Corbett Family Head Football Coach Brian Kelly can look back on 2016 and enjoy the moment. With seven players selected in the most recent NFL draft, a solid recruiting class (ranked twelfth by Rivals, sixteenth by ESPN), and a ten-win season behind him, the case that Coach Kelly belongs in the pantheon with Lou and Ara and Knute has only gotten stronger.
In addition to the seven drafted players, which included Notre Dame’s highest pick since 1993, Ronnie Stanley, six players signed free agent contracts with NFL teams over the weekend, giving Notre Dame thirteen players with opportunities to play professionally. That the Dallas Cowboys’ were willing to take such a chance with their pick on Jaylon Smith speaks to the quality of the emergency orthopedic care Smith received at the Fiesta Bowl and to the player’s strength, both physical and mental.
Brian Kelly’s motto for the 2015 season was “culture beats scheme.” From his earliest days in South Bend, when he mandated locker organization, Brian Kelly has been instilling a championship mentality in his players. At the same time, he has had to deal with circumstantial challenges unlike any faced by his coaching predecessors.
This is where KeiVarae Russell’s selection as the Chief’s second pick comes in. Russell was one of 2014’s “Frozen Five,” players who were suspended for violations of school policy that likely involved the honor code and something called “peer editing.” Sidelined for an entire season, Russell roared back in 2015 as a starter, notching two interceptions, four pass breakups, and sixty tackles. While Russell will not graduate before going pro, he’s made enough remarks about being the first in his family to graduate from college “when” he does, that he can rightly be considered one of the better redemption stories to come out of the locker room in a long time.
Sure, the Irish lost to tOSU in the Fiesta Bowl. But they did so without Jaylon Smith and Jerry Tillery on defense, and that they got there at all was due to the depth Coach Kelly developed at the quarterback position. No one thought a playoff spot within reach when Zaire went down at Virginia, but there was Kizer, ready for prime time. He wouldn’t have been without Coach Kelly and his staff.
With fifty-five wins in six seasons, Brian Kelly is just one shy of Lou Holtz’s win total, and while he lacks the national championship Lou, Ara, Devine, and Leahy were all able to manage by their third-season, you have the sense that Coach Kelly has the Irish were the program needs to be to compete for championships every couple of seasons. I wouldn’t bet against 2016 being one of them.
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TERRY
Kelly is a good coach and a good recruiter but until ND wins the NC – No pantheon.
Bayou Irish
As an absolute rule? Let’s say he becomes that coach of the Bills who went to and lost like fifteen super bowls in a row. Still no?
TERRY
Comparing Notre Dame to the Buffalo Bills? Shirley you jest.
How many National Championships has Notre Dame won over the years? I’m not sure but I would place the number at about 8 , probably more.
How many Super Bowls out of the 50 so far has Buffalo ever WON? 0.
Absolute rule – still no.
Carlos
I agree with Terry. It is national championships or nothing. In my opinion it is pretty ridiculous statement to state that Draft Picks has any merit on his legacy. I am happy for our players and their future earning potential but if anything it is an indictment on him. He should have more to hang his hat on than a string of eight win seasons with the level of talent he has enjoyed.
Bayou Irish
Carlos: does circumstance play into your equation at all? He lost Golson and the Frozen Five as part of a 9-win and an 8-win season. Are you counting 2010 against him? What about 2011? If so, why?
James
Hey, Hey Hey, no fair using logic, Bayou Irish
Bayou Irish
My bad.
Carlos
There is always an excuse or justification that you can make for any action. As head coach, he is accountable for winning games at the University of Notre Dame and he is compensated for that job. That entails working with our students just as much as it means hiring the right coaches. Lou did it. Ara did it. Leahy did it . . . No one says, “Man if coach x didn’t have those suspensions, he sure would be a great head coach.” Well, I guess no one outside of a fanbase says that. He either is or he isn’t and Kelly has had 6 years to win in a national championship. That’s my bench mark for the “pantheon.” Others may want to change that to being “competitive” but that’s not the Notre Dame I at least have been a fan of my whole life. We might as well join a conference so that we can start winning those conference titles. As far as draft picks or recruiting success, that is part of the equation but, at the end of the day, its not the metric I am interested in or which I think means a job well done. But I am just a guy posting in the comments section, others may disagree.
IrishElvis
If there’s a middle ground to be had, I’d like to propose this: high draft picks aren’t the final/ultimate success metric, but rather evidence of the correct trajectory. The Pantheon contains coaches who both won titles and produced high draft picks. This staff has done the latter, which should indicate they’re closer to winning titles than the previous recent regimes.
IrishJimmy
If we are going on a Titles only perhaps you would be critical of Holtz? He won one with a dearth of talent. Fact is, if it is truly title or bust you will be disappointed with often. As long as Kelly is in South Bend we will be in the mix regularly. That is how one should be measured in the parity that is now college ball.
TERRY
It don’t mean a thing if you ain’t got that ring – just one will do, but you have to have at least one.
Ric Cavicchia
How about titles and winning percentages. Kelly gets comparative numbers in wins because they play more games.Use winning percentages and titles and Kelly doesn’t compare to Ara, Knute, Lou or Dan Devine. Lou had a dearth of talent because his staff did a better job of recruiting than Kelly’s.
IrishElvis
Ric, good point. We’ve previously discussed season total inflation here: http://www.herloyalsons.com/blog/2016/02/05/no-brian-kelly-statue/
What’s interesting to note about the recent NFL Draft is that our outgoing players haven’t been viewed as this elite (two 1st rounders) since 1994, which would imply that the current staff is approaching Holtzian levels.
TERRY
“Lou had a dearth of talent because his staff did a better job of recruiting than Kelly’s.”
That makes no sense – If Lou’s staff did a better job of recruiting than Kelly’s that would mean that Lou had a PLETHORA of talent.
In any case please accept my thanks for the chance to throw some big words around.
IrishElvis
Forgive us, TERRY. We know that we do not have your superior intellect and education. But could it be that once again, you are angry at something else, and are looking to take it out on us?
TERRY
I seem to arouse the ire of the HLS staff with my posts, which I find interesting and amusing.
To repeat – the original piece said that Brian Kelly’s record over the 6 years of his coaching at Notre Dame merited him a place in the Irish pantheon of football coaches.
I responded with the perfectly reasonable OPINION that unless he wins at least 1 National Championship while at ND he does not deserve to be in such a place.
So far Bayou Irish and Irish Elvis have disagreed with me, which is cool, but now Elvis has discerned – after going over my posts over the years – that within my psyche there lies a hidden reason which compels me to disagree on occasion with the HLS staff, and, El, – I appreciate both your concern and your remark about my ‘superior intellect’.
Everybody’s angry at something. On a national level – I am most angry at the choices we face this November for the office of President of the United States, & a close second is the way the NFL is treating Tom Brady in re. The Strange Case of the Deflated Balls. Locally, I live on a dirt road off a dirt road in a small town in Maine, so I won’t concern you with the local issues and questions which concern and sometimes anger me.
FYI:
1) I went to Notre Dame in the early and late 60s, I did not graduate.
2) I listened to the 1966 Southern Cal. game on a short-wave radio while serving a mid-watch during my military service in the mid-east.
3) I am presently reading 3 books – a biography of W.C. Fields, an anthology of the works of P.G. Wodehouse, and ‘He Spoke to Us – Discerning God in People and Events’ by Fr. George William Rutler. He is a brilliant writer.
Let me repeat – If Notre Dame wins at least ONE National Championship under Brian Kelly I will agree that he belongs in the pantheon of Notre Dame football coaches. By that I mean that in my OPINION he will deserve mention when the conversation turns to the GREATS.
Until then, no.
JD
While I agree BK is definitely placing himself in our top tier of coaches as his career develops, I would absolutely bet against 2016 being a potential championship year. We simply don’t have the depth on the offensive line or at LB right now. Nowhere close. Too many young guns.
TERRY
Disagree. In the 1988 January Bowl game ND got a serious butt-kicking from Texas A&M.
The following season it was believed that ND was a year away from seriously competing for the title. We won the whole thing.
In the 2016 January Bowl Game ND got a serious butt-kicking from Ohio State, during which Jaylon Smith was the recipient of a cheap shot (OPINION) from former ND commit Taylor Decker, and OSU defensive end Joey Sosa was ejected from the game for helmeting DeShone Kizer – and getting away with it, in that there was no payback.
Football is the ultimate game of physical domination and all games are won up front – I’m badder than you are and I’ll knock you on your ass to prove it – over and over and over. And while I’m having fun doing that all MY little buddies will be knocking down YOUR little buddies, or, as the occasion demands, running away from them.
With all respect – “too many young guns” implies that we don’t have enough serious talent in the junior and senior classes, with which I disagree. We’ve got lots of talent in all 4 classes, and every now and then the stars align and everything falls into place and ND wins it – ALL.
I think that this is the year. We’ve got the talent, BUT – do we have the attitude? Do we have the swagger?
Other teams respect us, but – do they fear us?
@irishmikecomedy
National championships are like perfect games in baseball in that they require both excellence and not a small amount of luck. Think about what Alabama had to have happen for them to win the trophy when they beat ND in Miami — they needed all those teams to lose ahead of them just like ND did, watched Georgia dork up a 1st-and-goal to win the SEC championship, then got the fortune of Manti Te’o playing like he didn’t know what planet he was living on.
(One could argue, and I’d agree, that ND and Coach Kelly were immensely lucky to have gotten to the BCS undefeated in 2012 — the two #2’s against Pitt and whatnot — but then you’d have to concede that ND’s luck since then has been atrocious.)
Championships cannot be the only metric of success, unless you’re willing to argue that Trent Dilfer is a better quarterback than Dan Marino. That said, the NC is definitely the line item missing from Brian Kelly’s résumé when comparing him to the Mount Rushmore of Irish football coaches. But who here believes the program isn’t in the best shape it’s been in the 20 years since Holtz left? Does anyone think they can make a case that we’d have been better off with a different hire?
TERRY
“National Championships …… require both excellence and not a small amount of luck.”
Excellent point. I believe that we’ve had enough bad luck the last few years that we have some good breaks coming our way, and when they do we have the excellence to take advantage of them.