I think it's unreasonable to expect a perennial 7-6 or 8-5 team to ever have a shot at the playoff, let alone a shot every few years. In order for the playoff to be our peak, we need to be a 9-4 or 10-3 team in a "regular" year.
First of all, (although we may this year) we've never gone 7-6 before. To echo the sentiments of WhiskeyJack, Kelly has gone 8-5 in seasons that would hardly constitute as "regular" for a college football program.
With Brian Kelly:
2010 - he takes over a program that went 6-6 the year before. The transition, especially the installation of a new offense, is rough at first. Kelly discovers that his 5 star quarterback lacks the confidence and poise to start at a big time college program (regardless of the system, as proven by Crist's dead last finish in quarterback rating in 2012 at Kansas under Weis - who, despite his overall failures as a coach, made his only two qb's at ND into heisman candidates). He turns to a true freshman with notably limited physical attributes, ND falls to 4-5 at one point, but then demonstrates a heart and perseverance unseen under the previous coaching staff to win 4 straight against ranked Utah, Army, rival USC (who we hadn't beat since 2001), and Miami Fl. Considering it's his first year, he's installing a completely new offense, and what he had been left with (especially at the most important position field, qb - a true freshman Rees and one of the biggest qb busts in recent history), and the visible strides in determination and will to compete that Kelly instilled in his players - I'd give him an A -
2011 - Given an entire summer to evaluate Rees and Crist, Kelly goes with Crist again. My opinion is that he recognized that Crist's physical potential gave the team a much higher ceiling than Rees (with his physical limitations), were Crist to put it all together. I don't fault Kelly for wanting to shoot for potential greatness rather than settling for mediocrity. The season starts, it becomes glaringly apparent that Crist will never put it all together. We lose to USF because of turnovers (in my opinion, something that a coach can run drills in practice to avoid, but has no in-game control over). We lose to Michigan in one of the most absurd games I've ever seen (Up 24-7, these things happened: Denard Robinson goes 2-2 on throws that were absolute prayers, a goal line fumble bounces right into Denard's hands for an easy TD, next possession our kick return is for 1 yard to our 10 and then our punter shanks it for 20 something yards, and Rees fumbled on Michigan's 9 when a TD would've put us up by 10 with like 5 minutes left. Instead we lose 35-31. Michigan goes onto an 11-2 record). We put the 0-2 start behind us and find a way to finish 8-3 (with Rees at qb), including a win against an 11-win MSU team and competitive losses to a top-10 Stanford team, a 10-2 USC team (a game in which we gave the other team yet another 80+ yard fumble return for a td), and a 9-win FSU team (that was on the cusp of rising to be arguably the best program in college football - we'll see what the playoffs say about that - and accruing a 40-2 record over the next 3 years). This year's team was derailed by turnovers and poor qb play. I'll say that turnovers (especially fumbles) are about 50% coaching and Kelly was doing a decent job with qb's he had. I'd give Kelly a B for this year.
2012 - Kelly did the most with what he had. Leaned on his stellar D and successfully managed qb inconsistencies to push the team to an undefeated regular season. A stacked Bama team exposed lots of our deficiencies, and you'll hear no argument from me that Saban isn't better at game planning (he's the best) than Kelly. But I see the Bama game more as evidence of the incredible job that Kelly did getting this team to an undefeated regular season. Kelly gets an A (would be an A+ if not for the NC game)
2013 - Golson is suspended all season for academics and we're forced to use Rees. Perhaps by this point we should have a better backup plan than Rees, but the quarterback that was recruited to be developed to backup Rees had overtaken him as a starter. Our D is absolutely ravaged by injuries (specifically our front 7). Kelly can't be faulted for his recruiting here, he recruited great on the d-line, ND-specific standards restricted him from being able to recruit the amount of players required to deal with the kind of rare injury situation with which he was dealing. Rees throws 9 int's and completes under 50% of his passes in our four losses to Michigan, Oklahoma (finished 11-2 and whooped Bama that year, Rees threw a pick six plus another INT inside our territory in the first two minutes of the game to give them 14-0 lead, we play next 58 minutes to a 21-21 draw), Pittsburgh (a game in which our best player was ejected on a questionable call, we fumbled inside the 10, and lost by a td), and Stanford (finished ranked #5, we lost by a td) - despite Kelly recognizing Rees' deficiencies and condensing the playbook in an attempt to make it easier on him. All the losses were competitive, and certainly would have been winnable if not for Rees' turnovers and injuries - although the Michigan game we lost because our D made Devin Gardner look like Vince Young. If you count Golson, we have 53 starts lost to injury or suspension, which would have been the second highest in cfb this year. We also beat 10-win USC, 10-win ASU, and gave the Spartans their only loss of the season to keep them out of the NC game. I'd give Kelly a B+ for finishing 9-4 this year, given the difficult schedule, the injuries, Golson's suspension, and the fact that I think Kelly attempted to create an offense that would make Rees less susceptible to turnovers but ultimately couldn't
2014 - This season started out so well and then went so wrong. We finally saw the explosive offense that Kelly had been wanting with Golson under center. Unfortunately, the nature of the Kelly's offense that gave Golson the opportunity to create, improvise, and put up lots of TD's also gave him the freedom to create alot of turnovers. This is why this season has been so frustrating. We saw the closest this offense has come to reaching it's potential, but we also saw the same turnover issues and inconsistent QB play that have plagued the offense throughout the whole course of Kelly's time at ND. Kelly's not an idiot, I guarantee you he recognizes this is the consistent source of losing games we shouldn't lose and I guarantee you he's put more than enough effort into coaching Golson to avoid these turnovers - maybe Kelly just can't coach QB's, maybe his offense makes QB's more susceptible to turnovers, maybe he's just gotten unlucky with a string of QB's who have an incredible penchant for boneheaded throws and lack of ball security. The defense looked stellar at first, and then collapsed. I'm not sure what to make of the. The collapse came right after the Joe Schmidt injury, and he had been referred to as a coach on the field, so I'm sure that had something to do with it. We also had injuries to Day, Jones, Riggs, Collinsworth, Cage, and some I'm forgetting. And this isn't to mention the fact that we were already missing Russell (who many thought would've been right up there with Jaylon as our best player this year), Ishaq, Moore, and Hardy (and Daniels on O), which were 5 scholarship slots unable to contribute any sort of depth that would've been nice to have given the rash of injuries. Still, apart from the injuries and suspensions; apart from the last second losses to FSU, NW, and Louisville; apart from all the bad luck, the thing that makes this season the most disappointing is that the team gave up. The determination and will to compete that Kelly had noticeably instilled in his players was one of my main reasons for loving him as a coach, and the players lost it at the end of the season. We'll see if they get it back against LSU. But as it stands now, even despite the injuries and suspensions and all the bad luck, I'd give Kelly a C for this season.
So, admittedly there's cause for concern. This has been Kelly's worst season. But I also think it's worth noting that Kelly has gone through a run of bad luck that most coaches never have to experience. Sure many teams have separately experienced a 5 star QB bust, a season of bad luck with injuries, a season plagued by turnovers, a suspension of a starter or a star, etc. But all in combination and in multiple years in a row? No way. So to assert that any of 2010,11,13,or 14 were "regular" years and 8-5 is what can be expected from Kelly under "regular" circumstances is a bit unfair in my opinion. Kelly has had 4 seasons where his teams were relatively unlucky and they underachieved, and 1 season where his team was relatively lucky and overachieved. The point is, luck usually evens out over time but it hasn't yet for Kelly. So is Kelly a good coach? Yes, I think so. I think he is the kind of coach who is capable of winning 10 games a year on average - assuming that, while some seasons he'll be overall unlucky and some seasons he'll be overall lucky, luck will balance itself out over time. And I think 10 wins a year at Notre Dame makes someone a good coach. Is he an elite coach? I don't know. To me, an elite coach is someone who can consistently win 10 games a year AND take advantage of the seasons when things fall into place for your team by winning a national championship.
I think next year, for many reasons, will be a year in which things fall into place. We'll have most starters back plus Russell to replace Riggs, we'll have plenty of depth from young guys filling in for injured players, we play a schedule that looks challenging enough to get us into the playoffs but not too daunting. Statistics say that the amount of injuries we've suffered this year and the year before makes the probability of us being unlucky with injuries next year very unlikely. After two straight offseasons of teammates getting kicked off the team, I'm betting no one will do anything stupid this offseason. The only thing that concerns me is turnovers. If we shoot ourselves in the foot with turnovers again next season, then I think it's clear that Kelly is just a good coach who has some flaw in his coaching that makes his players susceptible to turnovers. But if we finally have an offense that reigns in the turnovers, then I think we've got an elite team next year and it will show in their record. I'll give Kelly a pass on this season and wait for next to see if he's a truly a good coach.
