Here’s a recap of today’s 2016 finale against USC:
The Trojans were held to a field goal. Josh Adams had a long run that led to a QB sneak touchdown. Notre Dame was winning! Ronald Jones ran for a 51-yard touchdown. Notre Dame was no longer winning. Suddenly, lots of punts were traded. Yoon missed a field goal. A couple more punts, except Adoree Jackson took back a boot untouched for a touchdown. Kizer put a cherry on top of the late first half collapse with a pick six.
There was some fight in the second half–Finke got his second touchdown in as many games on a pass from Kizer. Then Adoree Jackson took a swing pass to the house for his second touchdown of the game. A couple more punts then Kizer found Stepherson on a nice sluggo touchdown pass. Just a 10 point game at this point!
And then Adoree took the kickoff back for a touchdown. He struck the Heisman pose a couple of times in the end zone.
Notre Dame lost a fumble on a backwards pass. Cool, cool. Nicco Fertitta lit up a player and caused a fumble. The play was reviewed, Fertitta was ejected, and USC got the ball back. Tillery kicked the injured player in the head. USC scored on an easy play-action pass. Tillery stomped on a lineman.
Equanimeous St. Brown stayed awesome and added a late touchdown. Notre Dame missed the two-point conversion and the cover in Vegas.
USC won 45-27.
Notre Dame finishes 4-8 on the season.
No leadership on this team. Better find some before next September
I’d rather find a bunch of other things first, to be honest.
Wait, I was looking forward to Andy not having to follow the usual post-game script!
I am extremely disappointed in Tillery.
That’s an understatement. Hitting a guy in the head who may have a head injury is egregious enough for dismissal IMO.
Not disagreeing, but would love to see video of more than just his foot. Can’t be sure he knew what he was doing there otherwise. Of course, his ensuing conduct undermines the foundations of my meager defense, but still…
Given how the coaches nearby reacted in running out to get his ass back to the sidelines I would hazard to guess those coaches thought that Tillery knew what he was doing.
Thats a fair point. I didn’t see anything but his foot either.
Tillery should be expelled for that. If not, given that he is a terrible DL, or at the least wildly inconsistent, he should go back to OL.
Agreed. I don’t want that kind of guy on my team.
Tillery did what he did, no defense for it, but I don’t think he’s “that kind of guy”. Even though he did those things.
Mix a tough day, a tough season, emotions, immaturity of a young guy, and I can see why. He needs to grow and never do crap like that again but he deserves the chance to do that.
Good point, and I’m open to that being the case (and I hope it’s true). For that to be the case he needs to own up to it which he failed to do on the sidelines (to be sympathetic – tough to do with a screaming coach in your face).
Lets see,where to start? This thing stinks from the head down. The president and ad release a statement saying how they disagree with having to vacate wins. Hey,Fr and Jack maybe you shouldnt have offered to vacate wins at the start of that mess. That may not have been the smartest thing in the world to do. Now to todays game action. Lets start with the defensive line. Hey Jerry how about making a play once in a while ( they are called sacks) instead of stepping on injured players. .This team is tissue paper soft in all phases. Except its not really a team. Enough already about all the close losses. This group checked out after the Texas game,in fact they may have checked out before the Texas game. Oh well,the leader of this mess is coming back next year. That means another long off season followed by another year of this slop next year. Why bother making a change when things are going so well.
Hi Eric,
You have much more knowledge on the situation than me, but what do you think is the biggest factor lacking? As a relative neophyte, I really think we need some leadership… or a buy-in of leadership. Obviously, I have the benefit of playing “Monday Morning Quarterback”, but it really seemed we had 5 or 6 guys that “believed” and the rest just seemed to be going through the motions. There were a few that showed flashes of brilliance that were never followed up in following games.
I can’t believe that this is all on coaching (and, admittedly, I may be dead wrong) but when I see some of our guys sacrifice themselves for yards I just don’t get the “status quo” attitude of the rest of the team.
On paper, these guys are good and there are high expectations by all of us. What gives? I have no idea.
Immediate Twitter chatter is BK saying he’ll be back and Swarbrick being supportive of that.
Fire them both, if Swarbrick won’t do the deed that ought be done.
Firing Swarbrick would absolutely be one of the dumbest things we could ever do.
Can somebody explain to me why Swarbrick has such support? Given the premature contract extension, he doesn’t exactly look like a super genius football-wise right now. And his NCAA connections don’t seem to have helped on the sanctions front.
W/r/t basketball, Brey was already here when Swarbrick got to ND, and there hasn’t been a ton of institutional support for basketball (they still practice in the basement, after all), so I don’t really credit Swarbrick there. Same with WBB. And lacrosse.
I recognize that the ACC deal is pretty sweet money-wise (getting a full share while not a full member), but if we look up and find ourselves full members of the ACC in 5-10 years, which is totally plausible, then that will have been a major blunder.
When we signed up for that ACC deal weren’t you expecting to join up @ some point? What makes independence so inherently attractive? I suppose one’s schedule is at the mercy of the conference to a good degree, but you can’t ever control the quality of those teams by the time gameday rolls around. As for money, many conference TV deals are richer than ours, and as for “ND being ND,” given our failure to meet fan expectations and/or compete for titles on the reg, recruiting has remained solid and I highly doubt that’s because recruits care much about our conference independence.
In all honesty, what makes independence so valuable in modern college football, other than the flexibility to always play USC, SU, Navy, and a SS game?
The whole argument about the ACC deal being a good deal (and for Savvy Jack being actually savvy) was that it allowed us to keep our football independence. If we were to join a conference, the Big Ten is the obvious logical conference for us to join – their TV deal is worth more and, you know, it makes geographic and cultural sense.
You’d want to join the Big Ten?
Man….
Over the ACC? Yes… is that weird? Our school is a strong academic institution right in the middle of northern Indiana and has been rivals with schools in the Big Ten for much longer than any ACC rivals (other than BC, arguably, I suppose). I understand the “the South is fertile recruiting ground for football” point, but I don’t think that should outweigh the obvious fit we are with the Big Ten.
Back to the original point: is “we might join the ACC one day instead of the Big Ten” a significant reason everyone thinks Swarbrick is great at his job? Really?
I’m not sure what the point of dealing in hypotheticals about joining a conference is. The last round of conference realignment and the creation of a playoff were filled with landmines for ND and… we’re still independent. Still raking in cash, still have a shot at a national title with a 12-0 or 11-1 regular season.
Independence matters because its the one thing that still makes us “special”. Its our brand. You don’t trade that to just be the same as Ohio State, Michigan, Clemson, or Florida State. Worse, you could just wind up being another Northwestern or Vanderbilt with every year that passes without a championship.
I certainly agree about the importance of independence… but we’re not independent today because of Swarbrick, unless one believes that he sweet-talked Texas into not joining the Pac-16.
Sure, but all the creators of the playoff had to do to force ND into a conference was place a conference champions requirement on the Top 4. They not only didn’t do that, but created an avenue to the Orange Bowl above and beyond just being the best “at-large”.
No idea how much credit to give Swarbrick for all that, but he was the guy they chose to present the proposal to the presidents.
The way I understand it, when the Big East blew up the ACC gave ND a chance to join without football and the Big Ten wouldn’t. If we ever did want to join a conference, there would be enough of a market to choose wherever we wanted to go regardless of the current set-up. Again, all hypothetical considering this didn’t happen with a complete revamp of how the sport chooses its best team. Not sure anything less seismic would have a different impact.
Fair enough – that’s the best defense of Swarbrick I’ve seen. But I think the good from that is now offset by the too-early contract extension, which appears to have sadly bound us to Kelly for at least one more year.
Wanting to join the B1G over the ACC, yes, that is weird.
1. We’re Notre Dame. Screw Geography.
2. We’re Notre Dame, who doesn’t care about geography, precisely because Michigan strong-armed the B1G into not accepting us time and again because we’re a private CATHOLIC school. Screw the B1G. (And I’m not even Catholic)
3. The B1G is not a good fit academically. 13 large state research institutions and one private school (Northwestern) which is not religiously affiliated. I’m not knocking B1G academics, they’re all AAU members besides Nebraska (and we aren’t)–but they’re all large secular research universities, and we don’t fit. We’d never be on the winning end of any in-conference votes on anything, academic or otherwise, and even the other private school would likely only be on our side half the time. Meanwhile, the ACC has 15 schools: 9 public, 4 non-denominational private (Duke, Wake Forest, and Syracuse all originated as sectarian schools, Miami did not), and 2 Catholic private schools, us and BC. The school sizes vary way more, and include schools with as much commitment to undergraduate study as ND has, as opposed to being undergrad factories in order to support RESEARCH. I feel WAY more comfortable with ND in the ACC, even if you ignore the historic hatred B1G schools besides Michigan State have had for us as an institution.
Addendum: While I was in school in the mid-1990’s, we went through one of our periodic courting “will they or won’t they” with B1G. The faculty REALLY wanted to join the B1G–purely because as a B1G member, they’d have access to library resources at fellow member institutions. As a small(er, relatively speaking) private school, that’s a huge deal; or at least it was in 1996. In 2016, with digital collections and the ease with which one can browse library collections at other institutions, I don’t know if that’s as much a concern anymore. I’ve got books on my desk from the libraries at Brown, Chicago, Duke, Dartmouth, Cornell, etc. that I could order in a matter of days, simply because the Princeton copies were checked out by someone else. I download books as PDFs from Michigan’s library just about every week. I’d hope if academics were any part of the decision to join the ACC, that ND has a similar deal with those schools. Or, that it’s no longer anything that’s tied to conference affiliation.
TLDR; in the mid-1990’s there was a good academic reason (access to research sources) for joining the B1G, but in 2016 technology and academic sharing may have made that reason completely moot.
18S Exclusive!
Rare footage of the message KG leaves on every Michigan library book he checks out from their digital collection:
See, this is why I hang out here. Informative comments. Thanks!
Yup. There’s a wide range of attitudes towards what “academics” means, even in very elite academic circles. ND tries to the best of its ability to straddle the line, but ultimately ND’s focus is on undergrad education moreso than producing PhD’s, though they do that very well. However, an attitude like a friend who went to ASU and got his PhD in sciences at Minnesota (so, 2 large state research schools) has, which is basically “eff undergrads, they only exist as fodder so the university can support PhD research” is more common among big state schools than I’d be comfortable with in the B1G. Neither is wrong or right per se, but ND is one thing, and the vast majority of the B1G is something entirely different. The ACC has several AAU schools (Duke, UNC, UVA, GT, and Pitt–Syracuse was until they relinquished membership in 2011) so we have that big research vibe, but there are also smaller undergrad focused schools like Wake Forest. Meanwhile, Miami, BC, etc. are about the same size and straddle the line like we do. ND will never make it in to the AAU because we’ll never be a “research first” university, but much of the B1G flat turned their noses up at taking Nebraska when Nebraska lost membership in 2011 (AAU apparently doesn’t count agricultural research grants).
Only less weird if you’re from the Midwest. But still weird.
To be fair, much of my hatred of the B1G comes from growing up in the 80’s and early 90’s with Bo Schembechler as the face of the Big 10, with their whole dismissive “oh, we don’t really care that ND beat us, they’re not important, we’ve got a Conference Championship and the [angels sing] ROSE BOWL [/angels sing] to
play forlose to the Pac10 in!” For a century they kept us out of the B1G, then used their conference affiliation to act like losing to us didn’t matter (/Bo loses another Rose Bowl), that conferences were the most important thing, which was comical as we counted up our NC’s. Sure, you go win your conference, we’ve got more important things…Fast forward to now, and the BCS and then the playoff have significant changed the landscape. B1G teams no longer play just to get to the [angels sing] ROSE BOWL [/angels sing], it’s a consolation prize for the 2nd best team who didn’t make it into the playoff or whatever. Someone who grew up completely in the latter BCS/Playoff era (like I’m assuming ND09HLS12 did, based on his years there) never would have dealt with the B1G idiocy that rankled those of us older, and therefore wouldn’t quite get the hate and absolute disgust at the idea of joining the B1G of all conferences.
I’m very pro firing Kelly, but Swarbrick has done a great job. Hell, Kelly himself was an improvement over Weis. But I do feel like the university can apply pressure to Swarbrick without firing him.
Guys if the BOT wanted Kelly gone he’d be gone.
This game brought together the sloppiness we showed in each game in one final going away present to the fans. Maybe half a dozen players actually gave a damn. I don’t think Kelly gave a damn.
I am nit sure if any assistants should be back. Maybe Lyght. Maybe Denson. Probably the LB coach. None of the rest showed anything.
the best part of today is it was a great preview if 2017.
We don’t have near the talent this year to be considered good, we don’t have any killer instinct, special teams have just been lousy for years.
I don’t think a coaching change will do much good by itself. Our whole approach to football needs to change to be competitive at the playoff level, probably even at the major bowl level.
for those who thought canning van gorder would solve our problems, not so much. There were plenty of other issues in all facets of the team. Nothing was sound this year.
if I were Keizer, I shouldn’t leave given how erratic I’ve been, but on the other hand, behind this line, maybe escaping alive is the higher priority.
I do agree the whole approach needs to change. I really wish they had more of an attitude or “killer instinct”. All the pomp and circumstance of ND games is cool but it doesn’t help the team imo. Hopefully crossroads helps and changes my opinion. I feel like they’re stuck in the 40’s and are getting lapped by other programs. Maybe it’s just frustration or maybe some of its true, I don’t know. What are we talking about again? Lol
Kiwi, this defense was way better after BVG was fired. Our advanced stats bear this out. Hell, points allowed and missed tackles bear this out.
Eric, what are the specific things you would look for besides leadership? I don’t know what leadership is, so I sympathize Ruth your statement.
I guess I’ll have to write about something this off-season…
What a devastatingly predictable outcome. Blowout fueled by multiple special teams breakdowns. The program seems completely off the tracks with the dirty plays as well.
I wish there was a gettable head coach out there that would make me feel confident about a bounce back in 2017, but if Kelly returns with a completely revamped coaching staff and clearly set expectations I guess that’s worth passing on PJ Fleck. May need to kick Tillery off the team too.
Not sure how much hope there is for Kelly to get us back to playoff contention, but a lot will depend on his willingness to go outside his comfort zone for the right hires. His future, and ND’s, depends on it.
Did anyone else notice Kelly’s reaction to the targeting call? Contrary to what he said after the game, I took his reaction as, I’m so done with this crap.
I don’t get all the comments about the players not caring, or not playing hard. Kelly has said the opposite in no uncertain terms and do we really think Kelly wouldn’t say his guys aren’t playing hard if they weren’t? Moreover, what evidence do you have to show the players don’t care or are not playing hard?
Making mistakes is not the same as not caring or not playing hard. Let’s not be lazy in thinking about exactly what went wrong about the year.
Perhaps we can add the “no leadership” claim too. Again, what evidence do you have to say such a thing?
In regards to leadership, I just don’t see anyone rallying the troops or players rallying around any certain player.
But I agree with you 100% about the absurdity of saying the players weren’t playing hard or the had no heart or even that BK “lost the locker room.” Those are easy (lazy) answers to a much more nuanced problem.
I could get on board with saying that the team lost confidence but damn who wouldn’t!?
Stressful season with so many close losses but dealing with all the non-football stress of academic life at ND probably takes a toll on a player’s psyche
Irishchamp, I completely agree here. The players “not playing hard” is lazy and without evidence.
I think a giant culture/leadership issue was obviously the Kizer – Zaire situation. Malik is a natural leader, Deshone was the better quarterback. That’s not ideal. Whether it be Deshone in his third year or Wimbush, the team will actually have “a guy” at quarterback. Also, Nyles is going to be a leader on defense next year.
I see no reason why we won’t have solid player leadership next year. We have a lot of returning guys who are going to fill that void.
Agreed, especially the culture issue on the Zaire/Kizer delayed decision. I don’t think it’s hindsight to say Kelly should have been more decisive there in using all the off-season data and info he had to make the call that most saw as the better choice from Jump Street. I can understand why he didn’t want to close the door on Zaire, a tough situation to be in but one he didn’t manage well.
I also agree the “player leadership” narrative is a little over-rated. This season was probably irreparably damaged with BVG coming back, no matter who the leaders were. Add in crippling special teams mistakes, a hurricane and some coaching decisions to trust the defense too much and that’s all the losses except for 2 superior teams in VT & USC.
Effort wise this team never quit, played hard…Just made too many mistakes in execution, point a finger at poor coaching decisions and schemes at times and it’s a fiasco now looking back on it. 2016 is the bizarro 2012, almost everything in-game that could have gone wrong did. I don’t believe leadership failed this team, just execution.
I agree with much of this, but it lets the players pretty much off the hook. I think talent is a big issue in many years. It looks like men against boys way too often.
4-8 speaks for itself, there’s no avoiding that, nor should there be. Maybe it doesn’t read that way, but I meant to emphasize and cite execution as a major factor for this season, which is the opposite of letting the players off the hook. The players made too many mistakes; offense, defense and special teams to win games, which was compounded by coaching errors and an act of God (and a foolish decision to play the game as scheduled). Sucks but here we are.
(I didn’t downvote your comment, by the way, and don’t like that aspect on this site for the most part. Just unasked for 2 cents)
I won’t criticize this year’s captains & seniors, but, across the board, our captains last year had much more talent and starting experience (Jaylon, Day, Stanley, Martin), buttloads of whatever “grit” is (Farley, Schmidt), and in general lots of time with the program. They were undoubtedly very easy to look up to for the younger guys, to say nothing of dudes like Chris Brown or Prosise.
This year’s captains are by all means solid players and are surely good, team-first individuals, but they had HUGE shoes to fill.
Glad I was driving back from Virginia and missed the whole thing.
I hate saying things like this about players, but I’d be okay never seeing Jerry Tillery wear Blue and Gold again. That might be one of the most despicable on-field things I have ever seen from a Notre Dame Football player. I just wonder who is the leader in the locker room? There was no heart and soul on this year’s squad. I think that is partially due to so much junior/senior leadership being lost from last years team. Jaylon, Procise, Stanley, Chris Brown, Fuller and Schmidt were real leaders you could see coaching other players. They lost a massive amount of talent from last year and the young talent that is supposed to replace them were all a year away. Then the suspensions like Redfield (good riddance), Butler, etc and the loss of Alize Jones were bigger than many of us probably thought at the start of the season. Something like 19 or 20 players got their first starts this season or something like that. The vast majority of our skill players both on offense and in the secondary were freshman and sophomores. Throw into the fire earlier than I’m sure any of the coaching staff would have liked. Some of those players were probably going to be key special teamers as they waited their turn behind upperclassmen starters. That I feel also contributed to the terrible special teams we saw today. Because we had a bunch of 4 year bench players and people you didn’t know were on the roster trying to run down Adoree Jackson. I do think BK should be given one more year. Maybe its the eternal optimist in me but I think this team could be much much better next year. Possibly ALL offensive skill players will be back next year. Josh Adams is a stud and Dexter Williams has shown flashes. ESB, Stepherson, Finke, Holmes etc are all young and have a huge amount of talent. Brown is going to be a SUPERSTAR. If Kizer and Torii come back it could be one of the best offenses in the nation. I have no answers for how poor the offensive line play was this year. Both McGlinchey and Mustipher seemed rattled all year. But most should be back and hopefully much improved. Defense is extremely young. Jarron Jones showed potential but it seemed like every time he went beast mode and got a TFL he’d take the next 3 plays off. Tranquill impressed me but he cant play both safety spots and both corner spots all at the same time. Hopefully the freshman grow up quickly. Maybe getting our teeth kicked in all season will be a blessing in disguise. The guys looked mentally exhausted and could hold their fire from an entire game. And I cant blame them. The season was stressful and on top of having an actual academic course load and dealing with media/fans, it probably would suck the life right out of you. Hopefully recruiting doesn’t get crazy (lololololol) and… Read more »
Agree with a lot of what you said, but completely disagree on your evaluation of ND’s attractiveness. Espn had us as the 11th most attractive coaching position at the outset of the season. We pay as much as anyone and we recruit in the top ten. So when Brian Kelly goes 4-8, we can absolutely do better than that. And I would argue that top 10 talent can do better than Brian Kelly’s average win percentage at ND.
I wonder how many coaches give a damn what espn thinks of the ND job?
If Kelly is staying, which it now sounds like he is:
1) Booker and Longo need to be fired Monday.
2) Get a new DC in as soon as possible. It needs to be a homerun.
3) BK needs to reevaluate his offensive scheme. It’s too much. Too fancy. Our offense can’t stall out as often as it did this year. In-game adjustments need to be 100x better next year.
4) We need better team leaders next year. It’ll help to have Malik gone (presumably). Assuming him and Deshone are both gone, I am excited to watch Wimbush be a leader. I think Alize is going to be a great leader for us too. And I expect Nyles to be a much larger leader for us next year on defense.
5) Jerry should be suspended for 3-4 games. He embarrassed Notre Dame and its entire fanbase.
6) BK needs to work harder than ever to finish and hold together this recruiting class. They can’t afford major attrition. Without a bowl game, the staff better be pouring their souls into recruiting and keep this class intact.
7) Move Claypool to the defense and let him rush the passer and play OLB
1) I get Booker, but why Longo? It is not like we have had a ton of injuries this year.
I doubt Longo gets fired. I think we have just started implementing certain sports science concepts/technology in our strength and conditioning. Changes are apparently being made apart from who the S and C coach is. I think this is part of the program-wide emphasis on using sports science to reduce the risk of injuries but it is something to point to in order to show that we are not stagnant when it comes to S and C. Also, Kelly and Longo are bros.
Our dudes lose a crazy amount of weight in-season and are simply not as physical as other teams. And we have consistently ran out of steam by the fourth quarter.
Has that been true the last 5 years or only this year? If it is true only this year – which it seems to me it is, I don’t remember this as an issue in years past – then it can’t be all on Longo who has had the team strong in the 4th quarter.
How do we know who is losing weight? Do they have a weigh in during the season and report those publicly?
By the sounds of it, a few of the lineman have lost an absurd amount of weight within season. And I don’t think we have ever shown to be a strikingly physical team. We just don’t look the same physique-wise as most Top 10 teams.
Well many of the lineman looked fat and slow to start the season so that may have been by design.
1) Longo will never be fired by BK. I am a strength coach so I probably defend him more than most but injuries were down this year. He has a long track record of good physical development of his players. Mental Fatigue was infinitely more of a factor than physical.
2) Agreed
3) I think part of it was how poor the O-line was playing so he had to get cute. I dont include today in that analysis, they were just emptying the bucket today with some of the weird plays. Why the hell not?
4-6) AGREED
7) Might as well!
BK and Longo are bffs. He’s not going to fire him.
Though the athletic department could tell BK that we will not pay Longo.
I predict a dangerous tendency during the offseason to want to name starters asap. This will be because of the two quarterbacks problem against Texas. That was a mistake but not the mistake that kept us out of the playoffs like the hot takes suggested. If Kizer leaves, I obviously want competition between Zaire and Wimbush with no deference given to Zaire. I know everyone always says how important cohesion on the offensive line is but I think more is to be gained from competition because of our depth and our having performed below expectations this year. If Eichenberg or Kramer replaces Bars then so be it (just an example). This is especially true in the unlikely-but-not-impossible event that Foster Sarell commits to ND. That there will be competition amongst DB’s and DL’s seems obvious and I think there is less of a risk of jumping to conclusions there. I think Sam may be one of the more interesting positions to watch. I always hoped Bilal would slide in there but I’m not sure.
I don’t see Zaire coming back. I see him taking the graduate transfer route. I want Wimbush to be the QB anyway assuming Kizer leaves, which I’m 95% sure he will.
He made a twitter post that seems to indicate he is leaving.
“He” being Zaire or Kizer?
Zaire
Ah, well we all sort of expect that anyway.
I would hope that Wimbush wins, but that’s mostly because I want the buzz about him to be true. However, we don’t have much to go on with Wimbush aside from the buzz coming from anonymous sources.
MDIRISH I think would only be a concern about the QB position – that if another QB competition would present itself that Kelly might be more apt to just pick a guy and stick with him. Another positions don’t affect the team in the same way as QB. But I don’t think we have too much of a worry about another QB competition.
First scenario is Kizer comes back and then the job is his.
Second scenario is Kizer leaves, and then we have Wimbush, Book, and Davis. Here I’m sure there will be a QB competition but with a clear pecking order, i.e. unless Wimbush really bombs, it is hard to see Book who may be solid and Davis who will be a true freshmen overtaking Wimbush.
So I don’t think there is too much to be worried about on this front – in terms of picking a starter too early just to get it settled. It won’t happen at most positions and at QB it’ll happen naturally enough.
Ill just leave this here…
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/sources-brian-kelly-exploring-coaching-options-outside-notre-dame-030634063.html
Makes sense for Kelly’s agent to shop him around a bit, especially if there was a non-zero chance he could be fired. I could see him wanting to leave on his own terms at some point, but not when he has all the incentive to return for a year and bump up his stock or collect a fat buyout.
All that makes perfect sense…And now that LSU and Texas are settled, where’s Kelly going to go? Not many P5 options available, and none are upgrades in pay or prestige from ND, so none make sense for him to jump to at this point.
I hope he convinces Phil Knight that his 27 (or whatever) years of coaching have prepared him for the west coast.
ND put out a statement – https://twitter.com/NDsidBertschy/status/802793540803854337
Between this, the vacations of wins, and Tillery, the program has become an embarrassing clownshow in the last week.
To anyone actually paying attention, the vacating of wins, is more an embarrassment for the NCAA than ND. They once again proved that they have no idea how to make the punishment fit the crime.
I agree, but just about nobody nationally is paying that much attention. The national headline is “ND on probation and vacates wins”, and that surface-level understanding is going to be the takeaway for just about everyone, including, most importantly for football purposes, many recruits and their HS coaches.
Furthermore, Kelly’s press conference the day of the the announcement was embarrassing, even if you agree that ND acted properly with respect to the particular cheating (as I do).
I’ll cut Kelly some slack for the press conference since I assume he can’t really claim any responsibility while we’re appealing.
Agree that the headlines are bad for ND, but I guess I’ve just stopped caring about that stuff. We’ll can’t be the teacher’s pet and a title contender at the same time. People love to hate ND so the worst possible spin on every story will get clicks.
Recruits interested in ND will know the story and won’t care. Outside of ND this is not a big deal.
In case anybody thinks clownshow is an overstatement, these two stories are currently the top 2 stories on the front page of espn.com under the “Top Headlines” banner:
http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/18145076/brian-kelly-notre-dame-exploring-coaching-options-representatives
and
http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/18147315/brian-kelly-notre-dame-fighting-irish-look-jerry-tillery-actions-loss-usc-trojans
At least people are talking about us, maybe?
And Deadspin just put up a second ND story in two days, which basically calls BK an unlikeable guy (correct!) who somehow appears to have the full support of the administration despite not being all that successful on the field (also correct!) with a bunch of off-field issues during his tenure (also also correct!).
http://deadspin.com/brian-kelly-closes-out-notre-dames-dogshit-season-by-lo-1789393141
I don’t endorse everything in the story, but it’s indicative of the underlying (or explicit, in this case) national coverage we have been and will be getting if Kelly is retained. This program is going downhill in terms of national perception, fast. There are two ways to turn it around: go 11-1 or 12-0 next year with no more new scandals, or fire Kelly. The latter is a lot easier and quicker than the former.
Deadspin is a reliable source of information on Notre Dame football.
I presume you’re referring to the Manti fake girlfriend thing? Hey, on that story, they got 90% of it right, which was 90% more than the local media whose reason for existence is covering Notre Dame football. Yeah, it was bad that they insinuated that ND and/or Manti were in on it, but they were still way more right than everybody else.
Deadspin is the National Enquirer of sports news.
They also stole the story from ESPN and rushed it to publication.
With this and the the Big Ten stuff above I’m really starting to wonder about you, sheesh.
Stole is a strong word, IIRC (and re-reading this article seems to confirm that: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/sports/ncaafootball/as-debate-raged-at-espn-manti-teo-story-slipped-from-its-hands.html?smid=tw-share&pagewanted=all). It sounded like they were on it just a day or two after ESPN got tipped off, and ESPN sat on it because they wanted either (a) to give Te’o a chance to give his side of the story (what ESPN tells itself to make it feel better) or (b) to get video of Te’o (the real reason).
Of course Deadspin put out the story earlier and in a snarky/assuming-the-worst kind of way, as that is what they do. But to be entirely dismissive of Deadspin in this day and age is burying your head in the sand; it’s like ignoring Drudge.
I can’t believe I’m over here defending a Gawker Media property, but here we are.
I wonder how many coaches who’ve been at a successful power 5 school for 7 years are considered well liked by all and haven’t had off field controversies?
Saban- No Meyer- No Fisher- No Stoops- No
Notice a trend here?
I won’t defend Kelly’s coaching but enough with this other stuff and the media’s coverage of it.
Saban- http://deadspin.com/alabama-football-player-says-his-locker-was-cleaned-out-1784787816
Meyer- http://deadspin.com/urban-meyers-former-florida-players-revel-in-his-failu-1478912163
Fisher- http://deadspin.com/jimbo-fisher-is-a-whimpering-penis-1652200042
Stoops- http://deadspin.com/millionaire-college-football-coach-thinks-his-unpaid-pl-472071037
That’s just from googling Deadspin and the four coaches’ names above. I’m sure you could do the same with every major coach in the country. Not to say I disagree with every point in each article, but its just Deadspin’s shtick. Shouldn’t change your view of a coach’s abilities in the slightest.
Terrific posts above by jchrapek and hooks orpic. Merci!
I do believe all the juniors leaving last year contributed to a senior leadership issue this year – especially at the beginning, remember BK’s remarks about mid-season that he was hoping for a win at Texas to help the young guys start believing, and start a virtuous cycle instead of the inverse that we have just experienced. But the major damage was from hanging on to BVG. BK does not like to fire people, which is tied with him not liking to admit errors. So my optimism for next year is tempered with the realization that BK will have to overcome both those tendencies to bring us to the Promised Land — he will need to get rid of a couple more staff, and have to revamp his offensive philosophy. Beyond of course making the perfect hire for a DC.
The practical outcome of that is that I think we the intelligent, informed, aware, and passionate ND 18 Stripe style fans could do better to focus on all the issues associated with making 2017 a true major comeback season (indeed possible, as I pointed out in the post about other historically remarkable turnarounds).
By the way, I thought BK’s post-game presser was very good – the manner with which I as a commanding officer like my folks to react when they have performed poorly but have the potential to bounce back. I’d be interested in other takes on that.
Since apparently I’m the negative Nancy here, I do want to point out that we’re probably the best 4-8 S&P+ team ever – http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaa
Maybe we can put that on a t-shirt.
Along with our
graduation rate!Hey, 4-8 means there’s plenty to be negative about.
I guess I’m just choosing to be optimistic this offseason. This terrible year is over and if you squint and tilt your head a bit, you can just about see a way that 2017 is better. Who knows.
Don’t worry about 4-8. It will probably be vacated in a few years anyway.
That was funny.
That S&P+ line is rather incredible – we were, by far, the unluckiest team in the country (or worst-coached in close games; take your pick). Our second-order win differential was +3.2 wins, and the next team was Michigan State with +2.0. Absurd.
Our S&P+ rankings are a little skewed by the Raleigh hurricane, but I’m not sure how it skewed them other than obviously our defensive S&P+ is better and the offensive S&P+ is worse than it “should” be.
Think back to 2010 when we hired Brian Kelly, a guy who had just gone 12-0 the previous season and 34-6 overall at Cincinnati. He was pretty much the best coach on the market (excluding pipe dreams like Urban, Stoops, etc…), and we got him to choose us. Fast forward to today, where Tom Herman is generally viewed as the second coming of Christ and he has a whopping two years of head coaching experience, including a 22-point loss to 5-7 SMU and a loss to Bobby D’s Uconn last year. If you put Kelly’s resume circa 2009 up against Herman’s in a hypothetical coaching search, do you think that Herman would be the consensus #1 pick for all the big-time openings? I’m not so sure. Brian Kelly didn’t get dumb, but Notre Dame and the demands that come with the job are probably beating him down. His teams never lost this much this far into his tenure at UC, or Central Michigan, or GVSU, but they are losing now and looking generally terrible as they do it. For me, the first time I thought Kelly might not work out was when they lost four in a row to end 2014, including that putrid Northwestern loss. I’m a fan of history and precedence, and Kelly’s teams at CMU and UC didn’t lose like that past year three. So is it a Notre Dame problem or a Brian Kelly problem? BVG was definitely a Brian Kelly problem, and a Bob Diaco defense probably gets us to 7-5 this year, maybe even to the playoff last year. But beyond that, Kelly’s tenure has been marked by almost non-stop drama that really seems to affect the team. Whether it’s Declan Sullivan, Aaron Lynch transferring (remember that?), Golson’s suspension, and nonsense that’s happened this year, this constant stream of bad news can’t help but sap the energy from the program. And a lot of that hasn’t had anything to do with Kelly. So I ask, would PJ Fleck fix this? A man with four years of experience and who went 12-0 at a mid-major (wow sounds familiar!) will suddenly “revive” the program? Or Willie Taggart? Would Matt Rhule go 10-2 next year with this team? There is no easy fix. Hiring another coach outside of Urban Meyer probably means throwing away next year’s title chances while we rebuild around a new coach. I can only advocate for smaller steps, starting with getting the best damn defensive coordinator on the market. Kick the tires on everyone, see if Luke Fickell actually likes it in Columbus. Would Don Brown leave Michigan for a pay raise? Find out. But don’t settle for a Mike Elko (he’s not that special) or keeping Greg Hudson. Go outside Kelly’s comfort zone. Overhaul the staff and get some proven guys in there that will hold the boss’ feet to the fire. Figure out who the hell is calling the plays (spoiler: it should be Sanford and no one else) and just let… Read more »
I think you hit the nail on the head about whether this is a Brian Kelly problem or a Notre Dame problem. It’s not so easy to go out there and win 10+ games every season. Not very many programs are able to pull it off. But Notre Dame just constantly undermines itself – whether it’s the Golson suspension, the Academic Five, or the suspensions from this summer. Every season it’s a question of “Oh hey, how’s the program going to undermine itself this year to grandstand its moral superiority?”
It may be time for Kelly and Notre Dame to part ways. But that’s not going to fix the football program. Notre Dame chooses to give itself a handicap every season. As long as that’s going to be the case, it’s not going to be an elite program. That doesn’t mean they need to go dirty – just that there should be judgements other than “off with his head.”
Super post. Exactly the kind of thinking we need.
I would also like to hear ideas about how BK can and should fix special teams
Brian Polian just became available?
Special teams is tough, but something I noticed is that a ton of freshman and sophomores played this year and contributed to many of the mistakes we saw. Miles Boykin in the MSU game touching the ball, Sanders fumbling into the endzone against the U and the disaster against USC involved a lot of young guys.
In 2013, Kelly said that he would start playing more starters in special teams like Alabama and OSU does. This year a lot of the starters were young so they ended up playing and screwing up on special teams. I guess a year of experience will help, but a lot of what happened this year was unacceptable.
Honestly I’d take Taggart right now in a heartbeat
I know we’re all harrumphy about ND right now, but can we step back and appreciate Michigan’s loss to tOSU yesterday? Because in the most Michigan way possible, they did not get beaten by tOSU–no, no, they, through their own mistakes and terrible reffing, lost that game. Do not make the mistake of thinking tOSU won, oh, no no no. And Harbaugh proved beyond doubt that he belongs at Michigan in his post-game press conference.
So hurray, because that was delicious.
Further bright side: we would have scored 74 against SMU!
Soooooooooo satisfying, KG . Really hope we do rebound with vigor by the time we play them again, because it will be supremely great to beat them.
Guys guys guys I have found it; it is the hottest ND taek – http://www.ndnation.com/boards/showpost.php?b=football;pid=168523;d=this
(And for those disinclined to ever look at NDNation, this one is so unintentionally funny that it’s worth the click)
KELLY HAS THE KIDS ALL POTTED UP
We reached the far right margin of the comments so it won’t let me respond to CSN’s comment, but if I could give 100 recs to that, I so would.
Merry Christmas, brother! Glad you liked that!!
Which CSN comment? Did it get deleted?
When in doubt, assume the missing CSN comment has been deleted for crossing a line.
You clearly know me well, MoN frere.
Never mind, I found it. What a very good thing to write in any SkunkBear library book…