ANY coaching hire, other than Nick or Urban, is a crapshoot. A guy can be enormously successful at a small school or even at a top 20 type program and be a bust when he moves up to a top 10 program. Every place is different and involves different circumstances. Even guys who are the best OC or DC in the country at a top 5 school are often busts when they sit behind the big desk.
I know you guys are frustrated with Kelly and I don't blame you. I'd want a change too. No matter who you get, though, there's about a 50/50 chance they'll do no better.
This is a tough one as you are right about predicting future success. What people were excited by for Kelly was his performance at Cincinatti.
He took 3 star guys and got outsized performance from them. When they faced a really good team they would usually get beaten, but that was to be expected given their overall level of talent. I think people felt he would be able to get the same outperformance with 4 star talent at ND which would translate to almost yearly contention.
But what happened is he is still losing to the really good teams, and worse fairly frequently to teams with less overall talent. His success at Cincy has not translated. And as people see the flaws, and the lack of continued growth away from them , the frustration of not getting what they expected grows.
It's fair to say, based upon past performance, that the coaches and not the players are the main problem. The talent is there to be better with a coaching staff that knows how to maximize it. People now realize that this is not that staff, and now that we have recruiting pipelines people want to upgrade the coaching to match.
