I don’t care about Brian Kelly and Jack Swarbrick. There, I said it. It’s off my chest now. I know what you’re thinking, “Okay, Eric where is this going?”
In the past I’ve written about the way people cope with struggles with their sports teams and usually we get placed into two groups: those who are sad and those who are mad. You can put me in the former group. I know there are many of those same people out there and a lot of you have unplugged the computer and will check back in August.
I can’t say I blame you. I’m a little bit envious, too. The last time I was able to check out completely with no internet was on my Honeymoon. When I came back to JFK I had 900 emails in my inbox all about the academic suspension of 5 football players. I guess I can’t leave the country anymore.
Obviously, no one is happy and having a good time right now in regards to the football program. Save a surprisingly strong new commit there won’t be anything to look forward to until February. We’ll have to make peace with that fact and the quicker we do the quicker we’ll drown our sorrows in alcohol make ourselves feel better.
These are times when the factions within our own are never more pronounced and frayed. In recent days, the supporters at NDNation.com decided to take out an ad in the South Bend Tribune and on a billboard before settling on one in the Notre Dame Observer (HERE). By the way, in response to something so silly Chris Wilson decided to start a GoFundMe fundraiser of his own for the Center for the Homeless in South Bend. You should give some money this Holiday season, please.
Of course, we poke fun of NDN and with good reason. Their ad sums a lot of the reasons why we do so. It was hurried, over-emotional, full of a bunch of inconsistent stats and figures vomited on to a page, and it looked like a poorly designed project from a 6th grader in 1994. To say nothing of the idea that an ad in a newspaper is going to ignite some sort of revolution.
“Things are so bad at Notre Dame that we had to come up with THIS!”
These people are mad. Sometimes it’s good to be mad. Sometimes it’s healthy to channel that anger into avenues that could lead to something positive.
This is not one of those times.
The worst part is that any criticism of that ad is taken as support for Kelly and Swarbrick, at least from the creators and their cheerleaders. You know the old you’re either for us or against us mentality. If you’re not with us in your utter disdain for Notre Dame’s leaders then you’re the enemy too.
It’s that kind of mentality that ultimately won’t ever create wide support for such an initiative. That in turn leads to more anger and more vitriol while the vicious cycle continues.
You’ve failed when tons of people like the idea and support speaking out but don’t agree with the way you go about it and the tone you use. When you are slamming the door on those people it opens the opportunity for others to wonder if this is truly about change or simply trying to climb the mountain of anger as quickly as possible in order to wag a finger at those down below.
Someone asked me, “Don’t you want to oust (love this word usage, by the way) Kelly and Swarbrick?”
Crap, now I have to draw a line in the sand! What if I’m not too cut up about that question or answer? A couple weeks ago I wrote that nothing is more important to me or supersedes anything than making a really good next hire. If that happened right now or next year, I really don’t care that much.
I didn’t grow up a Brian Kelly and Jack Swabrick fan. I grew up a Notre Dame fan. There’s always going to be boundaries the Irish can’t cross but at the end of the day I just want a great football team. Only a fool would believe either Kelly or Swarbrick were going to be putting in multi-decade shifts as leaders in South Bend.
No, I don’t really care about Brian and Jack. I’ll bet there will be some who skim over this article, see I thought the NDN ad was dumb, and think that I lay awake at night worrying about the future of this coach and AD but in reality it’s those people who really care about Kelly and Swarbrick. It’s become intensely personal for them. Good vs. evil, time to take things to the extreme and save the University!
Maybe some of them truly have good intentions but we have years of evidence that has shown A) These temper tantrums have little impact and are embarrassing across the board for all parties B) They are coming from corners heavy on blowing things up and light on offering solutions.
Being mad, promoting firings, and wanting things blown up is easy. In our sports world it’s literally scraping the bottom of the barrel–it’s not impressive, it’s not heroic, and it’s the hallmark of childish behavior.
Here on 18 Stripes, I’ve tried to offer some solutions for the future. To me, this is a more worthwhile exercise than operating a jihad against the school administration. I think that even if you’re upset and want Kelly or Swarbrick gone you can appreciate that more than some fickle ad on a dying medium. To use the analogy above I think I’m opening doors for people to find a positive future even if we may not 100% agree on some issues.
Notre Dame fans should demand far more from their fellow compatriots. Especially when said compatriots themselves are demanding more from the school and its football program.
To use a phrase, this recent public campaign from NDN looks awfully small-timey. When you’ve become that which you hate you’re losing the message.
Do you hate America, too?
In all seriousness, this article captures my impression of the moment perfectly. Sound and fury…
Bravo, Eric. You’ve summarized this odd story perfectly. To add a couple more criticisms of the ad – the lack of transparency for that type of ad is gutless. Most ads with some sort of motivational purpose; be they political, etc., they generally include attribution for who paid for the ad. You don’t see many drive by ads with the lack of accountability this one has.
The other criticism is that there is no call to action. They simply drag the two through the mud. Complaining without offering solutions is one of my peeves – even if it’s not a detailed solution because it’s obviously not this group’s job to come up with one. But there is a serious lack of “what next” here.
I used to peruse that board years ago, but haven’t read it in years. This ad looks like modern-day trust fund hippies trying to emulate the social movements of their parents or grandparents in the 60s and early 70s but who fail to take aim at any real issue but rather make the act of the protest itself the important thing. It’s empty and it doesn’t help. If anything, it’s divisive.
Not to mention they just look really stupid with their execution and that look carries over to the rest of us ND fans in the eyes of fans and media elsewhere.
Yeah, my pops always told me that hammering on a problem without offering a solution was simply just whining.
Cannot count the number of times I’ve heard this in the military.
Agree completely with your criticisms of the ad. I’ve seen some arguments of “every little bit helps!” – actually, no it really doesn’t, not when you take a bad idea and execute it poorly. Then it just makes your cause look amateurish, and probably hinders you from accomplishing what you want (assuming the objective here is change in the football program, starting with Swarbrick/Kelly getting removed).
But those behind the ad have made up their mind. To them, looking at the same things we are, there is no reasonable defense for Swarbrick or Kelly being retained this offseason. Most of these people have decided this long ago (definitely with Kelly) and view everything through this lens – whether it’s raging about press conference quotes taken out of context or podcast interviewers or an offense that’s been pretty consistently good but is “small-timey” (no stats to back it up, but facts don’t really matter). As Eric said, these are offered without real solutions other than burning it all down and starting over. Swarbrick’s benign comments being interpreted as a giant middle finger and sending a message he doesn’t care what fans/alums think is a perfect example of this.
There’s also no awareness of potential negative effects here – it’s all seen as “tough love”, and because we care SO MUCH we’re going to hold high standards and fight ineptitude and apathy. But say these geniuses succeed and Kelly/Swarbrick are removed – then we’ll just hire a top AD and head coach, right? Because they’ll leap at the opportunity to take a job already filled with challenges compared to other top programs, especially now that they’ve shown that disgruntled fans/alums can have significant influence getting them fired. That’s what Urban and Stoops are looking for – a healthy sense of fear.
It’s amazing all of their ranting about holding to “standards”–I wonder if they hold themselves to the same standards. “Sorry I missed the meeting this week Bob–I guess I’ll clean out my desk. Sure, my kid was sick and my car broke down and that earthquake we had disrupted public transportation and you canceled the meeting as it was, but no excuses. I was supposed to be here and I wasn’t, so I’ll just go back to the small-timey company you hired me from, as I clearly don’t belong here.”
If Meyer went 4-8 in year 7 against a cupcake schedule, he would expect to be fired. He has standards for his program well above those of any fan. (But he would never go 4-8 in year 7 against a cupcake schedule.)
So Urban or any other coach would never view it as a negative that the second things go bad a portion of the fanbase may turn on him and the AD and be able to influence their firings? These people have been calling for BK’s firing long before 4-8.
This is true of every big program. So no, he wouldn’t view it as a negative that is unique to ND.
This is not true of any big program. No program allows the tail to wag the dog. No coach would work for a program that allows the tail to wag the dog.
And no, I don’t think Meyer would expect to be fired for going 4-8 in one individual season. Expect to discuss changes, sure, expect to be on the hot seat, sure, but no coach expects to be canned for a single bad year.
If you want to make an argument about overall performance, fine. Don’t make an argument based on a single year.
“never view it as a negative that the second things go bad”
Of course it’s a negative, but it’s a kinda different when Meyer has won multiple national championships and builds a consistently dominant program. He would have definitely earned a mulligan to try another year. What has Kelly won to earn that mulligan? I guess making it to a national championship game 4 years ago is enough to cover all of his negative attributes.
Isn’t not “never view it as a negative” actually a double negative?
Amateurish is absolutely the best word for it.
I love this word usage, by the way.
What is NDN’s beef with Swarbrick? Is it just that he refuses to fire BK? It seems like in general ND is more successful at sportsing than it has ever been. On top of that, he has done a masterful job around conference re-alignment.
On a happy ND note, here are some of our amazing achievements since 2008 (don’t know exactly when in ’08 he was hired). These are what’s listed on wikipedia, not much on the individual sports.
NCs in men’s soccer (2013), women’s soccer (2010), co-ed fencing (2011), Molly Seidel!
ACC title in M basketball (might be the most impressive thing on this list) and 2 elite 8 appearances. Probably the best MBB run in ND history.
The obvious WBB dominance, 2 ACC titles, 5 straight final fours (only 2 final fours prior).
Conf title (’09) and 2 frozen 4 appearances (’08, ’09, 0 prior) in hockey. They made the finals one year too.
2 lax conf titles (’08, ’09) and 3 final 4 appearances (’10, ’14, ’15, 1 prior), one NC game OT loss 🙁
2 big east titles in golf (’11,’12, 6 prior)
Even coaches who have been around and mild+ for a while, McGraw/Brey/Corrigan, they have unquestionably reached new heights under Swarbrick. God, even football has been so much better than the prior 15 years, like how we went to the BCSNCG under Swarbirck, something we’ve barely sniffed at in 20 years.
So can someone please tell me what the stats they posted to support their position of firing Swarbrick?
I don’t give a crap about BK, but I will unabashedly say I am a Swarbrick fan, as I would be of any fellow ND alumus directing athletics at any school outside UM and USC. I am also a Charlie Weis fan, as every ND alumn should be.
NDN beefs with Swarbrick (a very partial list):
1) FIELDTURF!!!
2) Kelly! El Diablo!!!!
3) Jumbotron!
4) Crossroads ABOMINATION!!!
5) Must play 5 games against the ACC! All so that those other “olympic” teams have a conference. Travesty.
6) Beard! WTF? (OK, I made that one up, I think)
It’s hardly surprising that aside from the unwillingness to fire Kelly, all the other points scream of backward looking ideals to a world that doesn’t exist anymore and hasn’t for a long time. A very vocal number of people being dragged kicking and screaming into the future for necessary modernization, and let’s call it what it really is – full on upgrades- be it for changes to the field (turf), stadium (jumbotron) or campus (Crossroads project) itself.
I suppose the question of independence could be separate as well, even though my point of dealing with issues the present counts. Some association with a conference in 2016 is absolutely a beneficial necessity given the landscape in the NCAA across all athletics. Not to mention ND has extended the NBC contract under Swarbrick and pretty much gets the best of both worlds for ACC membership while still retaining football independence. This ought to be an important factor in judging the AD and his stance, IMO one managed with nuance and leveraged extremely well by Swarbrick. However, it’s also not surprising aspects of nuance are lost on the crowd that’s calling for his head in a heated fervor for reasons real and imaginary.
Or who knows, maybe Charlie really was on to something with that stupid beard..
ND WAS PERFECT AS IT WAS WHEN I LEFT THERE IN 19DICKETY2, AND ANY CHANGES SINCE HAVE DIRECTLY BROKEN DOWN THE INTEGRITY AND HONOR OF THAT FINE INSTITUTION, MAKING US JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. FIELD TURF AND A JUMBOTRON? WHAT WOULD FATHER SORIN THINK?
Lame-o treatment of the basketball programs with respect to a practice facility – as they outperform the football program – would probably land on that list somewhere.
The problem is, most building projects on campus, athletics or academics, are probably directly funded by donors with that intention. If any given major donor wanted their name on shiny new basketball facilities and wanted to pay for them, it would happen in a heartbeat.
True, but part of the AD’s job is to find those donors and convince them they want their name on shiny new basketball facilities. I like Jack, and agree with Mandel and Feldman–who don’t particularly have any love for ND–that he’s one of the 5 best ADs in the country. But you can’t say facilities for sports teams aren’t something he influences because it requires donors to make donations–getting those donations is a main part of his job.
Isn’t the basketball program getting Rolfs after the Crossroads is complete? Or did that change at some point?
I don’t think anything has been officially announced, but Brey said at a basketball season ticket holder event that the Rolfs move would be happening in 2019 (no idea if that means January 1 or start of the 2019/20 season).
I don’t know that I’d say I’m a Chuck Weis “fan,” though if by fan you mean “wish the guy well,” then sure, why not. I never actively hoped he failed at Kansas or the Chiefs. I did when he was at UF, but that wasn’t about him, that’s because I hate the Gators.
Agree completely on Jack, another case of NDN myopia. They’re a caricature of the worst we’ve seen from the political world (on both ends, I’m non-partisan), where “I believe X because REASONS and if you don’t agree you must be a LOVER of the other side and be shouted down in ANGER” has become the sad norm. I’d say this is the world we live in today with the internet and all, but NDN barely counts as internet with their circa 1993 website format. Of course, that format worked when Lou was in charge, so why change it, right? Should be good enough for today. And that, ladies and gentlemen, sums up the critical thinking ability of the main characters over there.
The “admin has DECIDED to de-emphasize football!! Throw the bums out!!” cry has been going on since Leahy departed, and possibly earlier (More Noise, you might be old enough to tell us!). Sometimes it might be accurate, sometimes not, but given the changes Jack has been able to push through for the program, it’s demonstrably not true this time around. I don’t care about BK or Jack because I like BK or Jack personally. I want success for the team. I think Jack has done things needed to help the program succeed. I think BK has and has not, and needs to demonstrate some major changes to go back in the right direction. Jack only comes under my scrutiny if he doesn’t hold BK accountable–if Greg Hudson is made DC, then I start to worry about why Jack isn’t forcing BK a bit more.
I am also from New England, so Weis role on the Patriots early super bowls contributes to my fandom. Between the Pats and both attending and coaching ND, he is one of the people I root for most in sports.
Not that I’m “anti-Jack” or anything, but that vast majority of those accomplishments were led by coaches who weren’t even hired by Jack. Not sure how much credit he should really get for most of those.
To really assign “credit” one would have to have a level of insider-ness that most of us fans do not have. If “credit” for an athletic director is simply whether or not he/she made the hire, then sure. How much goes on in terms of running the programs, providing support and improving facilities, advertising, funding, etc., I don’t know. I’d argue that an AD does way more than simply hire the coaches and then sit back and let them succeed or fail–one of the big talking points about coaching hires is “would you want to work for that AD?” But I’m not savvy enough about the process to say exactly what it is Jack or any other AD does day to day that makes one AD “good” and one not. Even if he’s not responsible for the success of coaches he inherited, he sure hasn’t meddled/messed it up, and several of them have done significantly better since he’s been the AD. Whether or not that’s his influence or simply luck…./shruggy emoji
Indeed, I have no idea, either. But I could see where someone might not want to bow down to Jack for the rest of the programs’ successes because it’s hard to know what, exactly, he’s done to contribute to those successes. He’s their “boss”, but I think most people see each sports team as mostly its own operation with its own CEO (i.e., the head coach), which is probably fair to some extent. The ACC deal is certainly a huge accomplishment to point to, although I suspect many of the detractors aren’t huge fans of that necessarily.
So, I don’t know. I don’t even care about (Brian &) Jack. But the argument is probably more complex than either side typically allows, and we’ll probably never be able to know the “true” answer.
Just because a manger doesn’t hire a particularly employee, doesn’t mean he or she doesn’t contribute to that employees success. ADs do way more for athletics than just hire and fire coaches.
The amount of credit Swarbrick deserves for those teams success can never be quantified, but those teams are now way above any prior level under the same coaching. Even WBB program is on a whole different level than it was in 2001 under the same coach. It feels like too big a coincidence to me for all 3 of MBB, WBB, MLax to be hitting these incredible program peaks around the same time, if all the credit goes to White, or whoever hired them (White definitely deserves some credit, I assume someone before him hired McGraw).
While it probably didn’t affect the on court/field stuff with either team, the ACC deal undoubtedly helped the non-football programs. It’s tough to gauge how much it affects everything in each of these sports, but being in the ACC is miles better than the Big East or AAC for men’s and women’s hoops, soccer, and lacrosse. I haven’t seen the ACC deal mentioned much during all of the recent complaining which seems crazy since it could be considered the most important decision he’s made as AD.
Insert “The ACC Has Been a Huge Disappointment” reference here.
j/k – j/k!!!!
I don’t think anyone here would EVER write such a thing.
The Ad did specifically mention “ND Football has failed under Swarbrick”, not “ND sports has failed under Swarbrick”. I agree that for all of the Olympic sports, Swarbrick has a done a great job managing them. I wish the basketball programs had a practice facility a few years ago…but Brey and McGraw are fantastic coaches despite the lack of resources they receive compared to the football program.
But at the end of the day the football program is the cash cow and main source of revenue for all the other sports, and is what ND is famous for. So having an unsuccessful football program has been the main issue and is the focus, not the other sports.
To that end, what financial effect did the 4-8 season have? Is the shutout streak over? Are revenues plunging and the football program is actually “unsuccessful” at supporting the other sports? If the gripe is economic, what evidence is there that anyone associated directly with Notre Dame athletics are suffering or in any sort of real danger of suffering?
The answer is there is none, and even if there’s a 3-9 season next year and NDN is right for the wrong reasons, they’re still wrong that the culture and the “main source of revenue” isn’t going to be corrupted by Swarbrick not firing Kelly as quickly as they want to see it happen.
(Granted, the intended point that years of futility would hurt and diminish prestige is certainly true, but given recent results of the past 5 years the 2016 record looks more like a blip than a trend).
And all of that is only taking the narrow-lensed look at Swarbrick’s handling of simply the football program, when on the macro level the state of the whole department seems to be on very solid footing and successful, rendering the whole campaign petulant and embarrassing.
Shutout?
Did someone say “shutout”??
#RememberTheSix
Starts with an “s” ends in “out”, half credit?
@OH I SEE YOU’RE SUGGESTING THAT ND SHOULD SELLOUT WELL IT’S CLEAR THAT SMALL TIMEY KELLY AND SHADY JACK HAVE ALREADY SOLD OUT THE PROGRAM FOR CASH@
Depends which starts with an “s” ends in “out” we’re talking about.
Could end up being extra credit.
Just…no.
what. is. that thing behind that can…? /edit/ never mind… google image searched it. bleccch.
Balls, IS. Balls.
“To that end, what financial effect did the 4-8 season have? Is the shutout streak over?”
In the short term, you’re correct that it didn’t affect ND’s revenue because so many people bought their tickets months in advance and already committed to go back for the games. There were high expectations this year (I believe ND was in the preseason top 10) so of course there was a lot of demand and hype for this season. Long term, will that same level of commitment and interest continue? For a lot of alums, I believe that answer is no. This will affect donations and attendance.
The ND admin will then start selling a lot more tickets to the general public, but I doubt many people will be interested in paying $100-150 a ticket to watch ND play next year if the team is not playing at a high level. I brought up the financial aspect because $$$ might be the only thing that the BOT and Admin will pay attention to especially with the Cross Roads Project currently underway.
Thanks for the reply.
This is undoubtedly true. However, I’m going to trust the BoT (no pun) with the information they have rather than a group of angry fans, who aren’t privy to the same information. If Swarbrick wasn’t steering the ship into sound financial waters, I agree that they would (and should) fire him. However, this isn’t the case or a sound conclusion to come to after one 4-8 season, as you admit. I don’t even think it matter would come to a head after another poor season results-wise but we can agree to disagree there.
(And, FWIW, as a member of the general public I bought tickets for a single game for $85 in the summer, they don’t sell them for $100-150. And they all sold out very quickly last year, and I suspect will this year as well, but time will tell)
For sure, I think that is one of the driving factors to cause upset fans to resort to using that ad to voice their displeasure. As long as people keep showing up for games and revenue keeps rolling in, why would they feel the need to make any changes?
Maybe those upset fans will simply boycott the games next year, but as you mention if others keep going instead then it won’t really affect attendance that much. I’m sure someone will gladly take my seat next year and I’m ok with that because I’ve finally learned my lesson to not buy ND tickets months in advance anymore.
I don’t think the monetary affect of a bad football season is the problem. But ND football is a cash cow because it’s the ONLY thing many ND fans care about, most of the harrumphers included. we seem to care a whole lot about lax and soccer and fencing when 99% of the world / ND fanbase does not. Citing those things as evidence of Swarbrick doing a good job is simply ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ to me and most.
And that’s why fans don’t make the decisions on the AD, the president and the BOT do. Football is only part of his job. We can be harrumphy on that all we want, but it’s a fact.
Not only is FB only part of his job, but on field performance is only part of his job. I think ND has always held the academic success of all student athletes as the most important goal. I remember hearing stories about Hesburgh telling Ara (I believe) that if the football players weren’t good students and people, he would be fired. I have also heard a story where Hesburgh cut an entire major because he saw too many football players were majoring in it.
I don’t know how athletes have performed academically under older regimes (I’m sure the BoT does), but I know that since around 2010, they have strongly marketed how successful ND athletes are. We are consistently top 5 in every metric, so he has at least been maintaining a very high level.
The whole “football is the ONLY thing that matters” is an extremely narrow minded perspective and I find it extremely disappointing (for alumns) and lazy. There are way more non-FB students athletes at ND than FB players. I was very good friends, been to weddings, still play fantasy, with a number of athletes, none of them FB players. Even within the football team, what is actually most important for their success in life is whether these ND students get an education, not whether they win games (admittedly there are a few where winning does legitimately matter more, but it is few).
I love football, I played dorm football, I coached Lewis football, football is the only sport I regularly watch. But I care way more about my fellow students and alumni than I do about the success of the football team. If people aren’t going to consider other sports, or academics, then we should treat their opinions with the same amount of considering they give to the majority of ND athletes.
Which of those successful coaches did Swarbrick hire? He has simply not screwed up sports programs that were already successful. I guess I expect more than simply not screwing things up from the AD.
I dislike Geno Auriemma, where does that fit in all this hollering?
Can we plant some damning evidence of NCAA malfeasance in Storrs, please? Because at this point it’s just simply not fair. Tennessee in its heyday was dominant, but UCONN the last few years, might as well put them in the WNBA and let the human teams compete. I’m starting to feel about Auriemma the same way I’m starting to feel about Saban. I can’t even hate anymore, just be in awe of the insane level of success they consistently generate.
This is the kind of outside the box thinking I appreciate from the 18S commentariat.
Saban, and Meyer, are probably the best arguments for not making a coaching change. As long as the mere mortals in CFB have to compete with them, you’re basically pissing into the wind.
They’ve won or been heavily responsible for every CFB title from 2006 on, except for 2010 (probably ineligible player takes Auburn to title) and 2013 (wouldn’t have bet against Alabama winning if there had been a 4-team playoff that year).
You scream that from the rooftops.
If NDN were consistent, they’d be going all LSU about Muffett. “Sure, she’s put together a big program, but she just can’t win the big one against our rival and get us over the top. We should look for someone who can come in and take us over the top.”
Women’s basketball!?! Are you kidding me? Why would we care about that? We never should have admitted female students!!!
She has already won a title. She is in the FF pretty much every year lately. She overachieves with the talent here. That she isn’t able to beat the John Wooden of women’s BB every year should not be shocking to anyone. She remains one of the few coaches to have beaten Geno at all.
I don’t think NDN fans have unrealistic expectations for the FB program. They expect, for example, that we beat NC State, Duke, and Navy in year 7. That we do better than 2-5 against Stanford. Those lunatics!
You’re taking these statements a bit too seriously.
Miles won an NC as well. I was being hyperbolic, and it should have been rather obvious. @Because clearly what we’re all saying here is that Kelly is great and we’re all happy losing to Duke.@
It was obvious, bud. There are good reasons to retain Muffet- but no such reasons for Kelly.
No one else has expectations to beat NC State, Duke, and Navy…just NDN!
Where would we be without such sage wisdom? Little old NDN just calmly out there asking that we beat the mediocre teams. Everyone else was completely fine with it before.
I think most of us forgot we were 4-8, too.
It seems like nobody is else is willing to hold the coach and AD to account for these losses, whatever anyone else expects.
And these sorts of losses are consistent features of BK seasons. We don’t need to go through all of them, but there are plenty…
So you are saying this exactly then…no one is willing to hold them accountable except NDN?
First, what does “hold them accountable” mean? Seems like everywhere I look people are pretty upset about the football program. Are we really to believe the majority of people just aren’t that bothered by a 4-8 season?
What a slap in the face to all of the intelligent poster here at our community. Man, I’d love for you to tell us all why you’re doing the heavy lifting of stumping for NDN. You actually enjoy that place?
I’m glad to hear that lots of people are unhappy about the season. And yet the coaching staff remains wholly intact, so I guess the higher-ups don’t mind much about how unhappy we are? Fans taking out this ad are calling attention to this fact, and laying bare the facts about Swarbrick and Kelly Notice that all the criticism of the ad is merely ad hominem (mocking the people who took it out, suggesting it is a waste of money, etc)- there is no disputing the facts or responding to the argument.
As for NDN, they are one of the few sites to correctly identify problems with ND football coaches, early and often. Plenty of people here have made some confident predictions about next season. Which predictions do you think are more likely to come true? Search your feelings…
??
Is your issue that the “coaching staff” remains intact? That they haven’t hired a DC yet or a new special teams guy, 4 days after the end of the regular season (not counting Army/Navy)? When the DC candidates, at least any with big names, are waiting for all the HC job dominoes to fall before committing to another DC gig?
Or is it that BK hasn’t been fired and gosh darn it nothing else will suffice for you? If that’s the case, then fine–say that, because there’s a big difference between the two. And many of us here agree–I’d be fine with BK getting fired, but I’m not going to interpret the fact that he’s getting another year as OMG ADMIN IS FINE WITH 4-8 either.
Personally, I was kind of hoping the rumors about BK looking for an out were true, and he ended up moving along and saving us the arguments.
The problem with saying NDN correctly identified BK’s problems is that they “identified” them before he coached a game at ND. Simply not liking the guy isn’t correctly identifying anything. Nor have they ever demonstrated realistic discussion on ways to fix the problem. Stoops, Saban, Meyer ain’t coming, no matter how much they want them. That makes NDN eminently laughable, as does their habit of banning anyone who doesn’t agree and attempts to engage in rational discussion. I’m not sure who here has made any predictions about next season–seems a bit early for that, without a DC and all.
Kelly is an 8-5 coach. The administration is fine with 8-5.
As the maligned ad points out, his win% the last three seasons is lower than TW’s.
I want BK gone, if that isn’t clear. Retaining him is actively harming the program- which is a national joke, losing recruits to the other midwestern programs (all of which are in a much better position than ND- including, incredibly, PSU!) and shows no reason for optimism.
Jesus, one of the worst posters at Irish Envy had to come hang out here? From 10/27/16:
You’re not only going around as the Sheriff of the NDN police but you’re repeating the same shtick across different sites.
How incredibly lame. You’re not going to bring anything to the table here. Go back to IE where you can hate everything about Notre Dame.
Again, no substantive response- only the claim that my views are “lame.” That these ad hominem attacks are all the BK defenders have is revealing.
I’m late to this party, and have the benefit of two months of hindsight. But a “substantive response” that was as true two months ago as it is now is this. First, it was a mistake to fire TW before he got his five years. That would never have happened on Hesburgh’s watch. To fire Kelly specifically because his record matches TW’s is therefore an argument that holds no water. Second, one can reasonably argue that six seasons averaging 8-5 makes a pattern. But it doesn’t mean that one can automatically conclude that the administration is “fine” with that. Perhaps the administration feels that an 8-5 season is good for 8.5 years, for example, and after that not so much.
My personal position is that slightly better than mediocre is beginning to wear thin. Either Kelly improves on this (I am not yet convinced that he’s incapable of doing so) or he doesn’t. With two months of hindsight, I have to say that I like the coaching changes he has made. With six more months of hindsight, I may not. But I am convinced, and always have been, that it is not yet time to let him go. I am also convinced that Swarbrick will not hesitate to pull the trigger when it is. We’ll see how we do in 2017.
1) The ad and criticism really weren’t ad hominem at all, Eric pointed out the it objectively looked terrible, and the facts used with really arbitrary endpoints (3/4/6/7/ years, top 12?) diminish it’s credibility. As pointed out above, also no call to action. I think everyone agrees that the criticism was valid, but the execution was terrible, and then the fact that anyone who disagrees with the ad is then “part of the problem”, or accepting low standards, wants BK back – that for us or against us mentality Eric mentioned is a problem, and there’s plenty of evidence to back that up.
2) If you bet on coaches to fail (most will at some point – how many coaches retire on their own accord at major programs?) then eventually you’ll be right for often than not. Many of the NDN criticisms (for example, hating a spread offense) are ridiculous and have no sound reasoning behind them. It also undermines their credibility that when simultaneously railing against Kelly/whoever they then stump for coaches without motivation or who will likely be even worse, like all three coaches that came before BK.
I’ll also add that the academic portion of the ad is very unfounded criticism. There was nothing about the football program that encouraged the academic problems beyond the University holding them to a higher standard than they were able to live up to. While these occurrences were very disappointing, they were all handled in a way that I think reflects positively on Kelly and the program. The vacated wins are nothing more than an egregious example of the NCAA bungling its job, and their inclusion in the ad should make it clear to anyone with an ounce of critical thinking ability that it’s more interested in lashing out than making an objective argument for firing Kelly et al.
I’ve loved the “We hate the gay ass spread” (really? That’s your wording in 2016?) vs the “Let’s hire Bob Stoops, and conveniently ignore that every offense he’s had at Oklahoma has been a variation of the run and shoot or spread!” That one gets me every time.
Doesn’t sound much like love to me.
Ha! This Mike P guy actually quoted Darth Vader. Lol. Troll gonna troll.
To paraphrase a famous economist, NDN has predicted 9 out of the last 5 coaching failures.
@ Maybe we can add Geno to the list of potential replacements for CBK? @
I’ve been laughing at this comment for like 5 straight minutes. Thank you, gambit.
“Savvy Jack And Briane”
(with apologies to John “The Artist Formerly Middle Named Cougar” Mellencamp)
Little ditty about Savvy Jack and Briane
Two ND employees growin’ up in the heartland
Jack he’s gonna be an AD star
Briane a 0.750 coach in the backseat of Jackie’s car
Suckin’ on Fig Thing Commemorative Stadium Cups outside the Guglielm’
Briane’s sittin’ on Jackie’s lap
He’s got his hand between his knees
Jackie say, hey, Briane
Let’s run off behind a shady tree
Get you a contract extension
Let me do what I please
Sayin’ . . .
Oh yeah, life goes on
Long after the thrill of winnin’ double digits is gone
Sayin’ . . .
Oh yeah, life goes on
Long after the thrill of not losin’ to Navy is gone
They walk on
Jackie sits back
Reflects his thoughts for the moment
Scratches his head
And does his best Moose Krause
Well you know, Briane
We oughta run off to the ACC
Briane says, baby
You ain’t missin’ nuth-in
Jackie, sayin’ . . .
Oh yeah, life goes on
Long after the thrill of givin’ up 50 to UT is gone
Oh yeah, I say, life goes on
Long after the thrill of bein’ worse than a 3-9 MSU is gone
Gonna let it rock
Let it roll
Let the next big-name DC come
And save our jobs
Hold on to 2012 (pre-Bama) as long as you can
Changes come around real soon
Make us less sucky at Defense and Special Teams
Oh yeah, life goes on
Long after the thrill of passin’ in a hurricane
Oh yeah, I say, life goes on
Long after the thrill of Hunter Bivin is gone
Little ditty about Jack and Briane
Two ND employees doin’ the best they can
That second stanza, I did NOT need in my head.
Too late!!
I nominate this for the most NDNation post ever – http://www.ndnation.com/boards/showpost.php?b=football;pid=177878;d=this
Let’s hit the highlights:
Non-ironically (I think) suggests Hootie Johnson for our athletic director
Yes, that Hootie Johnson.
It notes that George Steinbrenner, creator of the YES Network, was not a revenue whore.
Makes fun of The Shirt (ok, that’s kind of fair at this point)
Complaints about our schedule, without acknowledging we play more games per year now than we did 30 years ago
Non-ironically suggests throwing a boat of money at Nick Saban
Non-ironically suggests that Notre Dame is a better job than Alabama
Wants to engage in a power move by calling all the buy game opponents and canceling their games
Non-seriously (I think) suggests holding a moment of silence for the ex-buy-game opponents, and also to pat ourselves on the back for “growing a pair”
Ah, that is the pure stuff
Hootie Johnson, aside from all else, is 85. I….what?
My favorite parts:
“It was a men-only club. In 2002 Augusta was under pressure to open to women as members. All the advertisers refused to advertise on the Masters. Hootie said “no problemo” and the Masters was televised without advertising.”
-Are you kidding me? I didn’t realize we had to add “misogynistic” to the list of NDN characteristics
“The shamrock series and corresponding uniforms (or for the twits that like that – unis).”
-@EM = twit, confirmed?@
Spending a few sentences complaining about our future scheduling against teams like Miami (OH) and Toledo, then going on to talking about bringing Saban as a coach as if he hasn’t ever played against cupcakes
“Nick, I am just going to keep incrementing by $100,000s. We have a $10.5 billion endowment. Nick that’s B for billions.”
-Yes, let’s spend a huge chunk of our endowment on a football coach instead of scholarships and other things like that
“A few items such as getting two federal laws passed. ND can never wear any colors except Navy, White and Gold. And they can only play “home” games in ND stadium.”
-What
Edit: bullet points didn’t show up for some reason.
That’s not how endowments work. That’s not how any of this works. The athletic budget does not come from the endowment, nor should it, because at that point you are no longer a university, the primary purpose of which is education and research; you are now a professional football team. The endowment is for not only scholarships, but the total operation of the university. If you divert the endowment to hiring a football coach, you’ve changed the entire purpose of the endowment. Not even Alabama or tOSU use their endowment to pay the football coach.
OSU uses it’s endowment to pay for bow ties. If ND had the bow tie budget of OSU, we would finally be elite.
I could honestly give a s**t about ND nation or their ad. I didn’t even know they put one out until I read it now. I have never been on their site longer than 30 seconds. Every ND site whether free or pay has their cheerleaders.
I like Jack and I like what he is doing for not only ND football but for ND as a whole. Brian Kelly is a different matter. I have lost faith in Kelly. You can’t allow your friendships to interfere with what’s best for the program. IMO Kelly has done that this year. The defense from 2014-16 speaks for itself. You having two starting OL to drop well below 300lbs during a season should never happen at Notre Dame. That alone would make me fire my strength and conditioning coach. I don’t know if Kelly will fire Longo but some changes will happen in that department as well as in special teams. I at least hope so.
With all that said BK has earned the opportunity to fix what’s broken. There will be a ton of starters coming back in 2017 on both sides of the ball. I am hoping Kizer listens to both Todd McShay and Mel Kiper Jr and returns to South Bend. He isn’t ready for the league. Don’t listen to Jimmy Clausen and Brady Quinn. Come back, have a monster 2017 and set yourself up to be a top 5 pick.
This could have be written in 08. A failed coach, clearly checking out, is given another year to further damage the program. Next year with 09 redux. Although a typical Kelly 8-5 campaign might be enough for an extension- it’s “improvement” from 4-8, after all!
How many wins does he need next year to keep his job?
To satisfy NDN? Either 15 or 0.
No, to satisfy you. You said he’s earned another year. What record next season would warrant him not earning another year?
Uh…I didn’t say he’s earned another year. That was King Kenny.
Also, I’m not even sure 15 wins would satisfy NDN (nevermind that ND couldn’t win 15)
I am just as pissed as you are but firing BK now makes no sense. I know his record the last 3 years but he was a play away from the playoffs last year. He hasnt forgot how to coach in a year. He has a ton of starters coming back with maybe Kizer. If he falls short in 2017 he is finished. Hire a good DC and special teams coach and fix the strength and conditioning program. If Kelly does that it completely gives this program a badly needed makeover.
Not to nitpick too much, but I’ve seen this said a number of times, and that is manifestly not true – there is virtually no chance we would have gotten in over Oklahoma had the Stanford kicker missed. We were more than a play away; we were two plays (plus a successful overtime vs. Clemson) away. Or perhaps only a play plus a successful overtime versus Clemson away, as 11-1 with a win over Clemson probably would have gotten in. But definitely not “a play away.” Also of note: we were also basically two plays away from 8-4 with a loss to a crap UVA team.
So, I think any reasonable “two-year view” (to steal a phrase from Swarbrick) would say the past two years have been a pretty clear net negative. I’m feel pretty confident Kelly would have been fired this year without the contract extension that was prematurely handed out in January.
With that said, I hope you’re right and he turns it around. Unlike some on NDNation, I’m not going to affirmatively root for Kelly to lose just because he’s small-timey or runs the spread or doesn’t like real grass or whatever.
I don’t think you’re factoring how a win over conference champion Stanford would have factored into the committee’s estimation of ND just because Oklahoma went into that weekend ahead of us. Maybe we wouldn’t have been a shoe-in, but I think if we win that game, we had a 50/50 shot at worst.
It wouldn’t have factored in more than Oklahoma, who was already ahead of us, being an actual conference champion. We would have had no realistic shot.
Actually, you’re probably right. I was factoring in my belief that Oklahoma wasn’t actually that good, but we didn’t really find that out until Clemson dismantled them. I also have a bias against the Big 12, so that affected my recollection as well.
The fact that we destroyed Texas, who beat them might have helped us a bit, and Baylor skidded a bit at the end, but yeah we’re probably first out.
The “x points from the playoff” argument ignores that we needed a Will Fuller miracle to beat an awful UVA team, played down to the opponent’s level against an awful BC team and Temple and could have lost those games. Regardless of 10 wins, the only games that showed we could “hang” with playoff teams were losses, and the committee doesn’t give credit for good tries.
Yep. I didn’t even count the BC game as a possible loss in my post above (I was referring to UVA and Temple). So you could arguably say we were actually a handful of plays from being a 7-5 team last year.
I think it’s a balance–on the one hand, we won 10 games. We were close to winning 2 more against the best 2 teams on our schedule. That deserves credit. But at the same time, you can’t say we were close to 11-1 or 12-0 and ignore that we were also close to 7-5. In terms of evaluating the season, I think it was good, not great, not bad. Given the injury issues, it was a good coaching job to get us to 10 wins. But the whole “x points from the playoff” is ridiculous, even if true–we’d have been handled as rudely as Michigan State was in the first round by Bama. Again.
Curious why you feel this way. The only reason Kelly is getting 2017 is the admin doesn’t want to deal with the shame/embarrassment of firing a guy less than a year after a contract extension? I don’t really follow or agree, unless you have a different rational for this that I haven’t considered.
Ultimately, I think leadership is still confident enough to believe Kelly will have the team performing better in 2017. He kept them playing hard all season, and they were the youngest ND team since 1972. Obviously that youth getting experience has to convert into better results next season or Kelly will be gone and with good reason.
To me, the contract extension isn’t the deciding factor. It certainly shouldn’t be, one would hope.
Were they really the youngest team since 1972? I think that’s an underrated fact that hasn’t been mentioned a lot in what I’ve been reading, hearing, and seeing.
I think there are different actors here. I do think Swarbrick is now not firing Kelly because of (a) the extension, first and foremost, because it would be a fairly embarrassing moment for him that would lead to more-serious (at least much more serious than the NDNation ad, which to be fair is a pretty low bar) public questioning of why he has his job given that he just threw a pile of money at Kelly that ND has to now eat and (b) there is no obvious coaching replacement that Swarbrick can get that would be viewed as such a success that would avoid that public questioning.
I think the rest of the administration (i.e., the Boards) don’t view this as such an egregious case that necessitates them going over Swarbrick’s head and firing Kelly – and they’re probably right, especially given (b) above.
So, overall, I do think the contract extension is a determining factor in keeping Kelly when combined with the “there’s no super obvious replacement” component. I think absent the extension we likely would have fired Kelly and been happy to hire MacIntyre or Taggart or Rhule.
Fair enough, thanks for the perspective. I don’t think that’s unreasonable by any means, like Eric’s articles have pointed to the next hire is coming sooner than later and an important one. It well could have been this year.
My one rebuttal from my perspective:
I think that questioning could easily be explained away, if they wanted to fire him, and here’s how the explanation goes.
As recently as December 2015 Kelly’s name was in the rumor mills for an NFL job (even if he always said at that time it wasn’t an interest to him). He was 55-23 at the time of the extension, a fine record. Given the nature of high profile coaching, Swarbrick’s best course was to extend Kelly.
However, as it turns out: after a poor 2016, mistakes with retaining BVG, issues with direction of the team, it’s time for a new HC, etc, etc.
And, if it’s any consolation, throwing a pile of money at a fired BK for 4 years isn’t as embarrassing as the Charlie Weis 10 year buyout, right? We all got through that OK, and it would have been fine in this case too.
I can’t say it was no factor, for sure, perhaps you’re not far from the truth. Just to me, doesn’t seem like a major deciding factor.
The tough question I wouldn’t want to answer if I fired Kelly 1 year after I gave him an extension: “if you liked this guy so much you wanted to commit a lot to him, what has changed so much in the last year to make you want to fire him now and how much stock is this in one bad season versus your judgement overall? Are you wrong now or wrong then?”
I mean, agree that is a possible explanation/ex post justification, even if it’s a little ridiculous to believe that an NFL team would have hired Kelly last year (that’s about as credible as the rumors this year that he was in the mix for the LSU job; his agent must be a fantastic liar).
Also definitely agree with your last paragraph, but that plays in further to the “why Swarbrick would not want to fire Kelly after handing him a contract extension” point.
I can’t reply to you, so I guess this discussion has run it’s course and we’ll part agreeing to disagree, thanks for the exchange. I do agree that Swarbrick would have to answer tough questions about the extension, but I still don’t think Swarbick is or should be too scared to fire Kelly because of his contract. IMO, if Swarbrick (or BoT) felt Kelly wasn’t going to salvage it, they would can him regardless of contract terms.
Because, ultimately what’s worse the embarrassment now for firing him (which will pass by) or keeping a guy too long and having him do more damage? I like to think Swarbrick is smart enough to make the tough calls but time will tell.
I’m pretty confident his extension has absolutely nothing to do with why he was retained. The university just finished paying Charlie Weis $20M (or whatever) not to coach, I don’t think they care about Kelly’s buyout. On top of that, I’ve heard through the grapevine that Kelly’s contract, unlike Weis’s but like just about every other contract offered by a thinking human being, has an offset clause. So the buyout number would be big when his termination was reported, but the actual cost – because you better believe he would get another job really quickly – would be substantially lower. I really don’t think the cost of terminating him has any effect on the decision making process.
I agree with you somewhat on the “play away” thing – I think we were legitimately good, but “a play away from the playoffs” overstates it – but if you want to ding the 2015 season for some close wins, you could do the same to just about every team every team every year. Clemson was 6-1 in one score games this year, including a 30-24 win over Troy – not the Men of Troy, just Troy – in Week 2. Ohio State was 4-1 in one score games, including a 24-20 win over Northwestern and a 17-16 win over Michigan State. Washington was 2-0 in one score games, including a 35-28 win over a terrible Arizona team. Even Alabama had a scare against Ole Miss, winning 48-43. And that’s just the playoff teams.
I mean, I get it. There are certainly different levels of convincing-ness in teams’ identical won-loss records. But wins are wins, and any team in any given year is probably going to be a couple of breaks away from being at least two games better or worse than their final record. Fremeau said the 2012 team was probably a 10-2 team that caught a couple of breaks to go 12-0, while the 2013 team was probably a 10-2 team that caught a couple of breaks to go 10-2.
I don’t disagree with any of your analysis re: close games. I was just using the rhetorical point to show that our 10-2 season was about as close to being an 8-4 season as it was to being a playoff season. I think it just obscured my main point on that, which is the following:
It is objectively wrong to say we were one play away from the playoffs last year, and folks should stop saying that.
Agreed.
Yep, mostly agree. Just about every team does catch a break here and there, and that’s fine. And you could argue that maybe we’d have played well in the playoff, since Clemson took Bama to the wire and we lost close to Clemson. Hypotheticals and all that. It could very well be fan myopia that makes me feel we tend more often than other teams to “play down.”
Ultimately for me, why I’m ready to move on from BK, is that I don’t think we’ll ever be a 12-0 team that goes 12-0, ie has a chance to win the playoffs, not merely show up and be a Bama or tOSU’s semi-final victim. BK has shown that given the right confluence of events and luck, we could be a playoff team. That’s the value of 2012, and the value really of last year and the “only 2 plays away” argument. We need something else, though, to go from “two plays away from 12-0, but also 3 plays away from 7-5” to more consistently playoff ready.
My desire for ND is to be a top 10 team consistently, with a slide to 9-3/8-4 in years we just get unlucky. As a top 10 team, we’re in the playoff discussion every year. In better years, not only do we get in, we have a chance to actually compete in a playoff game, and possibly win the whole thing. Right now, we’re an 8-4/9-3 team, with a floor obviously of 4-8; even in years when everything breaks right, I don’t see us having a realistic shot of winning the playoff. It’s a spot that many teams around the country, far from being “embarrassed,” would be okay with, 2016 excepted (not that we should ignore this year). The one argument I will buy is that by keeping Kelly beyond next year, the admin is accepting a 9-3/8-4 on average, Top 20 on average, only win mediocre bowl games on average, type team. Looking back at the last 20 years, it’s not hard to see that as better than things have been. Still, it’s not what we should want.
Thank you for this Eric.
No matter what your opinion is on Swarbrick/Kelly, I think the Observer ad is an embarrassment to the University and the fan base. It serves to further the impression of ND fans being irrational and out of touch.
I’m curious what other options fans have to incite change in the program? Is there a proper way to engage with the ND Admin/BOT if you’re not a wealthy donor?
Yes, no other big time college football program’s fans would demand change after a 4-8 season in their coach’s 7th year.
Again, 4-8. Against a cupcake schedule. In year 7. I guess NDN posters have a keener sense of how far we are from a title than Swarbrick et al.
Well you’re in luck. Here are some upcoming articles on our site:
Jack Wears Lesbian Eyeglasses: Why He’s Unfit to Lead
View into the Soul: 10 Reasons why Brian Kelly Hates Notre Dame
State Media: Jack Nolan Should be Arrested
The Long Arm: How Notre Dame Controls 300 Media Outlets
Surprise of the Century: Football is Bad, the University Possibly Worse
Got Ya: 20 Questions Guaranteed to Make Swarbrick Quit
Right to Anger: We Can Say Whatever We Want
Cold Hard Facts: Why Money is all Notre Dame Cares About
Twitter is for Losers: Except that NDTrump Guy
Twitter is for Losers: But Can You Promote Our Advertisement?
Friend of the Devil: How I Sided with a Michigan Fan over Kelly
Communication Breakdown: Why Swarbrick Ducking a Presser will Destroy the Irish
Get ready for some prime time writing bent on holding people accountable.
I’ll do a films post on the lesbian glasses. You’re welcome
This is the main problem with it. I’m on record as being in favor of giving Kelly 2017, but there’s absolutely a legitimate case to be made for getting rid of him. I don’t think you could say the same for Swarbrick, but I know reasonable people who think differently and it could at least be a topic for rational conversation. Certainly in the muddled mish-mash of that ad are some nuggets that deserve an open and fair discussion.
But the ad was so poorly executed on every level – the design is appalling, the message itself is all over the place, the factoids and even the pictures chosen are clumsily propagandist, it lacks attribution, it lacks a call to action, and so on. On top of all that, it takes private business to a public forum, unlike the C4C letter. They might as well have used the whitespace at the bottom, as Grandpa Simpson did, to say “P.S. I am not a crackpot.”
What they effectively did was put a huge dent in the opportunity to bring the legitimate concerns they have to the table for an open conversation. Short of paying a streaker to write something on his belly, this was literally the worst way to get their message across. And even then, I’m not so sure.
This.
“Short of paying a streaker to write something on his belly, this was literally the worst way to get their message across.”
I agree the design of the ad was awful. But besides the design, what other channels are there to get their message across? I highly doubt Swarbrick cares what a bunch of angry ND fans have to say or be willing to sit down and have a “rational conversation” with them.
Well, let’s start from here:
This is true, as it would be for every other athletic director in the country. I mean, is that something we’d really want? It’s basically a no-win for everyone involved.
It’s the same with the hope that Swarbrick would hold a massive presser for something like this. The angry fans want to ask questions about how terrible Jack is at his job and by the way no matter what he says it’ll be distorted, misquoted, and taken out of context.
We have to stop thinking Notre Dame’s leadership will do things that no other athletic dept leadership will do and put themselves into that no-win line of fire. And more importantly, we have to stop thinking that we’d learn anything from those exchanges.
The reality is that there isn’t a ton we can do to create huge and quick change. You know why I’m pretty ambivalent about it? Because I don’t believe the tired argument that Notre Dame is fine with 8-5.
People will get fired. Bob Davie isn’t still coaching here, you guys.
Folks wanna rip their hair out because it happened in 2009 instead of 2008 or 2017 instead of 2016, that’s their prerogative. It’s not much evidence that Notre Dame “doesn’t care” or whatever.
@He’s done a great job with New Mexuhrco, so maybe he should be! He’s got Power 5 experience, after all!@
“We have to stop thinking Notre Dame’s leadership will do things that no other athletic dept leadership will do…”
Thanks for the reply back. What worries me is what if ND’s leadership doesn’t know what actions to take to get back to an elite level? The last 3 coaching hires have clearly failed and finding the next great coach is obviously very difficult. Should alums/fans just sit back and hope that they will figure it out eventually?
Hypothetically, let’s say Kelly goes 5-7 next year and Swarbrick still wants him back, is there a way for fans to collectively ask for his dismissal without causing embarrassment to the university?
Sure, there are ways. It’s not lost that in 2003 NDN spearheaded the C4C letter to the admin which was a billion times better than what they created a couple days ago. Then again, there was far more support for firing Willingham. Talk about the easiest guy to fire ever.
I’d be absolutely floored if Kelly stuck around after a 5-7 season next fall.
Got it, I’m not familiar with the C4C letter so I will check it out. They definitely could have tried a similar letter first before resorting to that ad.
You’d be floored if he were retained after 5-7 (!). What about 6-6? 7-5? 8-4? Specify your minimum wins number.
You realize he was responding to a comment that gave the hypothetical record of 5-7, right? Not giving his minimum wins number.
I’ve made the argument before, and will again: setting a number of wins is a bad standard. No, I wouldn’t be happy with 5-7. But against next year’s schedule, I could also be very unhappy with 10-2, if it includes squeaker wins against bad teams. I could be happy with 9-3 or even 8-4, if we pound the bad teams, play well against the good teams, and one or two teams we don’t look at now on the schedule end up being way better than anyone thought. I was angry last season that we won 10 games and kept our crappy DC, as he was the reason many of those games were way closer than necessary, and why we couldn’t win 1 of the 2 games we lost close.
If ND’s admin, be that Swarbrick, Jenkins, or the BOT, “doesn’t know what actions to take to an elite level,” are they going to learn what to do from an angry newspaper ad placed by a bunch of commenters on the internet?
Every school has a fringe, always-angry group. Whether you agree with NDN’s message that BK should be fired or not (as I’ve said, I’m fine if they fire him, but I’m not going to get upset because I don’t expect they’d do it this year, so I’m fine if they wait as well), they wanted him fired before he coached a game. They wanted him fired when he was 12-1. It loses all impact for them to be GRRRR ANGRY FIRE KELLY when they’ve literally never been anything but, and their “solutions” for fixing the program are bringing in Saban or Meyer or Stoops or someone else equally impossible. The fact that sites like this, which are generally supportive of Kelly, are calling for change and discussing the next options should be more of a notice to the admin, but I don’t expect they troll the internet very much to see what we think.
“are they going to learn what to do from an angry newspaper ad placed by a bunch of commenters on the internet?”
No of course not, but it seems like their goal for the ad was to publicly humiliate and embarrass them and that’s what it pretty much did. It started a national conversation in the media that would otherwise be ignored during the off season until next season. Did it embarrass the rest of the university and other fans in the process? Yes. It’s always uncomfortable to talk about the elephant in the room and I think those alums/fans are just fed up with sitting back and letting the status quo happen.
I find it more embarrassing as an ND fan than I would be as a member of the admin.
Feldman and Mandel are talking about it on their podcast, and basically think this is ridiculous. Whether you agree with them or disagree with them, this is the impression the national media has of this action. Also, they pointed out that they did this the week a lot of recruits are visiting–so awesome that they’ll be able to pick this up and read it while on campus. It’s not about the message–it’s about the look. Angry groups of fans taking out billboards or fly-over banners or newspaper pages aren’t ever going to give a good impression where people go “oh, yeah, they’re totally right, that guy should be fired!”
The 4-8 season against a cupcake schedule in year 7 -while our traditional rivals dominate- is the real reason for embarrassment. It’s incredible that commenters here are more embarrassed by this ad (which only states undisputed facts available to anyone) than by this season of football.
So how much did you chip in? $20?
You must use Ctrl-V a lot.
You’re taking a bit leap of faith assuming he doesn’t right click to paste things.
KG- full agreement with everything you have said on this thread, same for Eric. Also, as someone who has been in the position of having to fire someone, you don’t publicly poll people and engage in that type of dialog. It is handled quietly, behind closed doors. We will never know how much, if any, thought was given to the idea of firing Kelly by the people who have actually have the power to do so. That is the correct way to handle it. While I doubt Swarbrick reads NDN, I am sure he is aware of the sentiment and probably has a good feel, probably better, for the entirety of the fanbase than NDN does. He is also charged with acting rationally and deliberatively. As pointed out, a significant part of NDN wanted Kelly to have a shorter tenure than O’Leary. That said, there are good points made over there, and the fact that some of them are a little self-righteous and unwilling to acknowledge the world having changed around them, does not lessen the validity of the thoughts. I was ok if they fired Kelly, and ok if they did not. Mainly because I agree that Saban, Meyer, Stoops and GRUDEN are not coming to SB again in this or any lifetime except as a visitor. Taking them out of the equation, you were left with people who are Kelly 2.0 in terms of background, risk at this level, etc. That does not mean you do not pull the trigger ever, but I felt it meant you did not pull the trigger in 2016. To answer Mike P, I don’t have a specific record because things like injuries could change the equation. For instance, if Ian Book has to play all 12 game at QB I would expect a different record than if Wimbush or Kizer plays. There are similar examples. I would want to see a well coached team, beating the teams we should in an appropriate fashion. Punching above our weight appropriately (next year’s team is not going to the playoffs). I would want to see 9-3 or better. If all we do is revert to the mean on close games and play them 50/50 and end up 7-5 with the same level of inconsistency we saw on offense and defense this year, then I would say Kelly’s time is over. If I was Swarbrick that would be my personal view, in my own file drawer. I would NEVER say that publicly. I would NEVER say publicly that if we don’t win X games, he is done. First, there are only 12 games so one game becomes a significant deviation. Second, because there are injuries or other reasons that might cause you to accept a 7-5 after looking back that you would not have going in. I would probably have a small circle of people I could trust to double check my eye test. On the ad, I think it was dumb, but this is America and people have the right to… Read more »
Well said. Agreed across the board.
When recruiting, perhaps Kelly should look at this Cornerback if they can pass the academic requirements.
http://digg.com/video/dog-tackling-kid?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email
That’s nothing.
I once got table-topped by my pit bull and older brother while playing backyard football as a kid. Hands down the most vicious hit I’ve ever taken, and I played football for 11 years.
The problem with an article like this, while excellent and nice to read, is it gives the NDNers a reason to come infect our comment section.
We will combat them with our wit and good looks.
Just went and checked out the page NDN put in the paper. I don’t see the big deal. I think the page is pointless but not for the reasons I have seen mentioned on here. Every Irish fan I know doesn’t even bother to check out what they have to say. They already know they can go a little to far with some of the things they say and do. By mentioning the page here. All you are doing is giving them another platform to get out their message. I doubt any of the other Irish sites even mention NDN took out a page.
If you want NDN to fade away. Ignore them.
I agree with you, but it’s hard to ignore when it’s a story at the Indy Star, Chicago Tribune, Sports Illustrated and other media outlets. It’s embarrassing to the University, the alumni and the fan base.
So what happens if we fire Swarbrick and Kelly tomorrow? Are we suddenly a better football program? I am as disappointed as anyone in a 4-8 season, but I don’t think we need to salt the earth and start from scratch.
Agreed, when the story becomes “group of ND fans takes out ad to scorch the earth and make everyone look bad” that changes the game. It’s important for the fans who don’t feel that was the proper avenue or tone to address such concerns actually voice that out-loud in basically the way Brendan masterfully did with his 5:05pm comment today. Otherwise I do agree the low-brow NDN stuff is best ignored or joked upon, as is usually the case around here.
The ND administration should be humiliated by a 4-8 season.
We aren’t immediately a better football program after dumping Kelly and Swarbrick, but it is immediately possible for us to become a better football program. The first step is admitting that you have a problem- something that the ND administration, and many commenters here, are unable to do.
Can you say “projection”?
Kiffykins to Houston, per a Fox Sports headline, though when I click on the article, I get a 404 error…hmm…
Oops. Major Applewhite promoted to Head Coach Colonel Applewhite of the Houston Cougars.
Howdy from Paree = coming into this late, but since KG called on me, here goes:
1, yes, the fan base was bitterly criticizing the Administration when Leahy left, my dad and uncles being among the ring leaders.
2, as for earlier, I am not that old, but granddad used to tell me how bitterly people were criticizing the administration for allowing Hunk Anderson to sully the Rock’s legacy. I was told there were complaints that helped convince Elmer Layden to gracefully leave.
3, I love the voices of reason above. The NDN ad is not only p–s poor but also counterproductive, and a damn good reason for Eric to have authored this (which reminds me of his piece about folks who trash their own team). By the way, whoever said above that the NDN core crowd was against BK when he was 12-1, and in fact before he ever coached a game here, are absolutely correct. In fact, their disgraceful racism (“Shanty” are you kidding me) is the principal reason I stopped routinely looking in on that site.
4, Being in the tiny minority who is absolutely for BK having another year, I just want to say to the “he’s an 8-5 coach” crowd, goodness, remember all those injuries last year? And that team stayed in contention until the very end (despite BVG’s negative influence). In short, one can argue that BK did a heck of a coaching job last year.
5, And being an action-oriented person, let me pose a question to the group: if someone (maybe me) can fund a full page ad to make the actual reasonable case of patience and support, would we do it? And what could it say?
Gosh, a lot of energy going into this whole thing, on both sides. I’m just bored with the whole subject. ND will or will not get a new coach at some point to lead it back to the promised land. My bet is it won’t but that’s just my opinion, although it is a considered one.
Meanwhile there are lots of more interesting things going on in the world.
Eh, you’ve been bored since Golson left.
If only this was a “things going on in the world” blog.
Speaking of things appearing in the Observer this week…
Very classy. It’s going to be a long running “what could have been” had Zaire not broken his ankle in his 3rd start at ND. I hope he finds a great landing spot and finally gets his chance to run a team for a full season and please, please just not at East Lansing. (Or Chapel Hill).
I really hope he does well wherever he ends up. After Texas, it seemed like every time he was inserted was a no-win situation.
Please let me tell you about my year. ND twitter is god awful. Every reply to any ND Football or ND writer has negative as hell or “Fire Kelly.” I had enough after Week 2, so I replied to a tweet saying how firing Kelly would be redundant. Now almost any tweet I tweet, gets responded to by accounts with some random picture as their profile picture with 6 or less followers harassing me about Kelly and Notre Dame. I’m fine with it lol provides me a nice insight to the crazy section of the fan base, but at the same time, NDN ND twitter makes me extremely hate Notre Dame fans.
Also my first comment on here. Been viewing for a month. Love the site, love Eric’s writing. Excited to read this blog daily for the 2017 season. IN WINBUSH WE TRUST
Regarding the twitter trolls. There was a really cool article on The Ringer about all the political trolling (couldn’t find the article), particularly surrounding a pro-Trump account that became pretty famous for being first on any pro-Hillary tweet. Basically some guy developed an algorithm to find pro-Hillary tweets and immediately tweet Trump support, then another guy decided to see if he could best the first guys algorithm, which he did. He realized the power of being the first post and managed to start a company that licenses its use out to marketing companies. Sounds like the company is doing well.
Either way, sounds like what is happening here, and is becoming fairly prevalent. Not sure if you are interested in the tech behind what is happening, but I thought it was pretty cool stuff and definitely worth the read if you can find it. Of course saying that, I think twitter might possibly be the single worst thing to happen to ever happen to the world.
Im pretty sure its just a dude who feels the need to spread anti-kelly things throughout twitter
The responses maxed out to the right margin, to responding to Mike P. December 9, 2016 at 9:34 AM:
Because very few of us are actually “BK defenders”–sure, there are some, but the article itself doesn’t “defend” Kelly, it takes issue with the NDN crowd and the manner through which they are expressing their outrage. One of the major complaints about NDN is that if you don’t agree with them in toto, they label you a “Kelly lover” or “Kelly defender”–which is exactly what you are doing, on an article entitled “I don’t care about Brian & Jack.” Not “I love Brian and Jack.” Not “Leave Brian and Jack alone, you meanies!” What is revealing is that just like NDN, you’re labeling anyone who doesn’t agree with your RAEG a BK defender. “Don’t hate BK and Jack? You must be defending them!!”
Be angry at 4-8. Feel it’s the right call to fire BK after this season–many people here agree with that. But don’t tell me that NDN’s attitude is right and expect me to agree, because they’re not angry over 4-8. They’ve been angry since the day BK was hired, because he doesn’t do thing “their way.” They were angry when we were 12-0 and going to the BCSCG, because BK was the coach. Putting an ad into the Observer, especially one that bad, was small-timey, and THAT–not failing to fire BK after 4-8–is what is earning our fanbase, not the administration, the ridicule in the press right now.
No, the 4-8 season has earned us ridicule in the press. That’s why recruits are dumping us for Michigan, OSU, PSU, etc.- why jump on a sinking ship?
The fact that PSU is in a stronger position than ND right now, 5 years after one of the biggest scandals in CFB history and massive sanctions, tells you what you need to know.
It’s funny to me that commenters here want to mock NDN, and yet you’re giving them credit for knowing early on that Kelly would not work out.
All they knew “early on” was that they didn’t like BK. Not that he wouldn’t work out. But you’re right, we’re the stupid ones. So do yourself a favor and go hang out with those smart, rational people over there.
They’ve both earned ridicule.
Look, I know your MO. Have you addressed a single thing in the article or are you content with your low hanging fruit trolling?
You are not adding anything worthwhile to the discussion, which could be tolerated, if you weren’t such a huge dick who has to pervert people’s arguments and act like everyone is so stupid. Do better or slink back to the message boards.
I’ve responded to the points in the article, but none of them are substantive criticisms of the ad. Every statistic about the Kelly/Swarbrick record mentioned in the ad is true. The question is whether or not that record requires firing the coach. You think it does not, the “haters” who as in the past dominate your attention think it does.
You might not want to “care” about Kelly and Swarbrick, but if you care about ND football, you have to care about them. They offer us little evidence of competence, I’m afraid.
The ND football tweet you linked to in that OFD piece is no longer true, as we all know. Having had our supposedly brilliant 10-3 record matched in year 6 by Michigan’s first year head coach, our winning % has now easily been surpassed in year 7. It has taken less than two years for Michigan to return to elite level play after hiring an elite level coach.
And the Michigan experience is instructive here in another respect. A massive public campaign against the Michigan AD was required in order to hire a new coach and improve the Michigan program. Something similar is required here, but instead critics such as yourself only give us meaningless discussion of side-issues, such as the color of the ad, ‘it looks like 5th graders made it,’ it’s embarrassing, blah, blah, blah. But who really cares? Haters gonna hate…
There’s the axe! Oooh watch him grind it!
Yeah, it was definitely the Michigan “campaign” against Hoke that got him fired, not three straight years of the team getting worse and two in a row with a 3-5 record in the Big Ten. Without the fans protesting the administration would have had no idea to fire him or to go after an alum who has proven his success at Stanford and the NFL. Good grief.
Don’t forget actually trying to get his quarterback killed.
What the what? Donovan Jeter committed to us without having one of his core class requirements taken care of, didn’t want to take care of it, and decommitted. That has nothing to do with going 4-8. Pete Werner flipped to Ohio State because they turned up the heat on him and convinced him that, despite what Kelly was telling him, the ND staff wasn’t going to be there after next season. Unfortunate but understandable. We haven’t lost anyone else, and in fact we’ve eaten Penn State’s lunch on the recruiting trail for about the umpteenth consecutive year, so I’m not sure why you mention them. They badly wanted David Adams, Kurt Hinish, Robert Hainsey, and Phil Jurkovec, and lost on all of them. They might manage to flip Josh Kaindoh from Maryland, but Kaindoh wasn’t coming to Notre Dame even if we had gone 14-0.
As for the “true” stuff in the ad… It’s clumsily chosen to paint the worst possible picture, rather than an objective picture. That’s the problem with it. Nobody’s disputing that the individual numbers are true, we’re saying that it’s so ham-handed that it’s a joke. Why arbitrarily choose Kelly’s last three seasons (.579) to compare to Ty (.583)? Why not choose Kelly’s tenure (.656)? Or any other three-season segment for Kelly at ND – 2010-2012 (.718), 2011-2013 (.744), 2012-2014 (.744), or 2013-2015 (.692)? Why quote losses against “top 12” teams instead of the more familiar top 10 or top 15? Did we have losses to #11 and #12 teams that made the number worse? Did we have wins against #13, #14, and #15 teams that would make it better? And why quote that record across four years, when later in the same list they use nine years twice as a frame of reference and in the comparison to Ty they use three years? On top of all THAT, the number isn’t even “true” – we beat Michigan State in 2013, who finished the year ranked #4.
It’s clumsy, and in a way that is obviously distorted to paint the worst possible picture. Nobody outside the group that backed the ad and those who support them would take it seriously – not the administration, not the rest of the fan base, not the national media who you’re so convinced is impressed by it. You keep throwing this straw man out there that if we think this ad is a piece of crap we must be fine with 4-8 seasons, which nobody has ever said here. Enough already.
I’d like to see what national media is picking up the story and saying that this ad is justified and you know, ND should fire both Kelly and Swarbrick. Because so far all I’ve seen in the national media is writing it off as ludicrous. Many ND fans don’t seem to realize how well respected BK is by the national media and the coaching fraternity, and Swarbrick is considered one of the best ADs out there. Firing both in a knee-jerk response to an angry ad in the school paper isn’t going to draw praise, it would bring way more ridicule than showing a bit too much patience with a 4-8 season.
This Mike P guy is just a debater. He’s not interested in reading the posts, attaining comprehension of the posts, and then mulling them over and deciding if he agrees with them or not. He just reads them deeply enough to pick at strands and attempt to advance his argument. Unfortunately, this what most in our country consider to be dialogue now. He’s not bringing anything of value to the discussion. He’s just pushing the tried and true “identity politics”. If you don’t agree with me then you’re, fill in the blank. If you disagree with me then you support BK. He contributes nothing to the discussion.
Cue obvious Commenter formerly known as occtipus response in 3….2….1…
Nevermind, I’ll save him the trouble–would you say he’s MASTERFUL at it?
I just looked at the ad again. I can’t stop laughing. Adults did this and thought other adults should see it. Paid money even. Just too good.
Okay folks… It is with a heavy heart (sort of) that we have taken the shrink wrap off the 18S banhammer and deployed it for the first time – Mike P. is no longer a part of our community here.
We invite debate in our comments. We even invite dissent with us – as awesome as we are, we’ll concede that we’re not perfect. There’s hardly a hive mind within our commentariat, or an overly polished, Disneyfied view of the program; even within this thread, we have people expressing dissenting opinions in a reasonable way. Contrast, for example, the way chidomer participated with the way Mike P. participated. Thanks, chidomer, for contributing to the civil discourse.
What we have no patience for here at 18S are condescension, demagoguery, and shallow, furious, and repetitive straw man arguments that pollute our comment threads. By all means, disagree with each other, but be thoughtful and, most importantly, be civil.
Thanks to all of you for upholding those standards and making this one of the best comment environments in the ND online community.
Dammit…NOW how am I going to distract myself from this paper I don’t want to write?
Jeeze you go into hibernation because of one bad season and look what happens.
Sorry guys I will try to be more active. This clearly was my fault.
@Confirmed, IH is Brian Kelly’s screenname@
Bah! I was hoping he could have brought some of those NDN graphic design skills over to pretty this place up a bit!
Shame he’s going to miss out on all those accountability articles in our queue.
Glad to be involved in civil discourse. I obviously disagree with other posters about how the football program should be run. But at the end of the day, discussing solutions to those issues are more important/useful than getting in shouting matches with other.
Aw, come on, guys, our VP-to-be Mike Pence needs an outlet for his rage just as much as the rest of us. Now ND Trump is going to tweet that you were very rude to him and should apologize!
All of this is well done – I agree 100% that it was an appropriate move to remove that person from the discussion. (As a personal sort of protocol observation, though, I don’t think it’s helpful to call anyone huge dicks, no matter how much they are that…)
I really wish there was someone here to let me know what Notre Dame’s record was this season. I can’t seem to ever remember it.
I’ll give the departed way more credit than he deserves as some sort of master-stroke, he cited the record 8 times in this comment thread, one for every time Brian Kelly and Jack Swarbrick humiliated us all this fall.
Allow me to channel my inner CSN:
HEY I THOUGHT WE BANNED YOU oh wait nevermind different person.