As far not blaming Kelly for this year class and waiting till next class to judge him, I dont agree. There has been developments with Florida(meyer) and USC(carroll), what has he done to capitalize on those situations? When Prater wavered over Carroll bolting, where was Kelly? I believe the previous guy we had here would swooped in for the kill. KElly is the coach of ND, he needs to make it happen. Anything else is an excuse. What have you done for me lately??? Right or wrong, that is what he accepted when he took the job.
if he gets the recruits, great! Thats what he is supposed to do
if he doesnt get the recruits, its all his fault and he deserves all the blame.
No slack till he wins a BCS game. none.
See, that sounds like a total CW bias. CW never won a BCS game, and you LOVED him (and I don't blame you for loving him and wanting him to succeed). Now you want higher standards than the guy you cut some major slack for? That doesn't make sense.
Saying that Kelly should close on these guys because CW would have, well, how do you know? CW had over a year to close Prater, and he couldn't. SC kicked our asses with Prater. CW had over a year to close on Barr, and he couldn't. CW lost out on guys that we REALLY needed; guys like Hunter, Trattou, Martin(s), Benn, Starling, Moore, Little, McCoy, etc. Are you going to say he wasn't a good recruiter? Obviously he was a great recruiter, but he wasn't perfect and he whiffed on some major positions. I find it contradictory to say the least that CW could lose all those guys and still be considered a great recruiter and a guy that would close Prater, yet because Kelly didn't do it IN ONE MONTH ON THE JOB Kelly should be blamed.
What you're discounting is 2 major things:
1) USC and FL are proven winners. Multiple NCs between them this decade. Multiple BCS wins. Tons of first rounders. Cheating coaches. A guy who would rather die on the sidelines than not coach a certain WR LOL. Meyer will lie through his teeth to get a recruit. Kiffin will break every rule in the book to get a recruit. And they are both recruiting for proven winners. ND, the last 3 years, has an overall losing record and one bowl game. Kids see this.
2) Even more importantly, Kelly has had one month to recruit. I'm not sure people understand what a severe disadvantage that puts him at. Everyone else has had over a year to build relationships with these kids and their families, and that's huge. Kelly had to introduce himself and his staff to all these kids, and essentially start the recruiting process all over with the uncommitted ones. CW did a GREAT job getting some commitments and building relationships, and Kelly has done a great job of retaining almost every recruit as well as putting us in great positions with guys that almost had written us off after CW was fired (Henderson, Furgeson, Riley). Think about it...one month vs. over one year.
Go look at CW's first class. It wasn't very good, and that was because he got to ND so late and he was working with the Pats as well. But we cut him some slack. I don't see how you can gove Weis so much slack and not grant Kelly the same...
). The next morning, he was already gone. Props!
