Worst title ever, I am sorry. In America’s dumbest sport we were witnesses to one of the dumbest games played in conditions that made any semblance of football close to impossible. I will admit that I was one of the people who thought the weather wouldn’t be that bad. That might have been in response to last year’s game at Clemson where people were freaking out there would be deaths and it turned out to be more of a fun wet than anything else.
Saturday afternoon at NC State was so much worse. Patently absurd at times.
Needless to say everything about this game was ugly. It’s difficult to balance the outlandish nature of the game with the attempt to coach a coherent game plan but even in that light Notre Dame failed spectacularly against the Wolfpack. Let’s review this stupid thing.
OFFENSE
I thought Notre Dame would lose by 7 points, and they did. I thought the offense would have some struggles, and they certainly had those. What’s wrong then?
Three things: play-calling, toughness, and adjustments.
The first two I can live with to a degree. The staff could have underestimated how bad the weather was going to be and even if it was sunny and dry out I wouldn’t have believed the Irish would run the ball super well anyway. Is the latter a frustration? Sure, but we are what we are at this point, and it’s not a unit that’s going to put the team on its back against a Top 15-ish defensive line on the road against Southern talent.
The lack of adjustments though is really maddening. The Irish attempted 26 passes and all but a few of Kizer’s 15 rushing attempts were passing plays that turned into scrambles.
NOTRE DAME WENT ALMOST 60% PASSING IN A HURRICANE.
A year and a half ago I was worried about how the trio of Kelly, Denbrock, and Sanford would mesh and deal with all of the responsibilities on offense. Last year, they handled it really well. We know that the relationship has been Denbrock calls plays, Sanford helps putting together game plans, and Kelly over sees everything but has taken more of a hands off approach.
Now, I don’t want to over-react and pretend that there are massive offensive problems. However, in this game something was completely broken. We’ve seen a much more hands-off Brian Kelly (more on this below) and I don’t know what the heck Denbrock and Sanford were thinking. In truth, this kind of felt like the offensive version of Diaco’s 2010 game plan against Navy–instead this time it was the weather as the issue and Notre Dame throwing their hands in the air like, “We’ve got nothing else! We thought we could throw the ball this is what we practiced!”
I mean, at times it really seems like this staff in 2016 is making moves in a dare to be fired.
— 18 Stripes (@18stripes) October 8, 2016
This dumb game really highlighted an offense not physical enough to pound the ball, not imaginative enough to confuse NC State with a diverse array or runs, and not quick enough to switch things up on the fly. I get that the conditions were absurd and that usually the offense is just fine but this was kind of like playing a top 5 defense–the same problems popped up.
Nothing was more pathetic than 2nd offensive series of the 2nd quarter following NC State’s fumble with the score 3-0 in favor of the Wolfpack. We were treated to this sequence of events with the ball just outside the red zone:
Delay of Game
Incomplete Pass
Incomplete Pass
Incomplete Pass
False Start (Personal foul by NC State for taunting)
Rush for No Gain
Completion for 11 Yards
False Start
Sack (Loss of 8 Yards)
Incomplete Pass
Interception
This was a gift from NC State to at least put 3 points on the board in a game where 3 points would have felt like 14 points and they completely screwed the pooch. I’m done talking about this nonsense.
DEFENSE
Is there anything worth talking about? Straight stats will give this unit a boost–they didn’t give up a touchdown! I’m not sure what kind of curve we need to grade on here with this game. NC State totaled 198 yards and put together 4 drives of at least 37 yards which under normal playing conditions probably nets them 20 points or so. I suppose with the curve this was still improvement for the Irish defense but who really knows.
We didn’t have a sack and only 5 tackles for loss. The futility continues in that regard.
FINAL THOUGHTS
There was a point in the late 3rd quarter and into the 4th quarter where Notre Dame was another bad fumbled snap from having negative total yardage. Up until the final drive, the longest drive of the game for the Irish was 24 yards. I don’t need to tell you that all offensive stats were completely torpedoed after this debacle. The average points per game fell by 6.2 all the way to 33.6 while that impressive 6.9 YPP fell almost a full yard to 6.15 on the season.
Advanced stats can’t control for a hurricane, unfortunately. According to the latest S&P+ rankings the Irish offense tumbled from 14th to 33rd after the NC State game. More hilariously, the defense moved up 48(!!!) spots to No. 36 in the nation. If you haven’t stopped laughing let me point out that Notre Dame at 2-4 is still 33rd overall in S&P+ while NC State fell 13 spots to 38th overall after beating us.
Brian Kelly has been the head coach at Notre Dame for roughly 82 months and close to 2,500 days. He was 48 when he was hired and will turn 55 later this month. A lot of this is genes but Kelly has aged tremendously in a way only a U.S. President can relate with in our country.
Of course, we live in a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately society and in college football we tend to gravitate towards the bad–when it’s ongoing–as the “real” side of a coach. Especially at Notre Dame, we don’t have that type of patience because we’ve seen too many false messiahs and literally no one has ever recovered from a very bad season and found success afterwards. That is clearly coloring everything surrounding this program right now.
What interests me is that I think Brian Kelly could come back with a pretty strong 2017 season. This season is going to suck in so many ways but we’re 4 months away from National Signing Day and hitting the re-set button. We’ll be completely off the radar as a team in just 7 weeks as we sit out bowl season, too. I’m not sure if I’d exactly predict that but I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion we can’t bounce back next year.
The one thing pushing back on that front is if Brian Kelly is either checked out or is at the point of his career where the fire isn’t there to put the pieces back together next year. Although we’re seeing some signs of the former I really don’t think that’s the issue right now.
The more likely scenario is this: Kelly got entirely too comfortable and satisfied with the 2015 season precisely at a time when he should have turned up the heat in the other direction for a huge (and possibly final) 2016-18 push for greatness. He trusted too much, let his CEO-skills blind him that the program would run itself in a lot of areas, while believing there’d be real progress in year 3 of VanGorder and the QB competition between Kizer and Zaire would be entirely manageable. Most especially the quarterbacks were going to lead the team against a very friendly schedule.
Almost literally, nothing has gone to script. Strengths aren’t quite that strong and powerful enough to hang your hat on in 2016. Weaknesses are much worse than thought. Things are so out of whack that Kelly has been stunned how much of his program has cracked at its foundations and how little help (looking at you defensive coaches) he’s surrounded himself with to this point.
Does Kelly deserve to be fired now? Will he deserve to be fired after a season that’s looking like 4-8 might be the absolute ceiling for this team? No, I don’t think so. It’s hard for me to square away that Weis got 3 years of bad-to-mediocre results for 3 years and that we’ll cut Kelly loose after one bad season. I can’t escape the feeling that for America’s toughest job that’s an incredibly short-sighted and dangerous move that will 100% scare away any legitimate applicants. Loud chest-pounding on message boards about expectations and standards are so full of emotion as to cause blindness. It’s more important to make the right moves–even if they take some time–and get the right person in the seat than it is to just fire someone because things aren’t where you want them, or even worse, to prove to a bunch of chattering hyenas that we’re sticking up for Our Lady’s storied history.
The only thing that REALLY matters moving forward is if the foundation of the program is so bad and Kelly has lost the ability to raise the tide and remain committed to fixing things. Acting as if this is the real Kelly and 2016 is unveiling a truth about him doesn’t do much for me. Neither does saying we know he won’t win a title–this is a Tier II job and I’m not firing Kelly because of those expectations. Even with an 8-loss season it’s easy to think the foundation is crumbling but things are still fairly stable all things considered. That’s why so much comes down to the effort and emotional investment from Kelly himself. It’s still in my mind that he’s so haggard and tired from this job that he’ll leave in December and Swarbrick should be ready for that scenario. However, if that’s not the case–and I’ll assume Kelly and Swarbrick will hash that out soon–he’ll get 2017 to see if he can be the first Notre Dame coach to find success after a terrible season.
Eric, I just found the new site a couple weeks ago. Thank you for the rational analysis of Kelly. It’s great to read as opposed to the anti ND trolls and the ND fans that have kneejerk emotional reactions. This year has spiraled in a very bad way obviously, but the next 2 recruiting years are shaping up to be his best classes yet……. if this season doesn’t derail that. Stanford doesn’t look quite as tough as they did a few weeks ago. I think we have a shot there. I don’t want to predict a final record like you did, I just want to take it one week at a time and look for improvements and positives.
Obviously the Van Gorder hire was a massive fail. Should’ve been fired after last year, especially given he apparently didn’t help much with recruiting.
I don’t get the offensive play calling. Who do we blame more out of Denbrock and Sanford? I would like to see Sanford with most of the play calling responsibility.
Thanks, and glad you found us.
So am I! I need your Football analysis along with the hoops analysis of Alstein and the others.
Can’t wait until basketball starts. We’ve truly converted to ACCness. We’re a basketball school now!
This is so right that everything else seems wrong. If Kelly is still committed, I hope the University stays committed to Kelly, at least for 2017.
Let’s be clear: firing Kelly after this year wouldn’t be firing him after one bad season; it would be firing him after one bad *consecutive* season. Excusing 2010 as first-year culture change, I think he has three unambiguously Bad Seasons: 2011 (that was a 10-win team that managed to go 8-5), 2014, and 2016. 2013 was meh, and 2015 was a qualified success. 2012 is the only year where the team unquestionably outplayed the talent.
in 2011 and 2013 he was hamstrung by having no QB. In 2014 we got jammed in the FSU game and when you lose a huge game in that fashion, sometimes the season goes off the rails. Not to mention the mass injuries on D. This year is the first unmitigated disaster.
Kelly had a QB in 2013. We could’ve won more games with Rees if Kelly hadn’t treated him like he was Tom Brady and come out throwing just about every game. That strategy paid off against MSU because we couldn’t run the ball against them and MSU’s DBs insisted on committing blatant interference throughout the game, but against lesser foes like that year’s Pitt and Michigan teams, we should’ve pounded the ball far more than we did.
And the thing is, that’s not second-guessing – I was saying it at the time.
Reasonable minds can differ about Kelly but in my opinion 2013 should clearly have been a better year than it was (2011, too, but we all knew that already).
I think the offense would’ve gotten severely bogged down in that scenario.
Everyone would have packed the box on us and the run game would have been really decimated. Then you’d be relying on Rees to work a bunch of stuff off play-action, making big third down throws, often down field to try and get guys out of the box.
I just don’t think he was that kind of QB. IMO, we worked to his strengths and it just stunk that he was the only quality choice at the time. The BYU game is the counter-point to all of this, but there’s nothing to indicate Kelly would’ve stayed that consistent with that type of gameplan, or that it would’ve kept being successful, or that we’d keep teams to 13 points.
I wish I could find the original text, but I’ll have to go off memory here. Kelly said something very similar at the time in answer to a question about why wouldn’t run more to protect Rees. He basically said it’s not that simple – teams were putting eight men in the box to outnumber the run blockers because they had no respect for Rees’s passing ability. If you pull more blockers into the box, they’ll just pull more defenders in and you end up trying to pound out plays when there’s literally no space to move.
So if we just tried to pound ahead into that brick wall, we’d be in constant 3rd and long situations because of Tommy’s natural limitations, which would then amply his limitations. Hence the offensive gameplan that relied on short passes and scheming our way into soft spots in the defense.
I’m actually surprised that my comment seems to be so unpopular. To me, this line of response has a sense of “why do bad things keep happening to him???” to it.
I don’t disagree that this is the first unmitigated disaster season, but 2011 and 2014 were at least 2 more losses than they should have been as well, and thus are, to my mind, clearly bad seasons from a coaching perspective.
I’d agree with that grading system if we were modern-day Alabama or Ohio State. Otherwise, it’s not very useful.
I agree with dpet, and thank you again for another well written, balanced, rational article, Eric.
I don’t know what to make of Kelly at this point except that maybe he got carried away with this CEO approach this year, didn’t get deeply enough into the defensive issues (e.g. not realizing Cage wasn’t in the game vs Duke) to understand how badly BVG was performing, and in yesterday’s game didn’t step in and force the adjustments needed, mainly in and trying to run more ( which I doubt would have been all that successful anyway). Re the latter, I think he was kidding himself during the week when he said that our run game isn’t a problem. Our Oline was way over rated going into the season, has been very spotty in the run game, and just OK in pass protection. I fear that Kizer may be going the way of Golson, with too much pressure to do everything and starting to break down. I don’t believe in the 2 QB system, but yesterday may have been the day to see if Zaire could have brought a different dimension to the game. Not a certainty by any means, but worth a shot in hind sight.
Kelly looked utterly beaten, dazed and depressed, almost at a loss for words after the game. I would not be at all surprised to see him decide the burden at ND is too much and to move on to greener pastures. It truly is a health destroying job. It killed Leahy, forced Ara to retire early, drove Devine away, and seems to be aging Kelly before our eyes. Lou is the one guy who held up pretty well, comparatively speaking. I’m not counting the short termers who were losers.
My only comment on the game is that it shouldn’t have been played, but given that it was, their guys were a lot less affected than our guys, for some reason. They ran relatively well, defended very well, snapped the ball MUCH better, and seemed more up for the game.
Granted Lou was older when he got the job, but his before and after pics show the same severe aging. Even Rockne had some severe health issues from the effort of creating this toughest job in America. Not disagreeing, this was just a nit.
i’d like to see some pictures of “normal” people between those ages. What if this is just basically normal? I just have nothing to compare it to.
He said “normal people” not robots.
Ha, true.
I wouldn’t mind being called “robot” if I were the very best in the world at what I do and paid, what, $7 million/year. Throw me in that briar patch. I doubt that a robot gets excited enough to give very public “ass chewings” to his direct reports, for instance, among other things. He is preternaturally buttoned down most of the time, I admit.
I get that people don’t like him or Urban, but we’d kill to have either one at ND. I would, at least.
“I doubt that a robot gets excited enough to give very public “ass chewings” to his direct reports”
Other than on the sidelines in the middle of the game, then when in the press conference he’s asked what his “disagreement” with Lane Kiffin was about, he says “it wasn’t a disagreement, it was an ass-chewing.”
My calling him a “robot” isn’t negative–I respect the hell out of Saban. He’s ruthlessly efficient. He gets the most out of his players and program, and as far as anyone can tell does it within the rules. We may not always like the things he does, but they’re legal. He does the max within the rules to get his team to win. I’d LOVE to have a coach like that. I think much of the ND fanbase couldn’t handle it and would clutch their pearls the first time he yelled at a player or a coach on the sidelines. Or maybe they’d be okay with it, as long as he’s winning, but I kind of doubt it. He’s not “buttoned-down.” He’s a robot because he’s a machine. There are few like him. And I don’t think he feels stress the same way a normal human does, hence he doesn’t “age” quite like we see other coaches.
If Kelly did any of the above, we’d have a 40-comment thread about what a horrible example he is setting.
The funny thing is Rockne was a master at doing “the max within the rules to get his team to win”. He caused at least one round of rules changes because he pushed the envelope. Yet i’ll bet you’re right that a large portion of the fanbase wouldn’t be ok with it. They also either wouldn’t admit that Rockne was that kind of a coach, or they’d explain it away with some kind of bs like, “it was a different era”.
Does Saban cheat? He’s the Darth Vader of college football. Maybe one of our resident experts can confirm this, but I don’t think there is any rule that forbids using the dark side of the force. I consider it to be rude as hell though, and very distasteful. No, ND could not justify the use of the dark side, even if it means winning a ton of games and championships.
Of course he gets the most out of his players and coaches, everyone is going to give max effort to a man that can choke them out from across the room.
I don’t know if he technically cheats, but he’s very skilled at pushing the envelope as far as he can and finding every loophole imaginable. It helps, of course, that he has free reign at Alabama to create his own little empire and unlimited funding with which to build it.
I will say that the hiring of Lane Kiffin, who was a constant NCAA violation threat at Tennessee and USC because he’s stupid, and Tosh Lupoi, who was a constant NCAA violation threat at UCLA and Washington because he’s a scumbag, raises an eyebrow. My guess is that Saban runs things very carefully to allow everyone to maintain plausible deniability.
Define dark side, Russel, please?
i seriously doubt he does anything outright illegal with all the exposure they get.
i have no problem with being right up to the edge, but not across it.
Here you go, kiwifan, compliments of wookieepedia: The dark side of the Force, also known as the Bogan,[1] was an aspect of the Force.[2]Individuals who used the dark side drew their power from darker emotions such as fear, anger, hatred,[3] and aggression.[4] The Sith were a major practitioner of the dark side, and were the mortal enemies of the Jedi Order, which followed the light side of the Force.[3]There were others such as the Inquisitorius, who, though not Sith, could draw upon the power of the dark side.[5] Darth Sidious believed that the source of his dark side power was the universe beyond the edges of the known galaxy.[6] Although Jedi were taught to follow the light side of the Force, the dark side was considered seductive and a Jedi had to maintain vigilance in order to avoid falling to the dark side.[4] Anakin Skywalker was a powerful Jedi who, partly through the machinations of the Sith Lord Sidious, fell from the light side and began practicing the dark side.[7] Even a Jedi raised in the traditions of the Jedi Order from birth could quickly be corrupted by the lure of the dark side in certain situations. Despite this, while the Jedi often described the dark side as a “quick and easy path,” drawing upon the power of the dark side did not necessarily come with ease or without cost to those who were not used to drawing upon feelings such as hatred and who possessed strong compassion.[8] Use of the dark side of the Force granted certain abilities that were generally closed to a user of the light side, such as the ability to summon Force lightning from one’s fingertips[9] and even, according to legend, to manipulate midi-chloriansto create life or keep someone from dying.[7] The dark-side historian and Sith cultist Yupe Tashu told Wedge Antilles onAkiva that some Sith Lords were able to siphon the Force from their captives in order to extend their own lives for centuries beyond their natural expiration.[6] The power of the dark side was penetrating and pernicious. The Jedi Temple was built on top of an ancient Sith shrineand, unbeknownst to the Jedi, the power of the dark side rippled upwards through the Temple from the shrine, slowly weakening the Jedi over a millennium.[10] The dark side of the Force was considered highly corrupting. The Jedi Grand Master Yoda, for example, believed that “Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny,”[4] a view he espoused despite having personally witnessed the redemption of at least two individuals who were at one time deeply steeped in the dark side.[8]Anakin Skywalker also proved an exception, as he overcame his past actions to save his son, Luke, and kill the Sith Lord Sidious.[11] While Yoda said that the Dark Side of the Force is not stronger than the Light Side of the Force, he said that it was merely “quicker, easier, more seductive“. Additionally, use of the dark side by somebody with generally good intentions in a moment of weakness could leave that individual feeling weak and shivery, with a general feeling of wrongness. This was once experienced by Ezra Bridgerwhen he once unconsciously drew upon the power of the dark side to summon a massive fyrnock to attack the Grand… Read more »
Spot on, KG, in all respects.
Dark side, as in dark side of the force Kiwi. You know, Darth Saban.
For CSN: we are well and truly dooooomed!
Kelly has done things like those posted GIFs, doesn’t have remotely the kind of track record Saban does, and has plenty of defenders, some on this site, so I don’t think I agree with that point.
I think KG meant to say “When Kelly has done such things” not “If he were to do them”.
Kelly has his defenders. He also has his detractors.
Where are the people in the Alabama fanbase or the national media raising hell about Saban’s “sideline antics” or “treatment of players” when he yells?
Eric,
As good a howl of anguish (“cry of the heart” in French) along with a segue into some of the more rationale analysis I can imagine possible in such circumstances . Thank goodness for you and your mates and our fellow board members to share pain with in moments like these.
Concur on BK on all counts. Clausewitz talks about the conditions that make combat different than any other activity, and one is simply physical exertion. Looking at BK during and after the game, I am entertaining the notion that it was physically difficult for him – rain, wind really nasty. I know I will get grief on this from some, but I feel this may have synergized with his pronounced tendency to dig deeper into his own predilections: another way to put it, when you are in the middle of a howling gale it is harder to change on the fly from what you like to do and intended to do (see his comment from Sunday’s presser). It will be interesting to see if he bounces back deep down (per your observation). His comments yesterday would indicate that he is saying the right things, but it’s early yet.
I am glad I took a day away from all things football related and had an enjoyable day with the family before checking in again. Eric, I was so glad to see a rational response to the game yesterday. I agreed with all of the points you made, particularly this:
“this kind of felt like the offensive version of Diaco’s 2010 game plan against Navy–instead this time it was the weather as the issue and Notre Dame throwing their hands in the air like, “We’ve got nothing else! We thought we could throw the ball this is what we practiced!””
Everybody knows this was an extremely frustrating game to watch. My hope is that the response will be similar to how we responded to option in the years after that 2010 debacle.
There is a lot of football left to be played, hopefully all of it in non-hurricane weather. I think the young kids on defense got even more experience and the coaching staff and the offense were humbled, and will be better as a result. I still have hopes for a bowl game, and maybe even running the table from here on out. It will take some luck, but who knows. Sure, that’s probably being too optimistic, but I’d rather be that than sulk and think that the season is over.
I have been a BK supporter most of the time, but this season is pushing my limits of acceptance. I completely understand that ND is no longer a top 3 or even a top 5 program anymore – the recruiting restrictions, academic rigor, and geography (yes tOSU overcomes not being in the south, but it is still a disadvantage compared to the SEC teams) – but can we be a top 10 program? The recruiting rankings and AP poll numbers in recent years suggest that ND can be a top 10 or top 15 program, but ND is no longer among the elite.
The BK stays argument – (1) ND has too many restrictions, is no longer elite, and the fans need to accept this. There will be bad years sprinkled in with “pretty good” years, and the occasional great year. (2) The best coaches will look at other jobs. All of the cries for Urban, Saban, Harbaugh, or Herman are pointless as those coaches are not coming to ND. Miles would turn the offense into a true dumpster fire. Gruden, Dungy, and other NFL names are not coming either. Sanford has no head coaching experience (see Weis and Muschamp for the dangers of going that route). (3) Under BK, ND recruits fairly well.
The BK should go argument – (1) If Jack is even thinking about this, make the decision now and let’s move on. Despite not being a top 5 or top 10 program anymore, ND should still never have this big of a dip in performance. (2) There is a realistic up and coming coach or two out there that ND could get. (3) Recruiting could be better (especially on defense).
On #2 for the “should go” argument – there’s a pretty strong possibility that ND would be around the 4th most appealing HC job available this off-season. I’m sure some would debate, but in my mind LSU, Texas, and USC are all much more appealing unless you have some kind of personal experience or draw to Notre Dame.
So while there may be a few up and coming coaches like Herman and Fleck, I’d need to be awfully sure of a home-run candidate if I’m Swarbrick before I let BK go – a move which, by the way, doesn’t look good for JS considered he extended Kelly last season, and may cause him to invest more time.
I think this is overly pessimistic. The talent he’s recruiting is usually rated top 10 and the team has one of the highest Blue Chip rate in the country. It appears that the defense doesn’t have talent but that’s because of BVG’s weaknesses. Underclassmen didn’t know the scheme that well so they didn’t get many reps in game. Last year’s defense had plenty of talent and experience in each of the three position groups but they didn’t rotate enough so it was an average defense.
Morgan is a pretty good example of this. Last year plenty of people were questioning his lack of playtime while Schmidt was getting ran over and ran around by superior athletes. While he is doing really good things this year, imagine how much better he’d be doing if he had more reps last year.
Take a look at Brendan’s article on recruiting on this site. We aren’t nearly as strong recruiting as many think.
Let’s not go overboard. We recruit defense very well, just not at a championship level. I don’t question anything Brendan wrote. I’m just saying I’ll worry about the lack of elite talent against the Alabama University but I’ll blame the coaches against most other teams.
I would have a hard time agreeing that we recruit very well on defense given the massive holes we’ve had.
The issue is the vast bulk of the fan base doesn’t realize we don’t recruit at the championship level and expects a championship team. Most of them think it should happen by the 3rd year of a coach’s tenure.
The last 27 years (including this sad one) prove we aren’t in that league, but we’ll eventually fire Kelly and bring in the next victim and everyone will rejoice. Rinse, repeat.
Ok, so we have mediocre talent, unrealistic expectations and our coaches are victims of the fanbase’s delusions.
Maybe you should take the rest of the season off, doesn’t sound like ND football is bringing any positives to your life.
I’m going to adjust my expectations for the season, cheer on the young talented players who are working their tails off and look forward to wiping more smirks off of David Shaw’s face.
What’s with you? I state a few facts and you assume I’m anti ND? I guarantee you I’ve rooted for ND much longer than you. But I’m a realist. Until something changes, expectations are too high.
That doesn’t mean you can’t have them, but it does mean you’ll be disappointed often.
kiwi, you are 100% and don’t let anyone tell you no different. There are a lot of Irish fans who feel the same way you do in regards to our defensive recruiting. I brought up this same subject not long ago and received the same reaction on here. It didn’t bother me at all.
We continue to fall short year after year despite having a offense good enough to win double digit games. The one year we have a great defense/d line we finish 12-1. Until we start bringing in better defensive classes every cycle, we will continue along this same path we are on.
Thanks Kenny–what’s Latin for “don’t let the bastards grind you down”? 🙂
‘Facts’ is a relative term here. Especially with your recruiting angle. Lack of player development, defection and injuries have probably hit us harder than the average program the last few years, but we are bringing in top 15 defensive talent. I just don’t know how you can debate that.
I never said you were anti ND, but it seems like the only positive thing you’ve had to say the last 2 years was about a former player, when he was skating by for 1/2 year at FSU.
I don’t think we have the talent to field a elite defense, but there’s absolutely no excuse as to why we can’t put a decent one on the field. Just getting the defense to top-30 level would win a lot of games with the talent on offense.
THIS
Wow, Shoelace, guess I struck a nerve somehow. I don’t get why some people get upset and personal when someone has a different opinion on this board.
I don’t have to debate whether we’ve brought in top 15 defensive talent, but since you asked, firstly, its all subjective, so obviously how strong the talent has been is debatable. Secondly, factually, we haven’t performed like a top 15 defense, other than in 2012 (possibly one other year under Diaco, I don’t have time to look it up). When we were consistently championship-contending caliber, under Ara and Lou, we had TERRIFIC defensive players, too many to name, no question about it. We’ve had dramatically weaker defensive talent since then with a few exceptions. I could say the same on offense. Lou and Ara usually had talent to burn compared to today, in the Oline and in the backfield and receivers. Our offenses lately are often (but not always) better than our defenses, but we’ve had a long dry spell in championships, major bowl wins, and back to back double digit wins. You seem to hate to read that. I don’t know what to tell you, this is a conversation board, and conversations aren’t always monkey see, monkey do.
As for dredging up the Golson thing, man, have you been unable to let that go after all this time?? Why does the fact that he made a career decision which he felt was in his best interest get under your skin so much, and why should you care that I liked him? I certainly don’t care that you dislike him, and actually haven’t even thought of that topic in ages. He was exciting and got ground down and broken by Kelly (IMO), and went elsewhere after graduating. Big sin, that?? I fear that the same treatment is happening to Kizer and hope I’m wrong, but the trend is similar.
Do you think that over the last four years, Kelly hasn’t recruited well enough to be able to have back-to-back 10 win seasons?
Taking into account injuries, suspensions, booted from the team, no.
And if you don’t take injuries, suspensions and dismissals into account?
What would that point be? What happened happened.
I’m just trying to point out that there’s a difference between getting the talent and keeping/developing the talent. To me, I think the talent that they’ve recruited, on defense, is good enough to have a consistent top-25 defense but BVG clearly made a mess of all of that and injury luck has been very poor.
I don’t know man. I don’t think too many people are under the delusion that we recruit as well as Alabama, Ohio State, USC, etc. In fact I think our talent deficit versus those teams is pretty frequently decried by our fan base. KerryMD is a bit optimistic; Kelly’s classes at ND are usually around 12th or 13th, with one – the 2013 class that included Jaylon Smith – rated in the top 5.
I do think we’ve recruited defense relatively well, but haven’t managed to hit one the one or two gamechanger guys per cycle that you need to get to be elite. If we had landed, for example, Minkah Fitzpatrick in 2015 (which would push our class ranking from 13th to 10th) and Lorenzo Carter in 2014 (which would push our class ranking from 11th to 9th), and everyone else on the field was the same, our defense would look very different.
We need to find a way to get a defensive five star every year. Unfortunately there aren’t that many of them – usually 12-18 in any given cycle – and the competition for them is obviously pretty fierce, with lots of reasons for them to choose a place other than ND.
Brendan,
My apparent optimism is most likely due to me misremembering the details. I only keep an eye on recruiting with a focus picture us on the band this site certainly helps with that.
Your reply though makes me feel pessimistic about the future. To me, it reads that ND will never have a true elite level defense and would have to rely on consistently outscoring opponents or trying to have a really big defensive commit or two while also having all the right tools on offense, which sounds an awful lot like last year.
I find your post to be very realistic, Brendan, as usual.
Our problem with difference makers is key. One or two guys can make all the difference in the world, especially on offense but also on defense, maybe even more so. Rush end, MLB, shut down CB, tough/fast Safety have been weaknesses seems like forever. Clearly, Manti was a difference maker for sure. Jaylon, for as great as he was, didn’t strike me as a difference maker (no throwing shoes, guys) because of where he was positioned.
I think football is like tennis in that respect–its not how many points you win, its WHICH points you win. Often a lopsided set score will find the winner just a point or two overall ahead in total points. In football, it doesn’t really matter how many 4 stars you get, its which ones. And the 5 stars better pan out (Redfield) and show up (Vanderdoes) and stay (Lynch).
Ooof, Jaylon wasn’t a difference maker? Look at this year’s defense vs last year’s. He cleaned up every mess. He saved so many defensive breakdowns. He made plays on the opposite side of the field to save first downs. I’ll have to disagree with you on this one; he may have been the one thing keeping last year’s defense from resembling the dumpster fire that is this year’s defense.
Mikey, I can agree with everything you say, and don’t have a quibble re whether Jaylon was a difference maker. He was ( and I hope still will be ) a terrific player. I separate him from Manti in that Manti could load the whole defense on his back and lift their games. He was a great leader as well as player. Jaylon was great in and of himself, but not an on the field leader IMO. I honestly didn’t think he could carry the team like Manti. But I loved him and am willing to agree he was a difference maker 🙂
Off the boards, I went through a really thorough analysis of possible replacements. If you ignore the ungettables, and the likely ungettables, there just isn’t anyone that seems guaranteed to be better. Assuming Kelly is not burned out, and Swabrick needs to judge that, he should be back.
I don’t think we can’t compete consistently. I think our problem is that we play ‘even’ against the teams ranked 10-40. We are not competitive consistently against the Top 10. That is the problem that needs to be fixed. I think we can do it. The players are good enough. the scheme may be too complicated, certainly was on defense, but that is fixable. I think we are in a perfect storm of problems in that regard this year.
There are no guarantees with coaching changes. If that’s the standard, then I don’t think we’d ever make a change.
I realize there are no guarantees, but the year really does not have much promise for that.
If you take the factors that predict success at ND: 1. Significant experience as college HC; 2. Track record of success (not national championships but the team they coach out performing their typical level); 3. Experience at what we would now call a Power 5 school. There are just not that many coaches who fit the criteria who did not just get a job.
Why are those necessarily the factors that “predict success”? I can’t say that I agree that that’s any sort of magic formula.
Given that Kelly fulfilled the first 2 easily before coming to ND, I agree. There’s no set prediction criteria. And at some point, neither Saban nor Meyer met all of those criteria, and by the time they did, they were well past the point of being available. I’m not sure any coach that isn’t one of those two meets those criteria as fully as we’d want. Generally if you have condition #2, they aren’t necessarily doing it at a Power 5 school, so don’t meet condition 3. And if they are at a Power 5, and having great success, why leave?
DC84 is talking historically, I believe. Perhaps today’s circumstances in CFB have changed the probability of finding a coach that fits those criteria.
I was talking historically, and if you look at Parseghian, Devine and Holtz they all met them. So did Leahy. Ara said he needed every year of experience he had when he came to ND. He had been at Miami (Oh) and then Northwestern. Devine and Holtz had years of HC experience. Devine at ASU, Packers and Missouri. Holtz also Miami, NC State, Arkansas, Jets and Minnesota. Leahy came from BC. All of them elevated the programs they were at, thus condition #2. It does not mean you are winning NCs at those places, or even in some cases conference championships. But, if you are at Wake Forest, a traditional doormat, except for a few years under Grobe, and get them to bowl games or at Baylor, also an historical doormat, you get bonus points. You are probably getting more from less. Coaching Alabama to 10 win seasons is expected. Doing the same at Vandy is amazing. Coaching Vandy to a couple of bowl games gets you the job at Penn State, or at ND. Meyer went BG, then Utah (now a Power 5) so he met those criteria. He elevated both programs. He went to Florida before we could get him. I don’t know what jobs Saban had before Michigan State, but he out performed there, well enough to get a call from LSU. A school that probably looks at the same basic criteria. I may have overstated on Power 5. We are unlikely to get someone from a peer school from a football perspective barring it being a dream job. If you are in the Power 5, but lacking the resources/expectations to win the conference you should want that. You can only win 8 at Vandy barring a miracle. If you are happy winning 8 at Vandy, when we call you won’t answer and we would not want you anyway. If you are winning 8 at Vandy, chances are you are competitive and want to win more. You can’t do it at Vandy so you need a school with expectations and resources. I do think Power 5 experience is important for a couple of reasons. It shows you are moving up in trajectory. The one thing Kelly lacked is Power 5 experience, and I think our inability to compete consistently against the top teams on our schedule is a result of that. Experience coaching against FSU, LSU, Alabama, USC, etc. is invaluable. All the games against Tulane, CMU, EMU, etc. combined don’t add up to those games. There are exceptions to every rule. Tressel springs to mind, straight from 1-AA to tOSU. So does Stoops who went straight from assistant at a Power 5 to a successful run at Oklahoma. I would think though that if you look at the top traditional programs in the Power 5, the rule is followed more than the exception. I also think that you can make the argument that MSU is traditionally more like Vandy than they are Alabama. In that time frame, the conference was… Read more »
Good post, DC. I think a case could be made that the screen has to be even tighter, given the added strictures at ND, and that sets up a natural mismatch–need “better than the rest”, but those are the very guys who have lots of choices. Unless they have a particular soft spot for ND that outweighs other considerations (e.g. Lou), they would go another way (e.g.Urban).
Faust, Davie, Weis, Kelly (#3) didn’t meet your criteria. Willingham had some success at Stanford, but I think it was on the back of his predecessor? Don’t know enough about O’Leary to say. None were successful (at least per fan expectations in Kelly’s case).
Its a tough nut, for sure. I think when Kelly eventually leaves (whether sooner or later) the quality of the hire will tell us tons about how the successful coaching world views the ND job. I’m guessing it isn’t what it used to be, but we’ll see. 28 years since a championship, over 20 years since a major bowl victory (1994 Cotton Bowl), and at least 25 years since back to back double digit wins (assuming we did it in 2017 and 2018) take a lot of luster off the brand, other than to us died in the wool fans.
I thought Willingham would have been a good hire. In retrospect, there were signs though. HIs success at Stanford was up and down. Good year/bad year and recruiting was weakening. Not all of his success was due to his predecessors, he did win with his own guys. He had never been a coordinator prior to getting the HC job, not sure if that should be a screen. I think what did Willingham in was that he thought he could mail it in.
One criteria I thought about adding was that you have worked for a successful coach as an assistant. I had no way of checking whether Parseghian or Devine had. From memory, I think Holtz was a Woody Hayes assistant. Kelly was self-made.
The problem with making the screen even tighter is that there are even fewer choices, and you may end up with someone like Willingham who is not motivated to succeed. That is why it is not an easy decision or process.
I agree with some of the posts elsewhere that Kelly may either already be, or nearing, burn-out. I hope not.
For DCIrish, good points. Being mentored by a successful coach makes a lot of sense. But as you say, tightening the screen makes it even tougher to find that person who is a great fit. I’m a headhunter, and sometimes the spec the client has in mind eliminates the entire population of relevant execs, so it has to be loosened a bit, or the position responsibilities changed.
I’ll get jumped on by some for saying this, but IMO, what needs to be loosened is some of the strictures the university has in place that hobble the program (if championships are truly an objective). That is more practical and would make things more attractive to the kind of coach we’d like to see here. I think that would give us a shot at least.
Thank you Eric for “a voice of reason in the wilderness.”
In reality, there is no way Kelly would be fired mid-season. Barring a total collapse (and I’m talking 2-10, possibly 3-9), he won’t be fired after this year either. I am certainly not looking for an argument with anyone whether he should be or not, everyone is entitled to their opinion.
I do think the seat will be warm/hot next season. My main concern now is that we don’t lose any commitments who are probably reading some of ‘the sky is falling’ comments.
What a fun, terrible season. It’s super weird. The team’s scored more points than they’ve given up, they haven’t lost a game by more than a touchdown & conversion, but does feel like the wheels are totally flying off.
The game Saturday was just so odd. I usually think complaints about playcalling are pretty lame, but Saturday’s was just so jaw-droppingly confusing. It was tough to figure what they were even trying to accomplish.
But the most disappointing part was the blocked punt for a touchdown. Not because Notre Dame gave up a blocked punt for a touchdown that proved to be decisive for the loss, but because when it initially happened I thought it hit the ND blocker’s butt. A dude blocking his team’s punt with his butt which was then returned for a touchdown would have been very appropriate for this season so far.
My biggest issue was the play calling with this past loss. The coaches didn’t put the players in the best position to win.
Also I think we are going to end up losing Mike Sanford. I thought some team would have to offer him a HC job for him to leave. If Kelly stays on this path I could see a big time program offering Sanford a OC position where he calls the play. I thought the plan was to have him coach QB for a year and then he would get play call duties.
The play calling was bad, and deserves criticism. What deserves condemnation is that we were incapable of doing anything else. Yes, the obvious answer is to run the ball in a hurricane. Yet we can’t get line push against a high school team, and our backs have regressed. Kelly has no reason to believe the running game can get him any yards, so his default is to pass it. I’m disappointed that we weren’t smart enough to adjust play calling for the weather. I’m angry that even if we wanted to, we suck so bad at it that the head coach feels like he has no choice but to throw deep in a hurricane. Both the short term, 1-game issue and the long term issue speak fairly badly about BK right now.
If it helped s any, my perspective has totally changed after getting through this hurricane. I’m sure I’ll be all worked up soon enough, but right now, I’m too tired to get agitated over a football game.
Of course, I’m a loyalty guy, so I definitely think Kelly should get at least one more s a son.
Great perspective as always, E.
I think you hit the nail on the head with Kelly being too comfortable that 2015 went well enough that 2016 would fall into place with the guys he had coming back. I still think Kelly is a good coach, and I don’t think he’s forgotten how to be a good coach and notice things like “you shouldn’t pass 20,000 times in a hurricane”.
Honestly, to me Kelly looks absolutely burnt out and almost trying to get fired at this point. I can only imagine the stress of having to deal with the fans who expect nothing but greatness, the university officials who want things done “a certain way”, the media who will see and criticize your every move, and boosters who expect god knows what…all the while trying to coach 18-23 year olds to play football at a high level and balance that with a pretty intensive course load. At some point it has to get to you, and the drive & attention to detail that got you this much success gets to be buried under 7 years of bullcrap.
Regardless of how many games ND wins this season or how many awful decisions Kelly makes, I do think he gets one more year. I also think 2017 is Kelly’s last year at ND even if he can right the ship. Either he rights the ship and calls it quits with his head held high, or he gets canned and walks away with that contract $$.
Pretty logical description of the situation and the end point scenario, Windy.