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Notre Dame Football: Brian Kelly Needs to Finally Win at Stanford

By Daniel Morrison

PALO ALTO, CA - NOVEMBER 25: Head coach Brian Kelly of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish shakes hands with head coach David Shaw of the Stanford Cardinal after they game at Stanford Stadium on November 25, 2017 in Palo Alto, California. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
PALO ALTO, CA - NOVEMBER 25: Head coach Brian Kelly of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish shakes hands with head coach David Shaw of the Stanford Cardinal after they game at Stanford Stadium on November 25, 2017 in Palo Alto, California. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images) /
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Palo Alto has not been kind to the Notre Dame coach.

Saturday will mark the 10th time a Brian Kelly-coached Notre Dame team will take on Stanford. His record against Stanford is an uninspiring 2-6 (1 win vacated). Neither of those two wins have been away from South Bend.

If there was ever a year to end a long string of futility, it would be this season. Stanford is struggling worse than any season since the early Jim Harbaugh years. On the other side, Notre Dame is looking to finish the regular season with double digits, and clearly has the superior athletes.

Winning at Stanford would be a huge monkey off Kelly’s back, and would help keep hope alive of an Orange Bowl bid for the Irish. Going to a major bowl, like the Orange Bowl, would then give Kelly yet another chance to get the big game monkey off his back as well.

In shorter terms, this could be a very impactful win for Kelly, even if it isn’t a very important game to college football as a whole this season.

Look at the losses Kelly’s Notre Dame teams have suffered against Stanford:

  • 2010-(8-5) Notre Dame 14, (12-1) Stanford 37
    • In Kelly’s first season, Jim Harbaugh’s Cardinal beat down Kelly’s Fighting Irish. It was never a close game, but it wasn’t supposed to. Kelly was taking over the mess that Charlie Weis left. Stanford was on their way to the Orange Bowl. Oh, and they were quarterbacked by Andrew Luck.
  • 2011-(8-5) Notre Dame 14, (11-2) Stanford 28
    • Another Andrew Luck Stanford team that was headed to a BCS bowl, and another match-up where Notre Dame didn’t have much of a shot. The Cardinal jumped to a 21-0 half-time lead, and that would be all they needed.
  • 2013-(9-4) Notre Dame 20, (11-3) Stanford 27
    • Coming off of Notre Dame’s dramatic win over Stanford in 2012, the two played another good game. This one came down to Notre Dame kicking field goals where Stanford found the endzone in the first half, and not enough of a comeback in the second half.
  • 2015-(10-3) Notre Dame 36, (12-2) Stanford 38
    • This may be the best game between the two in the Brian Kelly era. It was a top 10 match-up in the final week of the season. There were 10 lead changes, including one for Notre Dame to take the lead with just 30 seconds left. Oddly enough, Bryan VanGorder’s defense couldn’t get it done, letting up a game winning field goal as time expired.
  • 2016-(4-8) Notre Dame 10, (10-3) Stanford 17
    • This Notre Dame team had a fluke, terrible, season. They still had the talent to compete at a high level, though. That’s how they kept it close, actually jumping out to a 10-0 halftime lead. They couldn’t score anymore, and ended up blowing this lead.
  • 2017 (10-3) Notre Dame 20, (9-5) Stanford 38
    • Like this year, Notre Dame should have been able to go into Stanford and win. They didn’t. It was a close, back-and-forth game going into the final quarter. Notre Dame even had a 20-17 lead. That made losing by three scores hurt even worse. It only took 5 minutes to give up 21 unanswered points by shear ineptitude of both offense and defense.

By now it seems that Stanford, and more importantly Coach David Shaw, are in Coach Kelly’s head. They’ve had his number in such a major way that it seems Shaw just knows what’s coming before it actually happens.

That’s been Kelly’s issue in big games, the great coach across the field knows everything Notre Dame will do before they actually do it.

He now has a chance to begin reversing that course. Notre Dame can build off last season’s blowout win over Stanford, and prove to themselves that the Cardinal are not boogeymen, but just another team which Notre Dame can consistently beat.

This may seem like an easy win in the context of this season, but there are ghosts here for Kelly. He needs this win. He needs it because beating Stanford consistently and on the road shows that he is improving as a coach and building Notre Dame past being a good program and back into great one.

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On the other hand, a loss in this game would be devastating. It would take away any NY6 hope this Notre Dame team still has. It would also prove that there are limitations to Kelly’s coaching that he is unable to surpass.

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