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I think the 14-year thing hurts his legacy. by revressbo

Speaking from a football standpoint, the 4-8 season doesn't help, along with the mostly mediocrity from 2010-2015. If 2010 was a 2017-like season and then his 2010-2016 was the equivalent of 2017-2023, it'd probably be more positive. He took way too long to get the program really firing, and blew the opportunities of some extremely talented rosters (e.g., 2011, 2015).

Ultimately, measuring "success" is not a light switch for probably about half of the coaches in America. 25% are clearly successes at their schools, 25% (including the three immediately preceding BK at ND) are clearly failures, half (including Kelly) are in the gray area.

Relatedly perhaps to those first seven seasons and in particular 2016, I don't get the sense the fanbase has really recovered from a "fervor" standpoint, even with recent playoff appearances, and I'm not quite sure why. Perhaps because everyone knows now that BK will never win a championship. It's also a bit hard to differentiate if this is a BK/"Notre Dame" thing or just keeping in line with college football in trends nationally re: Alabama's dominance making things stale, Gen Z'ers not caring as much about sports as previous generations, etc. But the last season that truly felt "magical" was 2012. 2018 did not, 2020 may have gotten close after Clemson, but I think people took it with a grain of salt due to Lawrence and a lot of Clemson's defense being out.

Finally, when evaluating his tenure, I'm also not sure you can completely separate some of the off-field stuff (namely Sullivan and Seeberg) and the permanent changes to ND football experience (turf, video board, no Gameday Mass, among other items). His general demeanor, role as a program ambassador/figure head, and love/respect (or lack thereof) for the university also cannot be ignored (and I think he failed pretty badly at all three of those).

On the changes, it's hard to know where the buck stops with BK and where it stops with Swarbrick, but I think they at minimum received BK's tacit approval and likely his direct request for some of them. Perhaps they were necessary changes to make in the 2010s college football landscape, perhaps not (I don't think they were), but no matter where your opinion of those land, they undoubtedly moved us closer to generic indistinguishable football factory and away from aspects that made our program distinctly Notre Dame, and I think that's a notch against him in the "success" department.