The man responsible for the reboot is Brian Kelly, full stop. Balis is important to the football program. But, he is literally not here without Brian Kelly and that is a fact. As he wasn’t here before Brian Kelly. And, in case you didn’t know. He came from UConn. Fricking UCon. Kelly hired the S&C coach from UCon and you’re going to sit here and like like it was the UCon S&C coach not everything else Brian Kelly did plus this hire, that got us here. Like I said, this is sad logic dude.
Notre Dame leaned on its brotherhood to find a way to win at Virginia Tech on Saturday.
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But, for the third time, Kelly himself couldn't build the culture. If he could, he'd have done it when he arrived, not 7 years after that.
Again, Kelly hired Balis and that's a commendable hire. Kelly should be given credit for it.
But this is about the culture moving forward, and Balis being retained is a HUGE part of maintaining and enhancing the culture that was built through the prior 5 seasons.
As for Balis coming from UConn? Balis worked with Urban Meyer at Utah and Florida with Mickey Marotti prior to that. So the guy clearly knows what's needed to build a championship level team.
Are you seriously holding it against him that he couldn't single handedly fix a sinking ship that was UConn football? Their program was already in dire straits prior to him arriving with Diaco. After Edsel left, his predecessors completely neglected recruiting. So Balis was working with laughably inferior talent across the board. Balis is an elite S&C coach, not a miracle worker. You still need talent to win games.
Now it's possible that ND could finish next season 9-3 or something disappointing to that extent. But I'd wager if they do finish the year with that record, it'll be because the competition is tougher than it has traditionally been.
As it's been stated, while ND has won the games it's expected to win, the schedules have been extremely manageable for much of the last 5 years. The last two years especially. In 2021, we played 1 team in the regular season that finished the year ranked, and lost. In 2020, we played 2, and won both, but the caveat being that win over Clemson being without Trevor Lawrence.
Kelly has gotten things done when he's expected to win, but he also has rarely had to deal with significant big time matchups. He's had 1 or 2 the last 4 seasons. Michigan in 2018, Georgia and Michigan in 2019 (lost both), Clemson and UNC in 2020, Cincinnati in 2021. I'd say it's a lot easier to win the games you're expected to win when you don't have very many big-time matchups to worry about. That likely won't be the case in '22, with a lot of seemingly strong teams, with a lesser chance they fizzle like UNC and Wisconsin did last year.
The reality is that Kelly has gotten ND to the point where they win games they're expected to win, but as Accountant stated, it's mainly because we were able to out-talent and out-depth those teams. Kelly should be commended for that, but if there's one thing that Kelly wasn't doing well enough at, it was putting forth the effort on the recruiting trail. Freeman, so far, is dominating on the trail. So considering the man responsible for laying the foundation for the physical/mental toughness is still here and we now have a coach who emphasizes getting more talent and depth than his predecessor, it's fair to conclude that we may continue to win those games where we out-talent and depth our opposition.
