While everyone’s workday was wrapping up on the East Coast, Notre Dame announced that Brian Kelly had received a two-year extension to remain as Notre Dame’s head coach through 2016. In the press release, athletic director Jack Swarbrick had this to say about Kelly and his new contract:
“While Coach Kelly and I are focused on the additional work that must be done to reach our goals, I am very pleased with the progress we have made during the past two years.” University of Notre Dame vice president and director of athletics Jack Swarbrick said. “Our football team’s performance on the field, in the classroom, and in the community reflect Coach Kelly’s commitment to building a program that will be able to sustain success in the long run, and to doing so in a manner consistent with Notre Dame’s values and tradition.”
Has Kelly earned it? That is certainly more than debatable, especially after a season that fell well below expectations. While we can definitely point to some upsides like our defensive front seven and our recruiting, watching the Notre Dame offense struggle and cough up the ball all season long doesn’t exactly inspire such contract extension confidence.
Does it help recruiting? Again, this is rather debatable. It definitely helps that Kelly can walk into a recruit’s house and say that he is in for their entire career. Then again, recruits these days are likely more than wise to the fact that the coaching carousel spins at an insane pace every season, especially considering that EA’s popular NCAA series now mimics it.
Does it really give Kelly more job security? Not at all, just ask Charlie Weis how much his 10 year extension guaranteed his position. While there is no doubt that this extension will increase any potential buyout, if ND wants to fire Kelly, he will be fired and they will have no problem doing so.
With all that in mind, I give this news an overwhelming “meh” as far as how I personally feel.  While I personally still support Kelly, I’m not exactly jumping for joy over this extension nor do I think it means that Swarbrick thinks that Kelly is on the verge of being the next Lou Holtz.
If anything, this is just an attempt to show a unified front that Notre Dame is on the same page for the next four years. Whether or not that unified front will remain 100% genuine for the next four years though remains to be seen.
Jeremy
January 10, 2012 at 6:03 pmI saw that Jimbo Fisher’s contract was extended through 2016 before the bowl game and wondered whether we would do something similar. There seems to be a trend to extend beyond the 4-year recruiting cycle, so I don’t have a problem with us doing it for Kelly given his work so far. And of course you are absolutely right that if he is not doing well in a couple of years, the contract extensions won’t make a difference.
borromini
January 10, 2012 at 7:32 pmThe 2-year contract option was one of the terms in the Kelly’s original 4-year contract. Schools usually decide by the mid-way point of the original contract term to either exercise the extension option or not. For the school to not exercise the option might indicate that they don’t really see Kelly surviving in the long term. It might also impact potential candidates for the vacant OL coach position.
Therefore, I support the extension because even though we had two consecutive 8-5 seasons…there was overall improvement for the program from the last 3 Weis years.
trey
January 10, 2012 at 9:15 pmIt looks bad after the FSU loss, but overall not too upset about it. Dont really think he’s earned an extension, but I dont like flipping coaches every 3 years either.
Pat
January 10, 2012 at 10:03 pmHad we just won the damn bowl game, I think reaction across the board would be very different — not so much here, but in other corners where the real mud rakers live. I think it is under-appreciated that Kelly is trying to rebuild Notre Dame football from the ground up. I think he’s succeeding, but it’s a process. We had flash in the pan success under the previous regime, and it resulted in years of trying to find the next fix to our problems before it finally ended in humiliation. No one is going to swoop in and save ND football; this is it.
Brad
January 11, 2012 at 7:52 amI don’t think this is even news at all, as this sort of thing is so common now in contracts for coaches. What I do hope is that this means ND can bump the pay of its other coaches on the football team. While I think Warriner and Hinton leaving for lateral moves to OSU has a lot more to do with philosophy, fit, opportunity (how many OSU assistants have gone on to become head coaches at another Ohio school like Miami, Akron, Toledo, etc.) and longstanding friendships, it is still a lateral move.
I know ND has worked hard in recent years to vastly improve the pay it gives to assistants (something we should give Weis credit for, as it was a demand of his in taking the jobs), but ND should continue to increase pay for assistants. It is no surprise that Alabama pays the highest salaries for assistant coaches and football staff (that we know of among public schools). While we don’t know what ND pays them now, it was widely rumored for years and years that ND paid their assistants vastly inferior in comparison to other schools. With ND’s funds, there is no reason that any assistants anywhere should be paid more.
Dan
January 11, 2012 at 11:10 amAgree completely: Meh
Doesn’t change anything significant about anything, be it possible termination, recruiting, the admin’s view of the program, anything. It’s a standard move, just like changing the oil in your car. Doesn’t mean you won’t get rid of the car within the next 3000 miles, but maintenence that needs to be taken care of regardless of the existance/non-existance of other problems.
Cross&Anchor
January 11, 2012 at 12:59 pmThe only significant impact from this–and even here it’s small–might be in retaining and recruiting a staff. Yes, if Kelly tanks in a big way, all bets are off, but an extension becomes another small data point to help persuade some to stay a bit longer and for others to come and join. Sometimes these small things can cumulatively have an effect.
The Biscuit
January 11, 2012 at 6:58 pmPer the SBT article to the right, seems like the 2-yr clause kicked in. Smart for both sides, though a 3-yr would’ve been better…