See, this is an interesting page after all, lol...
Seriously, both Whiskyjack and Pat make legitimate points, to which there are rebuttals in some cases, and that's the tension we have as Irish fans: We either remember personally or have been told/have read about the great ND teams of the 60s, 70s, and then the late 80s/early 90s of Holtz. We know what it feels like to be one of the best teams nearly every year. That's what's made the last 20 years so hard. We also know what it feels like to be ascendant, when you know you might not quite be there, but you are getting there. But we also can sense what it's like to be a perennial second tier type team, too -- pretty good, but not really up there with Alabama and the top SEC teams, or Oregon, Ohio State and a few others -- I define that as meaning that pretty much every year having a shot at the title. I think what we want, and what we hope is reasonable, is that we get back into that top tier -- not expecting to win every year, but not feeling like last year was just a cameo.
So the tension is, we want to be top tier, but we don't want to appear disloyal or greedy in the face of setbacks or disappointments.
Maybe it's the misery of the last 20 years, but it makes you worry that every lapse -- the tail kicking in the NT game, the recruiting reversals, the fairly frequent narrow wins against inferior programs -- make you a little rabbit-eared that you hear "Major Letdown" and Mediocrity coming down the track. Even Kelly's "apologies" after narrow wins like Purdue ("It's great to get a win on the road.") just irritates me, because I want him to communicate that we expect to pound teams like Purdue into the sod.
I said, even in these pages, that I didn't need Kelly to win a title in his second or third year, but that you wanted a series of bowl wins, so that you feel like you're getting better. You want to feel that the program is healing, that it's sound, and not the beneficiary of a flash in the pan, or Year of Destiny, year: you want to be really, consistently good. I am sick to death of the media scorn, the loudmouth SEC fans and Big Ten fans telling me ND is not "relevant." I want to be what I know we can be.
I think only several years of top flight records, consistently good bowl performances, top 10 rankings, and top recruiting classes will get us feeling like we've gotten back. And until then, there's always going to be whispering or even shouting doubts.
I think Kelly can do it, but the pessimism (or in my case, uncertainty) some feel is not crazy to me.
