Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly isn’t going anywhere
The loss to Michigan has many Notre Dame fans calling for Brian Kelly’s job.
Notre Dame fans are not exactly being subtle. They’re loudly demanding change at the top of the football program. This Saturday’s embarrassment to Michigan was too much to bear. Forever coming up short and often not even coming close in big games has gotten on the nerves of Notre Dame fans.
Man fans are clamoring for Brian Kelly to be fired.
Here’s the thing — it’s a waste of breath. Kelly won’t be fired now, at the end of the season, or for the foreseeable future. Accept that now, because going through life upset about who your football coach is going to be is just an unpleasant way to go through fandom.
You might be thinking, “Why won’t Brian Kelly be fired? He can’t get over the hump and win big games. We’re Notre Dame. We need to take the next step, and start winning National Championships again!”
To an extent, that’s fair. It’s expected that Notre Dame coaches will win big games. Kelly struggles in those big games. It seems that in every New Year’s Six or BCS Bowl the Irish have made under Kelly, they’ve been blown out.
It’s fine to want to take the next step, but be wary of taking two steps back in the process. Notre Dame’s administration is very aware of that reality. Making a bad firing followed by a bad hire is how an Athletic Director gets fired.
Plenty of teams have taken huge steps backwards, looking to improve. ECU was good for 7 or 8 wins annually under Ruffin McNeill. They wanted to start winning conference championships. Four seasons later, and they still haven’t won more than 3 games in a single season.
“We’re Notre Dame, we can choose our coach at will.”
Maybe you still have almost any coach to choose from at Notre Dame, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to succeed. Nebraska had the means to chooses any coach they wanted, and they got Scott Frost. Things haven’t been ideal since his hiring in Lincoln.
Speaking of Nebraska, maybe you remember them under Bo Pelini. They were respectable — not as good as they had been in the 1990s — but they were good. You could bank on a 9-3 or 10-2 season under Pelini. Nebraska could choose whomever they wanted to replace him. They got Mike Riley. Then, they plummeted to a .500 program.
You may think you’re improving, but you’re actually regressing.
Furthermore, take a realistic look at where Notre Dame is as a program. They have high academic standards and play in a cold region. The best players tend to come from the South. Being on national TV isn’t a rarity anymore. It’s expected. For young recruits, why would they want to go somewhere where the echoes are so loud that if they don’t live up the them, it’s a failure?
The truth is, Brian Kelly is by far Notre Dame’s best coach since Lou Holtz. Bob Davie never won a major bowl game or more than 9 games in a season. Tyrone Willingham only lasted three seasons, because he regressed into being .500. Charlie Weis flashed hope with back-to-back BCS Bowl appearances, but tripped to 3-9 before finding the mean at .500 himself.
It cost Notre Dame $19 million to buyout Charlie Weis. Brian Kelly has a career record of 86-36. Does Jack Swarbrick really want to go to the Notre Dame administration and ask for something in the range of $15 million to buyout a coach who’s been to the College Football Playoff and a National Championship Game?
No. He really doesn’t, especially when if the next coach starts off 6-6 or so, it’s Swarbrick’s head on the line.
Do things change if Notre Dame collapses and goes about 7-5 this season? Of course they do, but another 9-3 or 10-2 effort doesn’t change the Notre Dame coaching situation one iota.
Yes, Brian Kelly needs to take the next step forward, but with the exception of one fluke season, he’s always been a solid coach. Paying millions of dollars to potentially get worse is just a bad bet, especially since you’re more likely to get worse than better.
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If Notre Dame hasn’t improved by the end of 2021, then maybe things change. That’s when Kelly’s contract is up. Maybe when it won’t cost a buyout, Notre Dame will roll the dice on a new coach. That’s not anytime soon, though.