Brian Kelly receives the dreaded vote of confidence from Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick.
“Anytime that your athletic director has to come out and say that, as a head coach you’re disappointed that any kind of comments like that have to be made,” Kelly said Tuesday during his weekly press conference.
Swarbrick said last week to ESPN that the embattled leader “will lead this team out of the tunnel opening day next year.”
Notre Dame football fans, in droves no less, have the pitch forks out for him. Although I strongly disagree with them, I get their frustration, and to quote Bill Clinton, “I feel their pain.” Prominent Midwestern media figures have called for Brian Kelly to step down and end his regime in South Bend.
Again although I see their side of this issue, I am on the total opposite side of the fence.
Kelly just received a lucrative six-year extension at the beginning of the year. To buy him out now, or at the end of the year, would convey to the world that the University of Notre Dame is rather fickle regarding who they deem worthy to lead their storied football program.
Yes, the BK buyout is rather expensive, and unless they lose out the rest of the way, can you justify that? ND is currently 2-5 with some very tough games remaining against Miami, Virginia Tech, USC and Navy.
Given the current state of the team, and the schedule ahead, it looks like 4-8 is plausible, with 5-7 the absolute ceiling.
That should give Kelly another year because, dare I bring up his predecessor Charlie Weis?
Weis was sent packing in 2009, along with a $18 million parachute; which ND finally finished paying off just last December. I can’t imagine Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick pulling the trigger on another lengthy buyout right now; with the memory of the last one still so fresh in his mind.
Brian Kelly was Swarbrick’s first real huge hire in South Bend and his legacy will be somewhat tied to Kelly’s. While I admit that this season seems rather lost at this point, Swarbrick should give Kelly at least one more season to redeem himself.
He’s earned it; given his record leading the Irish. In his six seasons as Fighting Irish Head Coach, Kelly has gone 8-5 twice, 9-4 once, 12-1 and 10-3. That’s fairly consistent, and somewhat solid. It’s still not up to par with the lofty expectations of Notre Dame football and it doesn’t bring the program back up to where it was in prior to the 1990s.
Kelly has said on a few occasions that his team was just “two plays away from being 12-0 and making the playoff last season.”
While that is literally true, it’s a poor misnomer. If you’re going to play that game, then you must remember that the 2015 Fighting Irish were also two plays away from yet another 8-5 or 9-4 season.
A lot of football coaches perform this cliche attempt at an Old Jedi Mind Trick in their press conferences, but it’s most commonly associated with former Illinois Head Coach Tim Beckman. That’s because he tried this specific brand of doubletalk coachspeak ina manner that was much more clumsily egregious than most.
In the end only results matter, but above and beyond that, character counts.
It’s up to Brian Kelly how he runs to his program and how “strict he wants to be with the ol’ hickory dickory stick” as Ned Flanders would say.
A huge number of off-the-field issues have transpired under his watch, and perhaps Kelly might help his own cause by being more of a stricter disciplinarian?
We’ve seen him get hot tempered in a heart beat on numerous occasions, so we know he has no problem verbally chewing out his subordinates. Maybe you think he’s too harsh, maybe you think he’s too lax, maybe you think he’s just right in this regard.
Everyone has an opinion, and a very off-base one came from David Haugh of the Chicago Tribune.
Haugh has written a lot of awful hot takes, (declaring Illinois football redeemed and saved by Lovie Smith because they beat FCS for Murray State on opening day comes to mind), but what he wrote about Brian Kelly this preseason left all readers much less informed than they were prior to clicked on the link.
Haugh is a really nice guy, very professional, and down to Earth, but no David, sorry, Kelly did not put the hammer down and send a strong message by how he handled the six ND players arrested that early Saturday morning in August.
Unfortunately, player arrests seem pretty commonplace in most of college football these days. Kelly’s Irish teams haven’t stood out as being egregious in this regard. It won’t be for off-the-field reasons that end the Kelly regime. There have been grounds for dismissal, from an off-the-field perspective, during his regime and he survived it. Kelly doesn’t truly deserve the calls for his head that he’s receiving now when you look at the big picture of previous Notre Dame coaches.
There’s a reason Kelly has the longest tenure since Lou Holtz- he’s accomplished much much more than any of the guys who held the gig in between Holtz and Kelly.
If they’re 3-9 or 4-8, or something like that again in 2017, then the conversation will really ramp up. Kelly has already axed former Defensive Coordinator Brian VanGorder, meaning that he no longer has anyone else to sacrifice, and the onus is now all on him from here on out.
Notre Dame now drops to 0-1 all time in games played 1.5 miles west of a Hurricane. #HurricaneMatthew #NDvsNCSU
— Paul M. Banks (@PaulMBanks) October 8, 2016
Both the buck and the blame will stop with Kelly. Provided of course he does not have to play another game in a hurricane.
Of course, the heat is definitely on right now. Kelly got into a tiff with one of Stanford’s coaches after the Irish blew a late second half lead and lost to Stanford 17-10 Saturday night.
Q. After the game, what did the Stanford strength coach say to you that set you off?
Brian Kelly: “Bye-bye.”
Q. And that was it?
Brian Kelly: “Yeah, bye-bye.”
Game ends with Brian Kelly exchanging words with a Stanford strength coach. Heated exchange.
— Pete Sampson (@PeteSampson_) October 16, 2016
That “bye-bye,” implying “hey, you’re about to be terminated” came from David Grimes, who happens to be the strength coach Kelly shoved during last year’s game against Temple. Does Grimes know something we don’t?
No, he just has “history” with Kelly and just decided to embrace the spirit of a popular song from the insanely popular musical Hamilton. “I am not going to throw away my shot”…..at kicking Kelly when he’s down, Grimes seemingly reasoned.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous radio and television talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram and Sound Cloud.