ND Oversold on Kelly?

[Irish Insanity]

It's worth mentioning that 30 (Michigan) and 21 points (Oklahoma) would have been enough to win every game in regulation last year except for the NCG.

While Tommy has been questionable at best the last few games, so many people seem to miss this point when comparing him and Golson and their ability to lead this team. The pressure that Tommy is under is so much greater than it would be for Golson not only for the fact he got tossed back in as the starter to a team that expects more than he's capable of, but also he needs to lead this team to score quite a few more points than last year because the D isn't where it was.

This is absurd.

Yes, it is.

Uhhh, yes.

Brian Kelly is a great coach except--errr, because, Notre Dame went to the ****ing national championship last year (meaning he rebuilt the program in three years), he's coached teams to BCS bowls three out of the last five years, and his winning percentage for coaches who have won 200+ games is first among active coaches, for 150+ wins he's third, for 100+ wins he's fifth, for 50+ wins he's 8th, among total active coaches he's 17th. He's pretty ****ing good at what he does.

How was BK to fix all the transfers, Golson situations, and graduations. Was he suppose to stop the seniors from graduating? Or was he suppose to pull some strings to keep Golson around and hope there was never another issue that ultimately brought out the first to the public with it? Or was he suppose to pay the 'girls' to move up here that some of the guys move back for? Seems thats what everyone bitches about in other programs.

 

[Buster Bluth]

I don't think anyone is saying BK is BAD. I think they're saying he's "pretty good" or even "really good," just not "OMGWTFBBQ KNUTE LIVES!"

"I'm not a savior, Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King, or the Easter bunny. I'm a football coach, that's all. Just a football coach."

Knute Rockne had an 88% winning percentage. No one will ever touch that again.

Brian Kelly can (and more than likely will) do what the great Notre Dame coaches have done since Leahy: put Notre Dame in position to win a national championship at the rate of ~1 a decade. 1960s - 1, 1970s - 2, 1980s - 1, 1990s - ~1 (1993..). He's no Knute Rockne, but he doesn't really have to be either.

 

[ickythump1225]

Based.

On.

What?

If the bold were true, the rest of your post would be magical. You talk about last season but the "haters" are right to a certain extent. We got lucky a number of times as evidenced by the legitimate beat down we took in the NCG. I go to one game per season and last year it was Pitt. The team that took the field against Pitt would NOT be a consistent 10-12 win / NCG contender, and our current squad is SIGNIFICANTLY worse. No, not just because EG cheated on his accounting final. And yes, EVERY SINGLE TEAM IN THE COUNTRY deals with their best players graduating. Manti leaving is not unique to ND in any way, shape, or form so that's the biggest BS excuse.

Oh that's the biggest load of horesh!t I've ever heard in my life. We caught a lot of bad breaks and showed a lot of resolve and mental toughness to overcome them. Maybe you should stop basing your entire opinion of the state of the program and our head coach on the one game you go to per season.

It's funny that you mention that every team deals with players graduating but gloss over the rest of the post. Yes every team has good players graduate but not every team deals with a national scandal/embarrassment around that player and then loses his leadership. Manti was more than just our "best player," he was the soul of the team and we're lacking his leadership. You know Florida's never really been the same since they lost Tebow, sometimes players are just hard to replace.

And I didn't pin our state of being this season squarely on losing EG (although if you don't think losing your starting QB would hurt 99.99% of teams you need to watch more football) but it's the culmination of a whole crappy offseason. We're missing a lot of leadership on the defensive side of the ball and playing with our 3rd string QB on offense. A QB who is just a horrible fit for BK's system. How good would Alabama be with their 3rd string QB? Georgia? LSU? TAMU? This is one down season after we just went to the NCG.
It's like you guys have short term memory loss. This fanbase never fails to mystify me. You've completely forgotten about all of last season or if you do perchance happen to remember we went undefeated and appeared in the NCG you view it through the ESECPN lenses of "it was all luck" or "they weren't really that good." It's bullshyte. LSU got owned by Alabama in the NCG the year before yet I never seen their OWN FANS look back with revisionist history and talk about how it was all luck that they got there in the first place. We lost to a juggernaut (which is likely playing with a loose interpretation of the rules) in the midst of a historic dynasty run. NO ONE would have beat Alabama last year in that game, no one. I mean jeez with fans like ours who needs enemies?

 

[Whiskeyjack]

If the bold were true, the rest of your post would be magical. You talk about last season but the "haters" are right to a certain extent. We got lucky a number of times as evidenced by the legitimate beat down we took in the NCG.

Really tired of this meme. Getting blown out of the title game does not invalidate the rest of our accomplishments last season. Yes, we got some lucky bounces on that 12-0 run (no team goes undefeated without some luck), but we also overcame a lot of misfortunate as well. Linked for the umpteenth time, here's LAX's article on the subject.

I go to one game per season and last year it was Pitt. The team that took the field against Pitt would NOT be a consistent 10-12 win / NCG contender, and our current squad is SIGNIFICANTLY worse.

Yup, that was probably our worst game of the season. But we still won. And that was the same team that: (1) blew out a defensively-elite MSU team; (2) played a perfect game to overcome a very talented OU team; and (3) out-toughed a Stanford team that would later defeat Oregon and win a BCS game. Cherry-picking your facts discredits your entire argument.

No, not just because EG cheated on his accounting final. And yes, EVERY SINGLE TEAM IN THE COUNTRY deals with their best players graduating. Manti leaving is not unique to ND in any way, shape, or form so that's the biggest BS excuse.

Yes, our defense has taken a step back, but they're playing well enough now to win out over the rest of our schedule. The problem is our QB is incapable of running the power spread that Kelly wants to run. We'll see how well Kelly and Martin do tailoring the offense the Rees' limited skillset. They may decide to chalk this up as a rebuilding year and keep on with the pass-first offense if doing so will give the team the continuity it needs to hit the ground running with Golson next year.

I don't think anyone is saying BK is BAD. I think they're saying he's "pretty good" or even "really good," just not "OMGWTFBBQ KNUTE LIVES!"

Has anyone made this argument? Honest question here, because it seems like a total strawman. I'm as frustrated as anyone by our offensive playcalling this season. But I look at Kelly's record and the rebuilding jobs he's completed elsewhere, and I don't think we could get anyone better. Thus, my calls for patience.

 

[wizards8507]

While Tommy has been questionable at best the last few games, so many people seem to miss this point when comparing him and Golson and their ability to lead this team. The pressure that Tommy is under is so much greater than it would be for Golson not only for the fact he got tossed back in as the starter to a team that expects more than he's capable of, but also he needs to lead this team to score quite a few more points than last year because the D isn't where it was.

Yes, it is.

How was BK to fix all the transfers, Golson situations, and graduations. Was he suppose to stop the seniors from graduating? Or was he suppose to pull some strings to keep Golson around and hope there was never another issue that ultimately brought out the first to the public with it? Or was he suppose to pay the 'girls' to move up here that some of the guys move back for? Seems thats what everyone bitches about in other programs.

Right. How could any college program ever win when seniors graduate or their eligibility expires? That's such a unique problem to the 2012 Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Literally zero coaches in the rest of the country deal with the same thing.

It's not about stopping seniors from graduating. It's about having your juniors and sophomores ready to be as good in the next season as your seniors are in the current one.

 

[ickythump1225]

Knute Rockne had an 88% winning percentage. No one will ever touch that again.

Brian Kelly can (and more than likely will) do what the great Notre Dame coaches have done since Leahy: put Notre Dame in position to win a national championship at the rate of ~1 a decade. 1960s - 1, 1970s - 2, 1980s - 1, 1990s - ~1 (1993..). He's no Knute Rockne, but he doesn't really have to be either.

Thank you. The program is at a better point now than it has been since Lou left the program. Just because the progress isn't fast enough for some keyboard geniuses and armchair coaches doesn't mean it's not progressing. Excuse me if I'm going to put more faith in the man who has spent nearly his WHOLE LIFE building programs into winners and has a rock solid track record of winning and success over the opinions of petulant impatient fans who DEMAND 13-0 seasons every year no matter the situation, and who have never coached a pee wee football team let alone led a team to the NCG just last season.

 

[Irish Insanity]

Right. How could any college program ever win when seniors graduate or their eligibility expires? That's such a unique problem to the 2012 Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Literally zero coaches in the rest of the country deal with the same thing.

It's not about stopping seniors from graduating. It's about having your juniors and sophomores ready to be as good in the next season as your seniors are in the current one.

Considering we won every game by like .25 points last year (i know i'm exaggerating) we didn't have much of an opportunity to put the back ups in the position to gain the valuable experience. Plus our D wasn't as phenomenal across the board as the numbers showed. Our LBs and D Line play made the secondary look top notch.

And there are some players that you just won't see another one like them at their position. Like Manti. There is no replacing him, you move on and hope for someone respectable.

 

[Irish Insanity]

And I really don't understand why all the questioning of BK. I hate 3-2 especially one of the losses being to UofM, but there are quite a few people that picked UofM and OU as toss up games IIRC. So the team isn't to far off from many people expectations. Its not like we are 0-5 or that the team is a train wreck. The Ws and Ls seem to come as the QB play is. We know what the D is. The O is the question. It has no identity and consistency.

 

[wizards8507]

Has anyone made this argument? Honest question here, because it seems like a total strawman. I'm as frustrated as anyone by our offensive playcalling this season. But I look at Kelly's record and the rebuilding jobs he's completed elsewhere, and I don't think we could get anyone better. Thus, my calls for patience.

I think that was the OP's premise. His point wasn't really how "bad" BK is but about how "good" he's supposed to be based on all the fanfare when he was first hired.

I get your point about patience but BK kind of comes off as a d**k so that might be why people aren't keen to give him the benefit of the doubt. I'm not anti-BK by any stretch, I just think people look at last season and want to crown the man. We'll never cross the final hurdle if we have to get there on "heart" and "grit" for an entire season. That can buy you a game or two but you can't rely on it consistently.

Regarding Kelly building a program, I could buy that as an argument if the W's and L's weren't there but the other stuff was. I can be patient for a NC. But if this guy's supposed to be a program builder, the other things like development, recruiting, and retention should be where he shines the most.

 

[ickythump1225]

Has anyone made this argument? Honest question here, because it seems like a total strawman. I'm as frustrated as anyone by our offensive playcalling this season. But I look at Kelly's record and the rebuilding jobs he's completed elsewhere, and I don't think we could get anyone better. Thus, my calls for patience.

Solid post overall man but this point really stuck out to me. Honestly who is sitting out there right now that we could get that would be so infinitely better than BK? Bob Stoops? Urban Meyer? Jon Gruden? The way our fanbase acts you would think we're coming off a decade long string of dominance and this season is just some unfathomable dip and BK is just some scrub coach following in the footsteps of a legend. BK is the very best thing to happen to ND in a long long time. I'm going to give him a few more seasons before I fully judge him.

Notre Dame, like it or not, is a unique school and is NOT easy to win at. It's hard to recruit kids to A)a Catholic school B)a school with a rigorous academics C)a school in Indiana. Most of the elite prospects come from the Sun Belt and California. With the SEC seen as the best conference and most of the elite recruits playing in SEC-land it's an uphill battle to recruit a kid who has likely never seen snow to come to a school tucked away in the middle of nowhere in frozen Indiana far away from family, friends, and their favorite team growing up. Add in the fact that they must have good grades and will be expected to actually take classes and maintain legit grades and it's tough. BK is drawing in talent, and yes we've had set backs but man he's doing a great job all things considered.

There's no magic coach out there who is going to come in make everything wonderful overnight. Not even Nick Saban could do it overnight. Maybe he'd do a better job than BK and he's a better coach than BK. (And everyone else in the country for that matter.) But so what? Saban ain't coming here. Meyer ain't coming here. We have BK who is a good enough coach to get the job done. This year is a road bump. Stay strong and buckle up.

 

[IrishLax]

wizards... we did not get "lucky" last season. See Whiskey's post.

I agree with most everything else you're saying... at the same time, it's a fruitless discussion. There are only maybe 6 legitimate college coaches who I would take over Kelly... and that might be stretching too. Like, would I really want Saban running ND? Meyer? Not really.

Kelly is one of the best head coaches out there because of his strengths. Outstanding player development, outstanding CEO type mindset, strong ability to navigate the waters of ND, and very good leadership.

What he needs is some help. Some help from ND, some help from a real OC, some help from the whatever deities have cursed him with some bad luck (seriously, he had the Declan Sullivan tragedy AND Lennay Kekua ridiculousness happen... ignoring all other sh*t, those two incidents alone are insane freak occurrences). I'm 100% confident in Brian Kelly long term if he can weather this year effectively and get the right recruits in.

At the same time, the point about being "oversold" you have to think is accurate on some levels. His overall resume to this point isn't earth shattering. There are obvious issues. So when people think he's a golden god... that's probably overstating things. When people thing he sucks (looking at you pat)... that's probably overstating things in the other direction.

 

[wizards8507]

Considering we won every game by like .25 points last year (i know i'm exaggerating) we didn't have much of an opportunity to put the back ups in the position to gain the valuable experience. Plus our D wasn't as phenomenal across the board as the numbers showed. Our LBs and D Line play made the secondary look top notch.

First, thank you for disagreeing respectfully and not going off on how I'm full of horsesh*t or the dumbest poster you've ever read.

I agree with you about us winning by slim margins last year, and that's part of my point. It might be a reason why there was some falloff this year with guys not getting much PT, but it also speaks to the fact that we were far from a "convincing" 12-0 last season.

And there are some players that you just won't see another one like them at their position. Like Manti. There is no replacing him, you move on and hope for someone respectable.

Some people crowned Jaylon Smith the next Manti before he ever took a snap.

And I really don't understand why all the questioning of BK. I hate 3-2 especially one of the losses being to UofM, but there are quite a few people that picked UofM and OU as toss up games IIRC. So the team isn't to far off from many people expectations. Its not like we are 0-5 or that the team is a train wreck. The Ws and Ls seem to come as the QB play is. We know what the D is. The O is the question. It has no identity and consistency.

The issue isn't what we expected the day we found out about Golson or before Temple kickoff. It's about what we/fans thought the day BK was hired. "Promised land" type talk. If someone told you the day after BK was hired that Notre Dame would be sitting 3-2 on 10/3/2013 after barely beating Purdue and failing to blow out Temple, I think you would have been pretty upset.

 

[Buster Bluth]

wizards... we did not get "lucky" last season. See Whiskey's post.

I agree with most everything else you're saying... at the same time, it's a fruitless discussion. There are only maybe 6 legitimate college coaches who I would take over Kelly... and that might be stretching too. Like, would I really want Saban running ND? Meyer? Not really.

Kelly is one of the best head coaches out there because of his strengths. Outstanding player development, outstanding CEO type mindset, strong ability to navigate the waters of ND, and very good leadership.

What he needs is some help. Some help from ND, some help from a real OC, some help from the whatever deities have cursed him with some bad luck (seriously, he had the Declan Sullivan tragedy AND Lennay Kekua ridiculousness happen... ignoring all other sh*t, those two incidents alone are insane freak occurrences). I'm 100% confident in Brian Kelly long term if he can weather this year effectively and get the right recruits in.

At the same time, the point about being "oversold" you have to think is accurate on some levels. His overall resume to this point isn't earth shattering. There are obvious issues. So when people think he's a golden god... that's probably overstating things. When people thing he sucks (looking at you pat)... that's probably overstating things in the other direction.

/THREAD

 

[Irish Insanity]

What he needs is some help. Some help from ND, some help from a real OC, some help from the whatever deities have cursed him with some bad luck (seriously, he had the Declan Sullivan tragedy AND Lennay Kekua ridiculousness happen... ignoring all other sh*t, those two incidents alone are insane freak occurrences). I'm 100% confident in Brian Kelly long term if he can weather this year effectively and get the right recruits in.

This is the handicap I always see our program having. Most other programs run their school (as in the program comes before the school), at ND the school runs the program. Nothing is bigger than the school. When football is the most important thing at the school its easier to succeed as there are no barriers to break thru and nobody to ever say no. Thats not the case at ND. And never will be. More and more colleges seem to be moving in that direction, away from the student athlete and towards a football factory, and we are being left behind. And that will never change.

 

[IrishLax]

Solid post overall man but this point really stuck out to me. Honestly who is sitting out there right now that we could get that would be so infinitely better than BK? Bob Stoops? Urban Meyer? Jon Gruden? The way our fanbase acts you would think we're coming off a decade long string of dominance and this season is just some unfathomable dip and BK is just some scrub coach following in the footsteps of a legend. BK is the very best thing to happen to ND in a long long time. I'm going to give him a few more seasons before I fully judge him.

Notre Dame, like it or not, is a unique school and is NOT easy to win at. It's hard to recruit kids to A)a Catholic school B)a school with a rigorous academics C)a school in Indiana. Most of the elite prospects come from the Sun Belt and California. With the SEC seen as the best conference and most of the elite recruits playing in SEC-land it's an uphill battle to recruit a kid who has likely never seen snow to come to a school tucked away in the middle of nowhere in frozen Indiana far away from family, friends, and their favorite team growing up. Add in the fact that they must have good grades and will be expected to actually take classes and maintain legit grades and it's tough. BK is drawing in talent, and yes we've had set backs but man he's doing a great job all things considered.

There's no magic coach out there who is going to come in make everything wonderful overnight. Not even Nick Saban could do it overnight. Maybe he'd do a better job than BK and he's a better coach than BK. (And everyone else in the country for that matter.) But so what? Saban ain't coming here. Meyer ain't coming here. We have BK who is a good enough coach to get the job done. This year is a road bump. Stay strong and buckle up.

I disagree a bit. A ginormous amount of talent comes through Catholic high schools, so that isn't a huge hurdle. Good academics often helps as much (or more) than it hurts. Indiana isn't San Diego... but is it that much worse of a climate than Michigan? Ohio? Oklahoma? The answer is simply no.

To me, the hurdles will always be an uncommitted administration, a front-loaded tough schedule, and the refusal to cheat in the recruiting game (or break rules for students once they're on campus).

 

[Irish Insanity]

First, thank you for disagreeing respectfully and not going off on how I'm full of horsesh*t or the dumbest poster you've ever read.

I agree with you about us winning by slim margins last year, and that's part of my point. It might be a reason why there was some falloff this year with guys not getting much PT, but it also speaks to the fact that we were far from a "convincing" 12-0 last season.

Thats why I always thought last year that we were actually closer to the team the media always questioned as opposed to the one a large part of our fanbase seemed to crown the best ever.

Some people crowned Jaylon Smith the next Manti before he ever took a snap

.

I think that was more in the frame as starting as a Freshman and growing into that type of leader as opposed to picking up where he left off.

The issue isn't what we expected the day we found out about Golson or before Temple kickoff. It's about what we/fans thought the day BK was hired. "Promised land" type talk. If someone told you the day after BK was hired that Notre Dame would be sitting 3-2 on 10/3/2013 after barely beating Purdue and failing to blow out Temple, I think you would have been pretty upset.

I agree. But I also understand with the things that have happened such as transfers and the alleged sexual assault/suicide and the fake dead girlfriend and Declan and I'm probably missing a few, that there are some hurdles that have understandable held this program from progressing in the way we all thought it would when he was hired, I'm not claiming he is the saving grace, but taking the stance that another year maybe two at most will be the time to pass judgement.

 

[wizards8507]

I disagree a bit. A ginormous amount of talent comes through Catholic high schools, so that isn't a huge hurdle. Good academics often helps as much (or more) than it hurts. Indiana isn't San Diego... but is it that much worse of a climate than Michigan? Ohio? Oklahoma? The answer is simply no.

To me, the hurdles will always be an uncommitted administration, a front-loaded tough schedule, and the refusal to cheat in the recruiting game (or break rules for students once they're on campus).

What is that argument? I hear it a lot but I can't imagine a ton of kids are picking schools based on real grass versus field turf. I'm sure it's more than you feel like typing now but are there any articles or threads that go into that in detail? I consider myself fairly knowledgable about what happens between the goal posts but I'm far from an expert on university politics.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Solid post overall man but this point really stuck out to me. Honestly who is sitting out there right now that we could get that would be so infinitely better than BK?

I guess I phrased that poorly. See Lax's post above for a better explanation. Kelly's clearly among a very small group of elite college coaches. Considering all the unique challenges ND presents, no one else would be a definite upgrade.

 

[ickythump1225]

I disagree a bit. A ginormous amount of talent comes through Catholic high schools, so that isn't a huge hurdle. Good academics often helps as much (or more) than it hurts. Indiana isn't San Diego... but is it that much worse of a climate than Michigan? Ohio? Oklahoma? The answer is simply no.

To me, the hurdles will always be an uncommitted administration, a front-loaded tough schedule, and the refusal to cheat in the recruiting game (or break rules for students once they're on campus).

To some recruits maybe. However the standards weed out a lot of potentially talented recruits from get go. Some kids, no matter how many recruiting stars they have and no matter how much of a desire they have to attend ND simply can't because of academics. I find such a situation highly unlikely at places like Alabama, Georgia, LSU, OSU, Oklahoma, etc.

 

[ickythump1225]

I guess I phrased that poorly. See Lax's post above for a better explanation. Kelly's clearly among a very small group of elite college coaches. Considering all the unique challenges ND presents, no one else would be a definite upgrade.

I was actually agreeing with you.

 

[Patulski]

I don't know where Kelly will ultimately rank among ND coaches, but I'm thankful he took the job and am happy with the results so far.

We had hot rock bottom with Weis, getting beat in consecutive years by Navy and getting blown out at home by Air Force, and we needed somebody desperately to make us competitive again. With the exception of USC in 2011 and the NC game, we are competitive again and Kelly has already (a) made us tougher to beat at home and (b) had an undefeated season that took us to the title game. Thus, I do not find it even conceivable to question his value to Notre Dame football.

 

[wizards8507]

To some recruits maybe. However the standards weed out a lot of potentially talented recruits from get go. Some kids, no matter how many recruiting stars they have and no matter how much of a desire they have to attend ND simply can't because of academics. I find such a situation highly unlikely at places like Alabama, Georgia, LSU, OSU, Oklahoma, etc.

Not to be rude but how dumb are some of these kids? When I was an undergrad I knew people on the FENCING team with ACT/SAT scores that were something like half that of a "regular" ND undergrad.

 

[IrishLion]

To me, the hurdles will always be an uncommitted administration, a front-loaded tough schedule, and the refusal to cheat in the recruiting game (or break rules for students once they're on campus).

Bingo. These are all of the reasons (in a nutshell) why it is ridiculous to start calling for BK's head. With the above limitations, it takes more than two or three years to build up a program at a place like ND. It's simply unrealistic to assume everything is going to be perfect from here on out, even when the QB situation (finally) gets settled. There is more than just beating opponents when it comes to managing ND. It is still an ongoing process, but a process that BK is handling.

Even if we did get rid of BK and got somebody that Pat wanted, this program would be in the shitter for another two or three years through the transition. It wouldn't be all magical, "hooray we got Nick Saban, here come 12 national championships!"

Patience!

 

[tussin]

Uhhh, yes.

Brian Kelly is a great coach except--errr, because, Notre Dame went to the ****ing national championship last year (meaning he rebuilt the program in three years), he's coached teams to BCS bowls three out of the last five years, and his winning percentage for coaches who have won 200+ games is first among active coaches, for 150+ wins he's third, for 100+ wins he's fifth, for 50+ wins he's 8th, among total active coaches he's 17th. He's pretty ****ing good at what he does.

I've been busy, couldn't respond earlier....

But, read his post. No one is saying BK is a bad coach, but the question being brought up in this thread are completely fair.

You can legitimately question the following things with BKs regime (all of which have been mentioned in this thread):
1. Chuck Martin as OC.
2. Lack of offensive production, particularly the predictable play calling.
3. The drop off in this years D (no one expected it to be this steep).
4. The attrition problems BK has consistently had at the top of his recruiting classes.

We all think he's a great coach overall, but let's take a step back and admit some of the shortcomings so far.

 

[tussin]

Also, to the people saying they wouldn't want Saban over Kelly... Why?

I know this is like picking between a Rolls Royce and a Bentley but he seems to have all the qualities BK has...just a little better. Sure he has recruiting advantages that ND doesn't, but don't his teams seem to be consistently better prepared for games? Doesn't his staff seem to call better games?

Forget the talent gap in last year's NC game... He coached circles around BK.

 

[Buster Bluth]

1. Chuck Martin as OC.

Five games with Tommy Rees is enough to judge an OC? Sorta silly.

2. Lack of offensive production, particularly the predictable play calling.

I wouldn't call it predictable. Good? No.

3. The drop off in this years D (no one expected it to be this steep).

As I've said now 3-4 times, this defense has in reality returned 4.5 starters from last year's defense. No one expected it, but they didn't expect 1) Tuitt to have to recover during the season, 2) Spond to retire, 2) Fox to lose his spot, 3) Farley to lose his spot).

Instead of replacing on one starter at each level of the defense, they've had to replace 2/3 of the DL (if you count Tuitt as a different person), 3/4 of the LBs, and 1/2 the DBs.

4. The attrition problems BK has consistently had at the top of his recruiting classes.

This is the most notable aspect of his tenure, but seems to have been adjusted for 2013 guys.

 

[aubeirish]

Not to be rude but how dumb are some of these kids? When I was an undergrad I knew people on the FENCING team with ACT/SAT scores that were something like half that of a "regular" ND undergrad.

Some of them can't read...(I'm going a little extreme here...)

I think the biggest hurdle is how hard the work load is at Notre Dame. You tell a kid that he's going to actually have to work his butt off to get a degree, while the other coaches are telling him it won't be so hard. The smart one understands that nothing comes easy in life and the value of a Notre Dame degree.
Unfortunately, we are talking about 16-17 years old kids. It's an age where you would rather have fun than think about a 40 years decision.

 

[tussin]

Five games with Tommy Rees is enough to judge an OC? Sorta silly.

The offense wasn't particularly thrilling last year either (I realize he wasn't calling plays last year). I think it's less about Tommy and more about the pretty bland, ineffective game plans they are implementing. Perhaps they are counting on the defense like last year and the strategy is upended by the lack of production on that side of the ball.

I wouldn't call it predictable. Good? No.

IMO, the play calling has been predictable. Power left, power right, WR screens, push pass to the RB, etc. Add in Hendrix (guaranteed read option or QB power) and it becomes even more predictable. However, I suppose the effort to stretch the field with deep passes adds another element to the play calling.

As I've said now 3-4 times, this defense has in reality returned 4.5 starters from last year's defense. No one expected it, but they didn't expect 1) Tuitt to have to recover during the season, 2) Spond to retire, 2) Fox to lose his spot, 3) Farley to lose his spot).

Instead of replacing on one starter at each level of the defense, they've had to replace 2/3 of the DL (if you count Tuitt as a different person), 3/4 of the LBs, and 1/2 the DBs.

Fair point. Although I expected the depth to be a bit better (as well as better play from Russell and Jackson). The Tuitt and Spond situations are unfortunate, but I think we all expected a little bit better.

This is the most notable aspect of his tenure, but seems to have been adjusted for 2013 guys.

Agreed. I hope he's figured it out because it affects our top end talent as well as our depth.

 

[Buster Bluth]

The offense wasn't particularly thrilling last year either (I realize he wasn't calling plays last year). I think it's less about Tommy and more about the pretty bland, ineffective game plans they are implementing. Perhaps they are counting on the defense like last year and the strategy is upended by the lack of production on that side of the ball.

Golson was just a RS-Freshman. I think 2014 will give everyone the best idea of what Kelly and Co want to do.

 

[stlnd01]

This is the most notable aspect of his tenure, but seems to have been adjusted for 2013 guys.

Haven't you seen that other thread. Greg Bryant is transferring.

On the original question of whether Kelly was initially "oversold." Of course he was. Everyone's oversold when they're first hired. Have you ever heard a university openly admit to being "meh" about a big-time coaching hire? It doesn't work that way.

Kelly had a pretty good track record at doing the sort of thing that his predecessor struggled with: Building a college football program for long-term success.
I'd argue he's done a pretty good job of that. Far from perfect, but pretty good. There aren't but a handful of coaches I'd rather have right now, and of those, most wouldn't touch the job at Notre Dame.
He could do things better for sure - particularly in-game x's and o's - and he needs to keep on it with recruiting (like landing a big-time NT right now). But we're at a place where we're on track to win 10 games a year and be a consistent Top 10-15 team. Catch some breaks and we could have another year like last year. I'm not sure what more we're supposed to expect.