There’s an old Arabic proverb to the effect that a good lie can walk from Baghdad to Constantinople while the truth is still looking for its sandals. We’re going to diverge from our usual coachspeak angle to address some of the rumors and innuendo that have been flying around lately. These haven’t come out of the press conferences that we usually look at, and nothing has come from Brian Kelly himself, but a lot of the same caveats about context and misinterpretation apply to them as apply to the paraphrasing of his press conference comments. And they sure as hell have done a lot of walking lately, even if not all of them are technically lies, while the truth is stumbling along barefoot behind, as it waves its sandals and shouts vainly above the rising din.

Why are we doing this, you might ask? Well, we here at 18 Stripes aren’t professionals bound by the long-standing code of journalistic ethics, but all the same, we prefer that you get the real story, not the more exciting story. Also, from a more practical standpoint, as fans we get our information from all different sources and then come together to discuss and debate – we’d prefer that we all debate some of the many legitimate concerns about the program, rather than waste energy tilting at windmills that, in many cases, aren’t even windmills, they’re little shrubs that are just sitting there minding their own business until some doofus flops into them, Dudley Moore style, and starts yelling about how a windmill tripped him. But I digress…

Rumor #1: Kelly Tried to Jump to USC Last Year

Pat Forde reported that Brian Kelly talked to USC about their coaching position last year. That led in turn to a very strongly-worded, perhaps even angry, official statement from Kelly at 3:00 AM ET that he’s committed to Notre Dame and has no intention of going anywhere. Blasphemy, said the fan base! Turncoat! Carpetbagger! And why is he issuing statements at 3:00 AM? Ridiculous! Swarbrick should fire him now! In fact Jenkins should fire Swarbrick for allowing this to happen! The board should fire Jenkins for allowing the program to come to this! The people who are responsible for the moose comments have been sacked, as have the people responsible for sacking the people responsible for the moose comments!

Setting the emotional response aside, Forde’s story prima facie never made any sense. The time frame mentioned in the article is October of last year; Kelly had Notre Dame at 6-1 and in the thick of the playoff discussion, with an emerging star at quarterback who had two more years of eligibility after that season. USC, meanwhile, had just clumsily fired Steve Sarkisian after the problems stemming from his alcoholism came to a head. Athletic director Pat Haden was under deep duress and would be let go himself later in the year. Clay Helton had just been tabbed the interim head coach. Why on God’s green earth would Kelly want to leave Notre Dame, which he had seemingly finally stabilized, and jump into the raging dumpster fire that was the USC program? On the other hand, wouldn’t USC naturally be motivated to place a call to several agents and put feelers out for the position?

I’ll issue a big caveat here that I don’t have firm sources myself – what I’ve heard has been second- or third-hand, but it makes a lot more sense than these new rumors do. The version I heard, which I think is infinitely more plausible, is that USC reached out to Kelly’s agent, Kelly listened to what they had to say, then they called again and he told them he wasn’t interested. Whether he leveraged their interest into an extension I don’t know, but it’s hardly unprecedented – Rockne did the same with USC and Columbia, Meyer did the same with Notre Dame and Florida, Saban did the same with Texas and Alabama, and Jimbo Fisher likely just did the same with LSU and FSU. As Michael Corleone would say, it’s not personal, it’s business.

As for the curious timing of this re-leak, it does make one wonder. There’s no benefit whatsoever to Kelly for this to be leaked, as all it does is make him look bad at a very vulnerable time. If you think his agent is incompetent, consider that Urban Meyer, Les Miles, Tom Herman, Kevin Sumlin, James Franklin, Dana Holgorsen, Peter Gammons, Chris Mortensen, and Dan LeBatard, among many others, are all also Trace Armstrong clients. So either they all have really bad representation, or the leak didn’t come from Kelly’s camp. One possibility is that it was leaked by a competitor, which is hardly unprecedented in itself – in fact, some schools have a bit of a reputation for leaking damaging info to the media about other programs. Another possibility is that it was leaked in a deliberately misleading way by someone closer to the program, as the South Bend Tribune’s Eric Hansen implied during his regular Tuesday chat this week:

There are boosters and others in the power structure who would know that kind of information and could twist it. It was suggested to me by someone in a position to know that that’s exactly what transpired. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know. But again, what would be the motivation for

[Kelly] to do that and do that at this time?

As an agent, you should listen to every offer. But what Kelly [may have been] instructing his agent … don’t know … yet. I was told by someone who used to be involved with Kelly’s affairs that this was all baloney.

You can choose for yourself whether Forde or Hansen is more believable. Hansen is certainly far more dialed into the program, but I understand some will count that against him. However, Hansen’s version is far more plausible than Forde’s simply because it describes business as usual for an agent, even though I don’t doubt that Forde accurately relayed what his sources told him. I’ll defer to Occam’s Razor here – the actual principle, not the way it’s often misrepresented (theme day!): Plurality must never be posited without necessity. If you can explain it without an elaborate conspiracy theory, go with that explanation.

Oh, and the 3:00 AM tweet? He wasn’t drunk-tweeting as he stood at the drive-thru window waiting for his fourthmeal. He was recruiting in California, where it was midnight and he was probably right in the middle of a pile of work.

Rumor #2: Mike Elston Is Pre-Ordained As The New DC

When Brian VanGorder was sent packing, Kelly moved defensive analyst – and former East Carolina, Minnesota, and Purdue defensive coordinator – Greg Hudson into the interim defensive coordinator slot. As most of you probably know, Mike Elston did a lot of heavy lifting as well, calling defensive plays from the booth on game day and serving as a bit of a two-headed monster with Hudson during the week. Kelly said recently that internal and external candidates would be considered, with Hudson and Elston standing out as the obvious internal candidates. A couple of moderators at the major pay sites said in the past week that Elston will get an interview, but the phrasing added perhaps to some rather raw nerves led some to believe that Elston was destined to get the job, which led to much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Of course he’ll get the job! Kelly is oblivious! And he’s so small timey, he only goes with people he knows!

Well… Not really. First of all, purely from a human resources perspective, Hudson and Elston deserve interviews. As a manager, you have to give your team members at least the courtesy of an interview, especially if they’ve been performing the work in an interim role. To deny them that courtesy would stand a tremendous mark of disrespect and potentially create a toxic situation on the staff. So the simple fact that Elston will get an interview, in and of itself, is indicative of nothing other than that Kelly is following standard management procedure.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, the “small timey”/”hire only from his network” charge is one that has been leveled against Kelly from the beginning and it has never stood up to any actual scrutiny. Yes, some of his hires have been with him for a long time or were guys he knew from previous stops. Many of them aren’t, though. His first Notre Dame staff included Cincinnati assistants Chuck Martin, Mike Elston, Bob Diaco, Charley Molnar, and Tim Hinton. Martin had been with Kelly since Grand Valley State. Mike Elston had been with Kelly since Central Michigan. Diaco was with Kelly at Central Michigan, left to work at Virginia, then joined Kelly again in Cincinnati. Denbrock was at Grand Valley also in the late 1990’s, but went all over the place, including Notre Dame under Willingham, before reuniting with Kelly in 2010. Kelly hired Molnar in his last year at Central Michigan. Hinton was a holdover from Mark Dantonio’s Cincinnati staff. So you had one guy, Martin, who had extensive experience with Kelly, three guys who had some experience with him before Cincinnati, and one who had none. Hmm. The rest of his first Notre Dame staff included Ed Warriner, Bob Elliott, Kerry Cooks, and Tony Alford, who all had no previous experience with Kelly – and, like Hinton in Cincinnati, Alford was a holdover from the previous regime.

Kelly’s permanent hires since 2010 have included two guys who had history with him and five guys who didn’t: Brian VanGorder and Keith Gilmore, each of whom had worked with him before; and Harry Hiestand, Mike Sanford, Autry Denson, Todd Lyght, and Scott Booker, each of whom had no connection to Kelly. He also added three analysts with coaching experience: offensive analyst Jeff Quinn was his offensive line coach and offensive coordinator at Cincinnati, while defensive analyst Greg Hudson and special teams analyst Marty Biagi each had no prior connection to Kelly. So what we have is a fairly even mix of guys who had history with Kelly and guys who didn’t, which, not surprisingly, is pretty standard for the coaching profession.

There is good reason to believe that Kelly actually intends to hire from outside, also; rumor is that the university is willing to give the new defensive coordinator a three-year contract, which is only necessary for an external hire, and Kelly has outright stated that the new defensive coordinator will be able to choose his assistants, which would imply wholesale changes that would probably not be made if an internal candidate was promoted. The DC pitchforks can stay in the shed for now.

Rumor #3: Swarbrick Just Said Everything Is Fine

This is really more a misconception than a rumor, but I’m a sucker for parallel construction. Deal with it… After much hue and cry about his absurdly, enormously long period of silence after the final game of the disastrous 2016 season (four days), Jack Swarbrick gave an interview to Jack Nolan that led to much hue and cry over what he said. The complaints shifted from “even if Kelly’s staying, say SOMETHING to stabilize the national conversation” to “why didn’t he say Kelly is gone?” Message board posts sprang up demanding Swarbrick’s instant termination, and a few even called for Fr. Jenkins’s dismissal as university president. Crisis offseasons are so much fun, aren’t they?

So what did Swarbrick say in that notorious interview, anyway? Some selections that show his acquiescence to a losing culture:

It was an extremely disappointing year. Every player, every coach, myself, other administrators involved in the program, we all share the same view. There’s no way around that conclusion. It’s not bad breaks, it’s not a play here or there. We didn’t do what we need to do. So we do start from that perspective…

You don’t ignore [2016]. You certainly evaluate it and pay a lot of attention to it…

Wins and losses are critically important to us. We are in this to win. We are never going to shy away from that standard…

I’m not going to go into the details into what was reported here [about Kelly looking for another job] and what version of that I think that I know it to be here, but the point is, on both sides, both with what agents do and what coaches report to me are a pretty normal course of business…

I certainly have some views [about necessary staff changes], but I’m not going to discuss those publicly… We obviously have a decision to make relative to the defensive coordinator and a lot of other things will flow from that decision…

Now, we clearly didn’t meet [the student athletes’] expectations competitively this year because they want to win too. But on many of the other things, the program is in good shape.  I don’t want to do anything to minimize the disappointments, whether they’re competitive or unacceptable behavior in the last game at USC by one of our players which is obviously just is not acceptable. It isn’t OK. The disciplinary issues we had to deal with at the front of the year, none of those are acceptable, all of those go into the evaluation, but those are the only ones that sort of get the public scrutiny…

I think undoubtedly it is harder [to win now than in 1988]. Now, people from that era may have a different view. But there are things that make it harder. But it doesn’t make any difference. It’s harder to win basketball games than it was back then. It’s harder to do a number of things. We don’t treat any of that as an excuse or a reason to have different goals… We have to do a better job with it, that’s all…

I’m not heading down that road [of setting a firm KPI on next season]. There is no standard. There is no saying it has to be this.. [T]here’s no magic number, there’s no magic outcomes. I’ll engage in the same process next year that I engaged in this year and the same analysis…

Nowhere in there did Swarbrick say everything is fine, or that Kelly is off the hook for 2016. Nowhere did he say that simply making a bowl game is the new annual goal, which I saw in some fan discussion. Nowhere did he say that the administration is fine with a 4-8 season, or that he doesn’t care about academic failures or behavioral issues. He even implied that he’s going to give Kelly significant input on changes to his coaching staff, with the “I certainly have some views, but I’m not going to discuss those publicly” line. I understand a lot of people wanted Kelly to be fired, and any announcement other than that was going to be disappointing to some degree; I also understand that reasonable minds can disagree on what the overall context of the program is right now. But I don’t understand how anyone can actually read – not “I don’t need to know what he said, retaining Kelly tells me everything I need to know” – but actually read the actual words, and come to the conclusion that Swarbrick said losing is OK and nobody in the admin cares.

Wrapping Up

Which, ironically, we didn’t do so often on the field this year. Hi-yoooo! Ahem… These are tough days for Irish fans, certainly. I don’t fault anyone for advocating for Kelly’s termination, and while I think keeping him for 2017 is the best available option I wouldn’t have argued with the decision to go in another direction either. As we discussed in previous Cutting Through the Coachspeak articles, though, if you’re going to be mad, please be mad about things that actually happened, and not things that rumor and mass misconception say happened.