Notre Dame Football: Where does Brian Kelly rank among CFB coaches?

Notre Dame Football: Where does Brian Kelly rank among college football coaches?

So, which active coaches are actually better than Brian Kelly?

Let’s start with the easy ones. Dabo Swinney and Nick Saban are better than Kelly. It’s ok to admit that. It gets more complicated from there, though.

The active coaches to win a National Championship, besides Swinney and Saban, are Jimbo Fisher, Mack Brown, and Ed Orgeron. That’s it. It’s also not that hard to see Kelly as being better than any one of them.

Fisher only won a National Championship at Florida State with a generational talent at quarterback, and he did have to recruit Jameis Winston, but he never recruited another decent quarterback there, and he stopped recruiting linemen altogether. When Texas A&M came with the checkbook open, Florida State was starting their tailspin and it was such a bad one they’re still reeling from the mess he left them in.

Meanwhile, he hasn’t done much in College Station, yet. Mack Brown, meanwhile, is approaching two decades since he won a National Championship and a decade since Texas ran him out of town. He’s got North Carolina looking much improved, but Kelly and the Irish just smacked them around at home.

As for Ed Orgeron, it’s appearing more and more like he was a one-year wonder, who has massive off-the-field issues, and a career 61-41 record. Oh, and Kelly beat him too.

Kelly is better than any of the three National Championship coaches, outside of Saban and Swinney. Make an argument Fisher is better if you want. He did beat Kelly in 2014. Just remember that he hasn’t won more than nine games since 2016.