Notre Dame Football: How the Irish can close the gap on college football’s elites

Notre Dame football, a traditionally elite program, has struggled to play to that legacy. How can the Irish reach that standard again?

Even at their best under Brian Kelly, Notre Dame football has been shy of the elite. Yes, they have two undefeated regular seasons, but they were embarrassed by Alabama in the BCS National Championship Game, and by Clemson in the Cotton Bowl. Add in the lack of major bowl wins during Kelly’s decade of coaching at Notre Dame, and it’s clear there’s something missing.

The real question, is what is missing? How can Notre Dame football close the gap in the 21st century’s elite programs?

To be clear, this isn’t an issue that started when Kelly walked through the door. It’s not like Brady Quinn and Charlie Weis managed to win a major bowl game, either. Tyrone Willingham flashed, briefly, but where did that take the program? Meanwhile, Bob Davie oversaw the program which Lou Holtz built sink back into mediocrity.

So, what’s been going wrong?

Some might argue that Notre Dame’s regular-season schedule, which is full of traditional rivals, isn’t difficult enough. By the time the Irish are playing college football’s elite teams, they’re ill-prepared to deal with the opposing talent.

Others love to say that Notre Dame football needs to join a conference. If they join a conference they’ll have more money from a media deal coming in, and they’ll get to prove themselves against a P5 conference. Theoretically, by playing a conference championship game, Notre Dame football would get more respect in polls than they do now.

This ignores the 9-10 P5 opponents that Notre Dame football plays every season, already. That’s just as much as anyone else in the country, and the Irish don’t cushion their schedule with an FCS game.

So, could it be as simple as teams like Clemson and Alabama have better coaches?

That’s not unreasonable. Charlie Weis was a strategic disaster, despite any claims he made of having a decided advantage. Under Brian Kelly, games against great coaches have been a struggle. It often feels like there’s a gap in preparedness between the program. Still, that’s not the biggest gap between the Irish and the game’s elite teams.

The issue is recruiting.

It’s no secret that the Irish hold its players to a higher standard, academically than most other schools. Add in Notre Dame being in cold South Bend, and it’s not easy to convince elite players to come to Notre Dame.

It’s even harder considering the arms race that is recruiting. Teams have multi-million dollar practice facilities, locker rooms, housing, and recreation for players. That matters more than whether or not Knute Rockne was head coach nearly a hundred years ago.

The tradition at Notre Dame isn’t worth much to recruits. The NBC deal, which used to be a huge tool for recruiting, isn’t a big deal in the modern world. Everyone is on TV. That doesn’t make the Notre Dame program special anymore.

Truly, recruiting is where Brian Kelly has struggled the most as a head coach. He simply doesn’t bring the same energy as a Dabo Swinney, or even a Mack Brown. Major recruits have expressed regret in how little they heard from Kelly. He, apparently, often doesn’t bother to reach out to key prospects.

Add in the difficulties inherent of recruiting players to South Bend, and Kelly needs to be better than that.

In his defense, Kelly has acknowledged his struggles to recruit at Notre Dame and has expressed a desire to fix past issues. He wants to do this by being more involved, and by targeting prospects earlier in the process.

That sounds good, but now it’s time to put it into action. If Kelly can’t get Notre Dame’s recruiting classes to be closer to top-5 than top-15, he’ll never get Notre Dame over the hill and back into the ranks of college football’s elite programs.