Brian Kelly will win more games than anyone in Notre Dame football history

It’s been a rollercoaster of a ride for Notre Dame football coach Brian Kelly, but as it stands, he’s on pace to win more games than any coach in Irish history.

Rockne. Parseghian. Leahy. Holtz. Those are legendary Notre Dame football coaches who make up the Mount Rushmore of Irish leaders in the eyes of most fans. Their accomplishments solidified Notre Dame’s place as a college football blue blood.

Like it or not, Brian Kelly is going to finish his coaching career at Notre Dame as a part of any conversation you have about those coaches.

Kelly is about to begin his 10th season as the head coach of Notre Dame football. That alone is an accomplishment, as the current bottom-line nature of of college football — a multi-million dollar business on most FBS campuses — puts more pressure on coaches to win immediately and consistently than in any other time throughout the sport’s history.

Never has there been more parity in the sport than there is now. From recruiting to television exposure, every team who takes the field on Saturdays feels like they have a shot at the top prize.

Brian Kelly has navigated those muddy, choppy waters over the last decade, survived, and kept the Irish program in the national conversation.

Despite appearances in the BCS Championship Game and College Football Playoff, Kelly’s greatest accomplishment at Notre Dame is pulling himself off of a hot seat that was sitting at the bottom of the grave of his coaching career in 2016. A 4-8 season doesn’t cut it at Toledo, much less Notre Dame. To ignore the noise and get back on track like he did is nearly unheard of in today’s game.

Kelly doesn’t have a national title to his name, and it’s entirely possibly the he’ll never get one. As a result, he’ll likely never be mentioned as the greatest coach in Notre Dame history. That said, as it stands, Brian Kelly is on pace to win more games as a Notre Dame football coach than anyone in history.

He currently has 81 wins as head coach of the Irish. Sure, 21 of those wins were vacated due to NCAA violations, but those games happened.  We watched them. He won them, and no NCAA penalty can erase the memories and emotions of those games.

Brian Kelly’s contract runs through the 2021 season. If he only wins eight games per campaign during that time, he will have 105 wins — tying him with Knute Rockne as the all-time leader.

He’ll likely average more than eight win per season, meaning when it’s all said and done, no Notre Dame football coach will have ever been victorious in more games than Brian Kelly was in his tenure.

Despite what you think of Brian Kelly and what he has and has not accomplished during his time at the helm of the Irish, that would be a magnificent feat — and every Notre Dame fan should be rooting for it to happen.