It’s fitting that this is the third game review this season from me that isn’t going to deal too much with the actual game from the weekend. The bye week is now upon us and I’ll probably end up writing something more in-depth on the roster through this point in 2016 in the coming days. Today, it’s less about how individual players are performing and yet another macro-level post on Notre Dame’s future.
I do not envy Jack Swarbrick. I imagine most of our readers would agree that he’s had a very successful 8-year run as the Notre Dame Athletic Director. Nearly all of Notre Dame’s athletic teams are playing at a very high level with numerous competing at an elite level nationally. He’s deftly navigated the conference realignment and been one of the more measured voices for the players rights movement. He’s overseen the construction and renovation of several facilities on campus. While the lack of a new basketball practice facility still lingers as a head scratcher Swarbrick’s patience with Mike Brey has paid off handsomely in recent years nonetheless.
Unfortunately, no less than 70% of Swarbrick’s legacy will be defined on how he handles the football program. Even worse the optics of the current situation with Irish football are very poor in regards to a new coach.
Granted, I’m working under the assumption that Brian Kelly is perceived among his peers as a good coach, at bare minimum. Using that assumption, Swarbrick’s hands are tied by two factors:
- Potential coaches are going to be very concerned about cutting a coach loose after one bad season
- Potential coaches are going to be very concerned about a good coach’s tenure exploding so quickly
It’s becoming fashionable now to claim that not only is Kelly not a good coach but that Kelly’s hire was a mistake. We’re seeing this pop up from the echo chambers of our own communities. Here’s the thing though…Notre Dame fans walk, talk, and act like convincing other Notre Dame fans of this about Kelly makes a difference. It’s not what we think, it’s what the prospective coaching community thinks and it’s simply not reality to suggest Kelly sucks. It’s comforting for us, but doesn’t make Swarbrick’s job any easier.
In regards to this being the only bad season one of our commentators once said, in essence, “Yeah but after the normal first season rebuilding pass given out Kelly hasn’t won 10 games every year.” Thank you for making my point.
Prior to writing this I thought a good article idea would be to make a top 10 list of improvements Brian Kelly needs to achieve in 2017 and after some brief thought I figured it would be a waste of time. I still think there’s a decent chance the 2017 team does very well but I can’t convince myself there’d be a massive change or upgrade to that top 10 list.
So, with that in mind I think Swarbrick is being forced into a corner with two options:
A. Full steam ahead with a new coach in December
Although it would require a lot of luck (coaching searches always do) and Notre Dame wouldn’t be dealing from a position of strength it would be possible to get a good new coach. Likely? I’m not so sure. But, certainly possible and I like the idea of an experienced Swarbrick selling the school to someone new. There are still a lot of positive indicators for the program: Lots of returning starters, good enough recruiting, increased coaching salaries, very good facilities, Crossroads coming next fall, and I don’t really believe the current recruiting class is going to be deeply bothered with a change.
B. One more year with a severe tight leash
This is the more likely scenario and with each additional loss this year things could get very harsh while judging next year. Nothing worse than 10-2 during the regular season and something like back-to-back losses could lead to an in-season firing. Unless the stars align in December the Irish would at least be dealing from a greater position of power to outside world. That is unless the wheels from this disaster season can never be put back on the wagon during the off-season.
Stanford Game Notes
Remember when the offense was on pace for a school record in points? Now they’ve fallen down to 30.3 points per game and it no longer feels like this unit is a gimme to put up 4 touchdowns every game.
Welcome back to the season, Tarean Folston! Not only did he finish the game with 49 yards on just 8 carries the more important sign was that he had a positive run success rate on 6 of those carries. Unfortunately, he did not receive any carries over the final 4 offensive drives.
Not only did Malik Zaire get 3 series in this game but there were 5 called pass plays versus 1 run call. How does that make any sense? Oh, there was also the safety after a bad snap and who knows what the call would’ve been there. I was shocked that Zaire came out on that series with the Irish pinned at their own 5-yard line. Also, did Zaire’s reaction seem kind of strange to anyone? I don’t believe we got a real good ankle on the snap but it didn’t seem to be inaccurate as much as too hot. The way Zaire flared his legs and arms out was bizarre.
Third down conversions (5 of 14) and touchdowns in the red zone (1 for 3) were a problem again.
Whither C.J. Sanders? Where did he go? Over the last two games he has 42 all-purpose yards of which 31 yards have come on kick returns.
Solomon Thomas ate the right side of the Notre Dame offensive line for lunch and then dinner with a fine dessert. When was the last time a defensive end had 10 solo tackles against the Irish? How often does that happen, ever?
The sack, forced fumble, fumble recovery from Jarron Jones was one of the most impressive plays by anyone this year. I was half expecting a facemask flag to be thrown because it’s been that kind of year.
Speaking of being that kind of year two plays stick out. The first was the (slightly) quick whistle for forward progress before a Stanford fumble led to a (would-be) Notre Dame touchdown. That would have lifted the score to 17-0 and maybe put things away for good. The other was the late-game punt return that was nearly fumbled by Stanford for a scoop-and-score to tie the game at 17-17. There was a feeling this team needed those breaks and they didn’t come.
How about 5 turnovers forced in the past 2 weeks? That brings the defense up to a healthy 9 turnovers in 7 games. We’re positively spoiled! Unfortunately, Kizer has interceptions in his last 6 games.
Don’t look now but Kizer has quietly been pretty average as a passer this season. His completion percentage is down 5 whole points and if we’re honest he doesn’t look any better throwing the ball than last year. You could make the case he’s looked worse on the whole, too.
I’m just baffled by this entire season. Kinzer shows big time regression in my eyes. I just don’t understand what is happening here. This team is finding ways to lose in a more creative method every game now. It almost reminds me of CW’s last couple of years. It’s just crazy.
I was at my first game in four years. Regardless of our disastrous season, the environment was terrific. The campus never disappoints, and the weather was perfect. My thoughts on the program and game:
1) BK’s coaching struggles are super difficult for me. It’s hard for me to fathom this seasons and his struggles to make effective decisions. I want to see him succeed so bad. But he has simply been a liability for this team’s success almost every single game this year.
2) We could return 55 of 61 players on the depth chart next year. That’s a lot. This team is young and has a great deal of talent. Do we want BK getting one more shot with this team in 2017 or bring in a new coach to work with this talent? I want to see BK get one more year, contingent on how the rest of this year goes. Regardless, I trust Jack and am mostly annoyed of knee-jerk fans on message boards. Brian Kelly wouldn’t be where he’s at if he was just a bad coach. He’s climbed the ranks because he is a GOOD coach. This season he has not been. But over his career, he is a successful coach. Whether or not you think it’s his time to be done here, I wish everyone could recognize this fact.
3) Speaking of the actual game last night, I was honestly really happy with the defense. They looked they knew where they were supposed to be. From my vantage point they didn’t miss many tackles, and they laid the wood a few times. I’m actually really excited to see how they develop next year. These young guys can grow up together and be a hell of a defense. The only noticeable deficiency was still a lack of a pass rush. And then when we bring an extra guy, it doesn’t get home. This obviously causes a lot of strain on our young secondary.
4) Kizer looked terrible. His pocket presence was really bad and he was pretty inaccurate all night.
5) Zaire is a disaster. I feel bad for him, but he’s not even close to a good QB right now. Not even close.
6) BK giving Malik those last two series was beyond frustrating.
7) Folston needed carries in the second half. Inexplicable.
This team makes me sad. It still hurts me every single game when they lose in this horrible fashion. With that being said, everyone should still be very optimistic about 2017. The talent will be there.
Great, thoughtful yet passionate post, Jaden.
Like you, I know Kelly didn’t suddenly become stupid, and at the same time I often don’t understand his thinking on many of his decisions. Assuming the guys who should stay, for their own good, do stay, we should have our most experienced team under Kelly next year. The question will be, do the players still believe in him? In my mind that’s the key call JS has to make.
Completely agree, Kiwi. In my mind, this is my primary reason for getting rid of Kelly. I feel like he’s lost this team, and there’s just no recovering. If he puts together a couple wins at the end of the year, I could see giving him one more season.
Pete Sampson has a free article in which he mentions BK breaking down the huddle in their last practice before the game, which is normally done by a player. Apparently all the players ate it up and loved it. On Saturday, the ND sideline was so amped. They were swaying back and forth, and vibing to the music, much like you see Houston’s sidelines do. They were ready to play. I really don’t think he’s lost the team. I think they’re probably puzzled at him for some decisions, but I’m not convinced he’s lost them yet.
There’s a difference between questioning decisions and losing trust or love for your coaches. I think that’s where the team is at. By the end of the year, it is hard to say where they’ll stand. I think it’s vital that they come away with a little momentum to finish this year.
Like you guys said, Swarbrick’s decison needs to come down to exactly that, whether or not he thinks the team believes in BK still. If the answer is yes, BK deserves 2017. If it’s a resounding no, it is time to part ways.
Very well said, Jaden.
When you put it this way, BK really should be back next year.
The idea that Kizer is a likely #1 overall pick next year seems wildly absurd to me. I understand that Kizer has some attributes the pros like, but I would absolutely take ’05 or ’06 Brady Quinn or ’09 Jimmy Clausen over 2016 DeShone Kizer if given the option.
To be clear, not disagreeing with anything about Kizer that Eric is saying – it’s just that there has been this sudden consensus over the last few weeks that Kizer is a surefire high-level NFL prospect for next year’s draft. I definitely can see him as an NFL starter one day. Just not in 2017.
It’s fairly easy to say that now after he has been terrible for a couple weeks running. He was really, really good most of last year, despite being thrown onto the field abruptly, so factoring in even a little bit of progress this season plus a really, really good start, then yea, a projection as a top pick made perfect sense.
Now, he’s regressed or has had all his weaknesses exploited or whatever – he’s been bad for a couple weeks – so, given that, a top pick next year now seems like a stretch. I would expect that, if this continues, the projections will be revised downward.
Counterpoint: NFL scouts inexplicably seem to value physical stature and attributes over actual on-field production. Jarrett Goff, Logan Thomas, Josh Freeman, etc. I’m not saying I think Kizer is a Logan Thomas 2.0, but most of the NFL hype has been decent production + OMG do you see how big he is? As someone said in the in-game chat, NFL-types think they can fix whatever they see as a problem as long as a player has the physical talents.
And Logan Thomas didn’t even have decent production in the passing game! The NFL scouting process is a mess.
Didn’t they eventually make him a tight end?
This is so true. I’ve never understood it. Jake Locker. Blake Bortles (although he at least had a very good college career – but his release was abysmal). It’s bizarre.
Why was Stanford able to get such a good pass rush Saturday? Why weren’t adjustments made to counter it? (Were they?) How do you let one guy, Solomon Thomas, create such havoc for the whole game? (We usually make QBs Heisman winners, not DE all-Americans.) Could we have run some plays to slow down the pass rush?
Lastly, Kiser’s escape ability makes him prone to hanging on to the ball too long. Are we working on correcting that? Do our WR’s, RBs, TEs know how to break off routes and get open when the pocket breaks down?
These are questions, I ask myself during the games. Can I get any help out there?
Good questions. One thing I don’t understand is why we don’t run more traditional screens in this these scenarios.
The sacks have been almost more brutal than the picks. Sacked on second down on the last drive of this game with no timeouts and the ball on the 14. That is just inexcusable. We had to down the ball on 3rd down and had just one shot left. Similar thing happened against MSU. A bad sack in the last drive meant that we didn’t attempt to go for it on 4th and 7 (had been 3rd and 2) and punted the ball away only to see them eat the rest of the clock. TTDBA!
Don’t mean to be too down on DK for this – it’s definitely something that is coach-able and correctable. Frustrating to me that they haven’t seemed to work on this terribly effectively.
Hi all, Just back in Paris after the weekend at Notre Dame. A long way for a tough, yes brutal loss, but there were some positives. A few thoughts: 1, Completely concur with Kiwifan, that was a super post from Jaden. It was indeed a superbly lovely evening, and having been riding the hobbyhorse of getting our home crowd to be louder when it counts I was pleased to see some progress on third downs. (I have to credit some of that to Niles Morgan at the pep rally when he coached us on how to make noise on “money downs.”) Related, though catastrophically few students at the rally (bad sign even though fall break had started) the student section was damn near full for the game and did their usual thing. 2, For an indicator on whether BK is losing the team, I truly like those tweets from Jarron, Julian Love, Jay Hayes, and Brandon Wimbush. Worth us all paying attention, especially the horribly negative, grumpy curmudgeons over at ND Nation. Not to be too much of a rah rah, and not denying a shared concern over some of BK’s calls, but this is the time for genuine fans to double down on showing the players (and yes, the coaches) some love. 3. I did think watching the line play that losing our starting right guard before the game was having an impact re: our very poor showing against the Stanford ace (who by the way is one hell of a good player, but I thought we all knew that.) 4. This may be a reach, but if we can give BK some credit for the defense’s really dramatic improvement, then maybe him spending way more time over there had some very small amount to do with the offense’s tire fire in the second half – that is to say, he has always been a centerpiece in the management of the offense, and there has to be some small subtle effects from changing that to the degree that it has been changed. 4, On a related note, pulling De Shone I suspect was not just because of the (really) poor interceptions but also because of BK’s pent up frustration over De Shone’s misreads this year — who I kind of think has hit a sort of sophomore slump (aggravated by no Explosiva and no CJ Procise and no Ronnie Stanley etc). Like everyone in the stadium I was really puzzled by keeping Malik in three series – but… if you are going to do it, and if you are BK who still clearly feels some genuine … affection/obligation/sympathy… for Malik, (not the right kind of feelings in this situation but human) can you really jerk him back out after just one series, even a bad one? The snap over his head does not count, IMO. Forgive the rambling post, I get talky when I am jet lagged. And before I forget – another good piece Eric, thanks. Anyway… rally… Read more »
Well the pep rallies haven’t been student focused in years. I remember going most of my freshman year, but never went after that, especially when they started holding it outdoors, fully transforming it into a Notre Disney experience for visitors. They tried holding some student-only pep rallies on a few Thursday evenings in 2008, which was much rowdier and actually enjoyable, but I imagine those have fallen by the wayside. The problem is that the pep rallies have become overproduced, top-down spectacles designed to sell stuff at the bookstore rather than generate actual enthusiasm for the games. The awesome stuff from years earlier, like when they wheeled a student-made Trojan Horse into a pep rally back in the 70s, could never happen now.
My freshman year, the Leprechaun was drunk at every pep rally. It was glorious. Sigh.
When I first started to seriously address the home crowd issues, in 1994, the rallies had already become a (brilliant phrase!) “Notre Disney experience for visitors.” Being in the JACC, on the floor, no mosh pit experience, real artificial experiences. In years of trying the best I could do was to persuade the powers that be to vary the venues. Then BK came along and his contribution is to reduce the time the team has to be there.
Understand that as the senior poster on this site, as a high school student at Holy Cross Seminary (which became Holy Cross Hall prior to being torn down) and then as a student during the coming of Ara, I actually witnessed some of the most frenzied intense genuine outpourings of support imaginable.
I am naive enough to nurture a faint hope that we could engineer a return to days when the students own the rally. OK, really a very faint hope. OK, maybe no hope – you know, in the old days when the band would swing through campus, pick up students, they used to even build bonfires (“Burn high your fires and swing along for Notre Dame”). Now tort aversion and Fire Dept regs would kill that…
Heck, KG, bring back the drunken Leprechauns!
The 1994 season was my freshman year. I could see the “decline” of the pep rally from then to my senior season of 1997. I actually much preferred being in the JACC compared to the few we had in the stadium, and heaven forbid we do anything with Stepan Center besides tear it down. But yeah, it went from being moderated by a drunken leprechaun mascot my freshman year to being…very moderated.
I’m going to differ with you slightly here, E:
The last few weeks, yes, I agree, he has looked… well, not great. But I think he did look better than last year in the first few games this year and then started to run off a cliff. I think he started to put more and more of the burden on himself; to mix sports analogies, he’s trying to hit a five-fun homer every time up. Now he has pressed so much that he has developed and/or amplified some bad habits, and it’s making everything just not quite work right.
Overall, great article. It’s a bad spot we’re in right now for sure. Notre Dame fans who think the entire football world knows that Brian Kelly sucks are delusional – he’s still very well regarded outside the Notre Dame bubble. You think Kelly’s performance here makes a guy like Urban Meyer think any differently about the reservations he had 12 years ago? What do you think Meyer protege Tom Herman would hear from Urbs if Notre Dame came calling and he asked for advice? Why is anyone even convinced that Tom Herman, who has done much less at this point in time than Kelly had done by 2009, would be an upgrade?
Add into that the fact that we’ll likely have at least three other marquee programs – USC, Texas, and LSU – and possibly more searching for a new coach too, and it’s just a lousy time to be in the market.
Exactly this. It’s like Golson all over again. Kizer doesn’t seem to be playing the confident, poised football that made him remarkable last year. His accuracy is off, he’s forcing bad throws, and he’s hanging on to the ball too long looking for the big play downfield. Zaire has absolutely cratered, looking panicked as soon as he gets the snap, completely unable to make a decision on when to throw the ball or what hole to hit on the ground.
This is your reminder that every quarterback in Kelly’s ND tenure has regressed.
Kizer and Golson are different animals. Golson was very uneven emotionally – he went in the tank when things went south, just as he did at Florida State. His problem wasn’t pressing, it was that he couldn’t keep an even keel. If he was up you had phenomenal stuff like the 2012 Pitt comeback, but if he was down you had stuff like the 2014 Arizona State Giant Continuous Brain Fart performance or the 2014 USC no-show.
Kizer is very even-keeled, he’s just trying to do too much. He looked like a #1 overall pick in the first three games. He looked more uneven against Duke, looked generally OK but with a bad pick against Syracuse, throw out NC State, and now he looked good in the first half and bad on a couple of critical drives in the second half. He’s trying to carry the whole team and it’s too much, as it would be for anyone.
Hey Brendan,
Do you think the bye week will provide enough practice time for Kizer to get out of some of the bad habits he has developed in the past few weeks? Or is this something that would require the offseason? My hope is that Sanford can work some more magic with him this week assuming Kelly does his usual (from what I remember) thing of focusing on fundamentals during the bye week instead of scheming for the next opponent.
I don’t know, honestly. The entire team, from Kelly on down, is in a slump right now. I hope that the bye week will give everyone a chance to reset mentally and get back at it, but I can’t say I’m at all confident. I wouldn’t put any amount of money on us to win or lose any game the rest of the way.
Ok, time to leap into the breach defending Golson. I’ve rewatched the ASU game five times (it always ends the same). I’ve never seen anyone have such a string of bad luck in one game. Two tipped passes for pick sixes, including one off Robinson’s chest, another tipped INT. Yes he fumbled but he also took the team, virtually by himself, back to within three points. We had a muffed FG and the Robinson flub, and the game just ran away at the end.
Kelly’s post game presser he said all the turnovers were on Golson. Things were never the same for them after that.
Eric, we need to dispel the myth of “good enough” recruiting. Notre Dame’s five year recruiting rankings put them as the #8 recruiter in the nation. That is excellent recruiting, and the excellent recruiting is why the on-the-field performance is so enraging.
Well… There are two major demons hiding in that number:
A lesser demon would also be that one spectacular year – the 2013 class, which was #3 nationally – boosts the overall quite a bit. Kelly’s classes have typically ranked around 12th or 13th, which is still pretty talented but definitely in that next step down. The difference in any one class between 8th and 12th is basically one five-star player.
It’s not really an argument I think it’s worth having at this point. We’ve recruited fine to our standards, nothing more nothing less.
Totally agree with your point on defensive recruiting. Any theories on why our recruiting efforts fare better on the offensive side of the ball?
It would be so refreshing to see a solid, lockdown secondary. I am hopeful this young secondary will become that. A skeptic might say that our recent DBs don’t improve or actually regress (KVR, Luke, & Redfield?). Maybe that was a BVG problem, I don’t know.
Are we ignoring possibly switching some of the deep, talented group of receivers to the defensive side of the ball? I know there was some speculation on Tori Junior last season. It just seems we are always loaded/deep at receiver and thin in the secondary.
As the commentator being referenced for hating Kelly because he doesn’t win 10 every year (somewhat a simplification of my position, but I won’t argue too vehemently), I do take issue with the idea that this is ‘one bad season’ for Kelly. I would hope any competitive coach would view a 7-5 season, at a program that claims to aspire to national championships, as a bad season, and Kelly has 2 of those to go with whatever this apocalypse turns into.
The points being made about how Kelly doesn’t, at least, appear to have lost the team are good. If there’s an argument for not making a change for next season, that’s probably the best one, if that is indeed the players’ position and remains so the rest of the way. I didn’t watch much of the game Saturday (was at a wedding, and after that, go Cubs), so I’ll pass on psychoanalyzing the players right now.
This is just a brutal, brutal season.
I would not want to be Swarbrick.
A significant chunk of the fan base wants change. It may or may not be warranted (personally I am really ambivalent but would lean to retain Kelly), but it is really only his call.
I just look at the potential replacements, and don’t see anyone obviously better. I make certain assumptions in that, obviously. All of them have significant risks. Given that, I would advocate patience.
Swarbrick’s options:
A. Full steam ahead with a new coach in December.
B. One more year with a severe tight leash.
Or…or!
C. Whiskey. Lots of whiskey.
***
Really though, that’s five losses now with the largest opponent margin of victory being 8 points. I can’t help but wonder how much luck is playing into it.
Sure, there’s been weird decisions in every one of the games. But going the severe tight leash route, I don’t see what that would accomplish except to scare off recruits that the coach is on the hot seat. I say either fire him or give (perhaps slightly slurring from a bit of option C) a full endorsement of Kelly. Of course, fire him if he’s not back to 9+ wins next season, but I don’t see any benefit to bringing him back with anything less than full support on the public face.
You just have to watch out for the dreaded Vote of Confidence. It’s a killer.
The great thing about option C is that it can be combined with either of the other two with ease.