the game and fell into such a oversupply of cheap red wine that I have just now come back to the pain. That siad: 1, Yes, KG, lovely prose; I assume you are pursuing your advanced degree in political science? Aside from the style points, in all honesty, I was truly on board with damn near every point you made. 2, That being said, Concrete Charlie’s question above about any examples of coaches having horrible seasons and coming back really strong (a) deserves an answer; and (b) that answer deserves to be taken into account in this whole debate over BK’s future with us. To wit (and the below is courtesy of an email I got from a real expert at my request on this very topic): Ohio State’s Woody Hayes (1951-78) In his ninth season (1959), Hayes finished 3-5-1 before two years later returning to the No. 2 spot. Then in his 16th year (1966) he finished 4-5, prompting a plane at one game over The Horseshoe to carry a message that Hayes needed to be fired. Two years later, the Buckeyes won the national title. Alabama’s Bear Bryant (1958-82) While going 0-7-1 in bowls from 1967-74, the joke was that Bryant ate his cereal on a plate because “he can’t handle bowls.” In 1969 and 1970 he combined for a 5-8 record in the SEC while going 6-5 and 6-5-1 overall before overhauling his operation, including installing the Wishbone. A year later, he would play for the national title. USC’s John McKay (1960-75) One of the elite coaches in the 1960s began 1970-71 with a 6-6-1 record in the Pac 8. After a 6-4-1 finish in 1970, he began 2-4 in 1971 while battling team dissension. A year later, the Trojans won the national title. Texas’ Darrell Royal (1957-76) After winning the national title in 1963, Royals Longhorns went through 6-4, 7-4, 7-4 marks in 1965-67 while going 12-9 in the SWC, and then opened 0-1-1 in 1968 while completely overhauling the operation with the new Wishbone introduced by assistant Emory Bellard. The Longhorns won the national title a year later. Georgia’s Vince Dooley (1964-88) In his sixth and seventh seasons with the Bulldogs (1969-70), Dooley saw his teams finish with a collective mark under .500 in the SEC while going 5-5-1 and 5-5 overall. One year later he was 11-1. He hit his nadir in 1977 with a 5-6 mark in year 14, an wasn’t much better in 1979 at 6-5. One year later, with the arrival of Herschel Walker, he was 12-0 and a national champion. More recently: – Kirk Ferentz went 4-8 in 2012, and 12-2 last year. – Gary Patterson went 4-8 in… Read more »
That’s good stuff, Monsieur. Thanks.
How about some of those tenures back in the day? 20+ years for a lot of those guys. It must have been frustrating to be working your way up the coaching ranks back then, basically praying for a bad flu season every year.
My takeaway is that it IS possible for a head coach to come back from that kind of adversity. But, I’m not sure that it is probable for anyone to do it in the modern era, where 25-year tenures are virtually unheard of. This is compounded by the fact that we have a vocal and
delusionalhopeful fanbase who might not be as patient as a TCU or Mizzou, say.Your turn for some good points, CC:
We do live in an instant gratification era.
And our fan base has been (I hate to use the word polluted so I won’t) distorted by that NDN coterie who have been virulently hostile to BK since the beginning.
That being said, one prerequisite for BK to do a genuine turnaround would be for him to genuinely keep growing – not so easy to do at 55, though as a short term indicator I do like his post BVG actions. But as pointed out above, hanging on to Booker not easy to defend. And yes, I agree that he does overrate his own “25 years of head coaching therefore I know a lot”.
But I do not think Jack/Fr J should pull the trigger or even start. Stay all in and put total max effort on new DC and ST coords.
On this point, apparently in his presser today Kelly said the following (while taking the points from earlier in the week about the risks of Twitter): https://twitter.com/PeteSampson_/status/795347266429222912
There isn’t much out there to give indications that Brian Kelly is willing to learn new tricks; instead, he almost seems willfully opposed to it. Contrast that with Nick Saban installing a new offense that employs some concepts he was complaining about five years ago.
See, THIS is the stuff that troubles me, because I can’t tell whether or not he actually stubbornly believes it, or it’s an act. I mostly hope it’s an act, yet for the life of me I don’t get why you’d feel the need to put on this veneer of control. Everyone KNOWS you need to change things; everyone can SEE how effed up things are. I understand trying to control the narrative, but you can only do that if you have some semblance of narrative to control. This is very:
But doesn’t Han just go ahead and blast the screen?
You don’t think that’s what we’re doing right now?
Not poli sci (that was my undergrad, in addition to Japanese language); I’m working on a degree in medieval Japanese history. Poli sci was useless, but not useless enough, so I thought why not go big, you know?
Great list. I’d add as I said above, Frank Beamer. Don’t have time to dig up the stats, but he was basically a sub-500 coach his first 4-5 years; he only stuck around because VT had no history of success and he was an alum.
Super major. I have often felt to truly understand Japan one must dig very deep into their past.
Didn’t we play a game in Japan once under Lou? I seem to dimly remember.
Frank Beamer good add!
We did play a “game” under Lou–it was not an actual game, it was a collection of grads against a Japanese “all-star” team. I was at the game at Tokyo Dome–it was 2 weeks before I left Japan for Afghanistan, and we got pictures with Lou at the ND club dinner the night before. Still have a poster and our helmets/jerseys we got as souvenirs with our VIP tix.
I think we played a game against Navy (?) there in the late 1970’s. I agitated for a game there against Navy, as we’ve got 4 major military bases in the Tokyo area, 2 of them Navy bases, and the others with football-starved airmen and soldiers.
Notre Dame football: an apolitical reason to hate this year. Why let politically-minded Twitter eggs screaming into the internet void have all the fun?