Year seven of the Brian Kelly era wasn’t supposed to start out like this. Notre Dame wasn’t supposed to be out of the playoff mix by the middle of September. Notre Dame’s defense wasn’t supposed to be among the nation’s worst. But it did, they are, and it is. And at this point “almost” being great is no longer good enough.
Last year, with a star studded team that featured multiple early NFL Draft picks, Notre Dame “almost” made the playoffs. Two close losses to two of the top 5 teams in the country separated Notre Dame from a perfect regular season and a 10-2 mark.
Two years ago Notre Dame was undefeated after six games and traveled to Tallahassee to take on the defending champion Seminoles. Notre Dame almost pulled off the road upset but came up short. The season completely unraveled shortly after.
Fast forward two years and Notre Dame is still almost winning big road games and prime time matchups with top 10 teams. Keyword: almost.
Notre Dame has as many new starters on both sides of the football as anyone in the country this year, but that’s college football. Everyone’s rosters turnover every year. The Irish still started the season ranked #10 and talked about the playoffs being their goal this season.
Notre Dame’s latest almost came last weekend when the Irish let Michigan State rip off 36 unanswered points until they woke up and tried to make a roaring comeback. The Irish fought valiantly and nearly pulled it off. Notre Dame deserves credit for not surrendering when it would have been easy to do so, but the underlying point is they should have never been in the position to begin with.
Michigan State came into town as the higher ranked team, but by no means are the Spartans so supremely talented that they should have been able to run off 36 straight points. That is not meant in anyway to downplay the Spartans either. They are every bit of the top 10 team they are ranked as. On paper though, the Irish have at least as much, if not more talent, than Michigan State.
Game aren’t won on paper though. They are won between the hashmarks. And between the hashmarks Notre Dame was outworked, outexecuted, and outcoached. Mark Dantonio brought a team that lost a lot of starters of their own from its 2015 playoff team to town. His team, however, was fundamentally sound played smart, and muscled their way to 260 yards rushing and over 500 yards of offense.
The same couldn’t be said for Brian Kelly’s troops last weekend. Notre Dame missed tackle after tackle and assignment after assignment. Kelly said this summer that this was a team that needed to do the ordinary things extraordinarily well to get where they wanted. Last Saturday night the Irish didn’t do the ordinary things even satisfactory.
All week long Kelly has preached that he and his staff need to coach better and to his credit he has refrained from throwing any of his assistants under the bus unlike say Charlie Strong at Texas who hung his staff out to dry following the Longhorns loss to Cal. Good luck finding a strong supporting cast at your next gig, Charlie.
Brian Kelly has done a tremendous amount of positive things for Notre Dame during his tenure and his fingerprints are all over the program at this point, but almost winning big games is no longer good enough. At one time almost winning big games was a big step forward after getting used to 38-0 drubbings at the hands of bitter rivals under previous coaching regimes.
That time has come and past because of the success Kelly has had. Notre Dame, for the most part, now wins the games it’s supposed to win, but it’s become rare for Notre Dame to win those games that are toss ups or games in which they aren’t given a strong chance to win.
Michigan State this year. Clemson, Ohio State, and Stanford last year. Florida State in 2014. Stanford and Oklahoma in 2013. All games against big time programs in which Notre Dame played tough but came up short on in the end.
During that same the only wins the Irish have had against programs that still looked good by the end of the season were Stanford in 2014 and Michigan State in 2013. That’s two games in three and a quarter seasons.
Notre Dame will almost certainly run off a few wins in a row here by feasting on some ACC bottom feeders in Duke, Syracuse, and NC State but then Stanford and Miami come to town in October. Will the Irish use this three game stretch to improve and be ready to take on Stanford or will the Irish fall again before the Cardinal even flies into town in a few weeks?
It’s about time Notre Dame wins a game in which it’s the underdog under Brian Kelly. Baring a collapse from Stanford over the next few weeks Notre Dame’s next chance for that will come October 15 (unlikely under David Shaw). Will the Irish rise to occasion or will they come up just short as they did a year ago when it appeared they had the game won with 30 seconds to go only to come up short?
Three weeks isn’t an insignificant amount of time in which a young team can improve. Winning the next three games and knocking of Stanford could change the entire narrative of what is now looking like another disappointing season for the Irish. That of course requires the Irish to reel off three straight wins and then get over the hump of almost winning a big game when Stanford rolls into South Bend.
Almost is good if you’re playing horseshoes or hand grenades as my old 5th grade teacher Mr. O’Donnell – a huge Notre Dame fan himself – used to tell me. Brian Kelly is out of horseshoes though and the only hand grenade he might have left if this season continues to go South will need to be used to blow up the defense and start over.
I love the little pussy,
He’s so cuddly and warm,
And if you don’t hurt him,
he’ll do you no harm.
So not pull his tail,
Nor drive him away,
Because sweet little pussy,
just wants his say.
ME OWIE !
If this does not tell the leadership of ND that it is time to move on from the present coaching staff, then the problem goes higher than the football team.
Every QB ND plays looks like an all-pro!
Pathetic!
Gutless!
Meant to say Burgy and Duranko.
Amen, C-Dog!
But wait for Damian and the excuse makers to come out of the closet. Bury will bore us with his failed witticisms. Shaz will confuse us with his attempt at poetry. Durango will try to convince us we live in the 1930s. Damian will tell us ND can’t do any better than BK. Etc., etc., etc….!!!
Excuses about academics don’t wash. Notre Dame was just as tough academically in the 1980s. And any non science non engineering degree is attainable by any reasonable highschool grad at any university.
Kelly has two main flaws. His ego. And his stubbornness. Notre Dame is bigger than Brian Kelly. He’s put a lot of energy imposing his will on the program. But the payoff is a decent program that is a great game or two every year and almost reaches its potential.
He is a control freak but he HS a hard time adjusting his game plan when it’s not working.
The result is great athletes more afraid to incur his wrath than players setup to take control themselves on the field.
This is not a Notre Dame program
Where’s the bravado now from all those on here predicting a blow out?!
I can’t believe those people are really ND fans. Haven’t they seen this team over and over get beat in S. Bend by teams the Irish were supposed to blow out?
I’ve seen this game too many times in the last two decades. BC, Syracuse, Tulsa, USF, Navy, Northwestern, etc.
We’ve seen these games so many times before. A heavy underdog comes into S. Bend and upsets ND or gives them all they can handle.
I wonder how a coaching change has done for Michigan?
I can’t watch the Irish play anymore after watching them give up 14 points to a Duke team they were getting ready to blow out. This team is unbelievable. They make dumb plays and cannot tackle at all. They are absolutely horrible defensively and have been for several years now – porous. Why do they continue with the defensive coordinator. They have good athletes but we consistently see them out of position and missing tackles. I think it’s time for a change. I am so tired of watching them make the other team’s quarterback look like an All-American every week. It is ridiculous.
I will try watching them again when they make some coaching changes – and not before.
If you look at the AP top 10 they all have one thing in common. Great Defense. Notre Dame not even close. Lots of teams out there that can score but its the ones that can play defense that usually rise to the top.
Tyler Eifert was a 3 star recruit coming out of high school, and how good is he? What matters is coaching, and ND has an incompetent, ignorant head coach that it must rid itself of if it wants to win national titles again. Ohio State went undefeated in Urban Renewal’s first season. Lou Holtz found a way to recruit with the high academic standards at ND. Stop excusing Brian Kelly’s mistakes and faults.
stanford has the same academic standards
notre dame gets as much or maybe more top recruits,as any team in the nation. we pick coaches, who are not good teachers. michagan state gets 3 star players and they develpo them.. bk red shirts everybody an hope they dont get into academic trouble.plus we are not the team o f 1960, its a new area. if bvg, been at any other school. he wouldv bn fired.
Alley: I will never forget the utterly lost and completely unprepared look on Kelly’s face as the TV cameras showed him leading ND into Clemson stadium. That game was lost before it began.
At least he had an excuse for not being ready for the Alabama game, what with all the discussions about job interviews.
I think my biggest gripe with BK (beyond his choice of D Coordinator) has been the lack of proper game preparation in all phases. It has taken BK far too long to suddenly figure out that we need more ‘thudding” in practice. The Irish need to tackle better – that has been the case for a long time. The Irish need to be better prepared, have better game planning, and play with energy. This all goes to coaching. As for academics; Stanford seems to do very well, despite high academic demands. Why can’t the Irish do the same?
Many posts over last few years here have strongly supported BK. Many posts here over the past few years have warned against the limited abilities of BK and therefore his staff. Note the last sentence in this string by David of 9/24 “BK long ago finished what he could do”. I agree with David. Have for several seasons now. Although I have complimented BK on this site in the past, on the improvements he has brought over the previous post Lou coaches, I have warned at the same time, he is NOT the coach to return ND to yearly prominance and running for the national championships / bowl 6. The 2nd and 3rd paragraphs above in Bob Rodes 9/23 post are very much to the point. The stats he presents in the third paragraph are spot on.
I have written about specifics of lack of consistent dominating lines on BOTH sides of the ball (o-line at times have been there though), poor tackling, poor defensive back ball skills, no pass rush, poor game planning, poor game management, getting out muscled-lack of physicality, and many more points, on and on…….you all know them. I see many fewer posts defending BK. Even many of his most passionate defenders now see he has long ago played out his string at ND.
The right guy is out there to go the final steps to the next level. Is Swarbrick the guy to find him? Whole nother subject.
I believe many of notredames current struggles falls on this coaching staff. Kelly’s last 4 recruiting classes have been in the 10 to 12 average range. I’ve heard many former coaches say a team in the top 10 to12 in recruiting should be in the national title hunt. Is notredames overall talent as good as Alabama or Ohio state. No, but I don’t think the gap is as big as it looks. The fiesta bowl was played lat new years day. If the next day notre dame fired Kelly and his entire coaching staff and replaced them with urban Meyer and his coaching staff notre dame would currently be 3 and 0 and would run the table. I would bet on it.
Chuckie: University students fail courses. How does that make the university better?
I agree about the schedule. I want notre dame to play a good schedule but these schedules are too difficult. Play 7 home 4 away 1neutral site. You have the 5 acc and usc Stanford navy. I’m okay with those 8. The other 4 should be 2easy to start every season. And 2 good opponents who year in and year out win 8 or 9 games. Play home and home series with byrigham young, Arkansas,west Virginia, Kansas state, Iowa.Wisconsin. you need to start every season with 2 easy games so If you are starting. New qb and a bunch of new starters they get playing time and experience before you play a good opponent.look at Ohio state. They started a mostly young new team. Their first 2 games bowling green and Tulsa. Then Oklahoma.
What is the meaning of having victorious sports in universities?
Bob:
“turning the team around” from that dark period of abject negligence is an accomplishment any merely competent D1 coach would have achieved within three seasons at ND…..just as Kelly did.
Like any CEO in any business, you don’t keep and pay a guy for 12 or 15 or 20 years for only managing to do that. You look for the right guy to then move things further along.
Kelly long ago finished doing what he could do.
There is a lot of irresponsibility to go around. Notre Dame wants to be a great university. Yet for a generation the have pretended that the game that got them here is irrelevant to that goal. If you want to be great you excel at everything, football included. Swarbrick is great deal doer but a horrible judge of men and with no football experience when he began.
The mistake was hiring a guy that needed top college or pro experience to excel here. We were lucky to have a great year in 2012 but it covered up the weaknesses of the coaching staff, the failure of Swarbrick to exercise leadership and lack of understanding how football was tied up with the soul of Notre Dame. Kelly knew it was untrue he even tried to jump ship and Diaco did. They were loyal to themselves and not our catechism. The guys they recruited were often the wrong types of guys. But that was based on the fact that they were the wrong type of recruiters. It has nothing to do with academic standards. Make Swarbrick the ad lawyer, hire a new ad that understands football and motivation as much as Lou and go get a coach like the Msu guy that shows discipline, teaching skills and dignity.
And finally go hire the best DC in the nation.
If you want to be great go down to the grotto and pray that Father Jenkins will remember the words of father hesburgh “The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision.”
A couple of points. Notre Dame has beaten a good Stanford team the last two times they have played them at home, and lost the last two away games. The more usual pattern is that they beat a team like Stanford when they play them at home, and then lose an away game or two to much weaker teams. If the usual pattern holds, they beat Duke and Syracuse fairly easily, almost lose to NC State, and then manage to beat Stanford and Miami. Everyone jumps on the BVG has solved the problems of the defense bandwagon, and then they barely scratch by against the service teams (both of whom have over 300 yards rushing and put up 30+ points on us), give up 25 to VT on a day when the offense isn’t firing on all cylinders and make it 27-25 on 6 Yoon FG’s and a TD, and then lose by 10 to a 6-5 USC team. Then they play someone like Mississippi in a bowl game and get spanked. 9-4.
Now, Barry’s view notwithstanding, I’m not seeing recruiting as the big problem here. I don’t buy into the bromide that our academic standards are so much higher than everyone else’s that we can’t recruit competitively. Furthermore, while great recruiting helps, of course, it’s overrated as an indicator of a team’s eliteness, especially when we’re going by how many average “stars” a team has.
By that standard, MSU hasn’t recruited anywhere near as well as we have in the last four years. Our 247 ranks were 5, 11, 13 and 15, while MSU’s were 35, 25, 22 and 17. With those players, MSU has gone 13-1, 11-2 and 12-2, with two playoff appearances and a 2-0 start this year, the kind of performance we’d like to see in our team at a minimum. In that time, we have gone 9-4, 8-5 and 10-3, with no playoff appearances and a 1-2 start this year. Our players are at least as good as theirs, and the fact that we don’t play as well as they do is on the coaches.
Kelly has done a good job of turning the team around, after the disasters during the Kevin White years. (If Duke beats us, I’ll take back half of what I’ve said against Kevin White, since he’s the AD at Duke now.) I trust Swarbrick to make a change if it’s necessary to bring us to the next level, but I don’t think Kelly has gone as far as he can to improve the team yet. I’m becoming less sure about VanGorder, but if we win out from here (including our bowl game) I’ll say he’s proved himself.
Well Kelly is the Iowa coach come to life in South Bend. There is a guy that doesn’t have a clue–but his guys sure do play for him.
ND is a soft team period.
As I asked here before, the big question is which stadium gate will be the location of Kelly’s statue ?!
I propose an effigy wearing a pair of well-worn tap shoes, hoofing to the beat of “Dancing in the Dark”
The problems with Notre Dame football are many. But the main items are these: Since the academic standards are so high at ND, they must get every five star athlete that can fit academically. They simply do not. I don’t think they have as many great players as they think, despite great recruiting. Second, they continue to schedule very tough early games, something they do not appear ready for. They continue to schedule Big 10 teams, which have to be played in the first few weeks of the season. They should stay away from them, but no they add Michigan back to the schedule and will also play Ohio State. Other than Stanford and USC, they play five ACC teams and Navy. You never know from year to year which ACC teams will be good. Florida State and Clemson appear to be terrific. Then you add Miami which could be an up and coming team. Until they loosen up the schedule early and recruit better, being an independent, they have no chance.
I will comment, since there is low energy among us. It is correct and we are all real tired of it and realize this may be it. I say this because the job has become exponentially tougher lately. We now have a successful Mark Dantonio and super stars Urban Meyer and Jim Harbaugh in the neighborhood. Makes a tough recruiting job that much tougher. I think we will always be able to score but will not field a championship defense even it BVG goes packing.