Setting aside the academic cheating, probation, vacated wins, overseeing the death of a student, insane sideline displays (e.g., turning purple on TJ Jones the Saturday after his father's death, shoving Grimes), general unpleasantness, lack of integrity (e.g., blame-shifting, throwing players under the bus, "Zero. None. Absolutely none."), and the fact that he does not, and has never, "gotten" ND (and has instead worked steadily to undermine its traditions and uniqueness) . . .

Your question appears to be whether he could do anything in the next three seasons, short of winning a national championship, that would render his tenure "successful." On that question, and focusing only on football success, I'd have to say "yes." There is a "way/scenario" for him to achieve football success without winning a national championship.

For example, if he led us to the playoffs next year and beat Alabama/Clemson/Georgia/Ohio State in the semis, and then lost a close game in the final to another powerhouse, that would certainly change my outlook of him as a football coach. If he repeated that sort of result in 2022 and 2023 before departing, it would be hard to describe that run as unsuccessful, even though he fell short of the ultimate goal (in the same way that 1989 to 1993 is generally seen as a successful period of ND football, even though we never won a title).

For me, however, he will never be able to overcome all the other issues. I've said it before, but winning games won't really fix what's wrong here.

I was going to say no, but I think you are right that there is at least one scenario. Let's say Kelly takes the team to the NC game twice in a row, as you suggest, then his successor wins an NC in the next year or two.

That would mean Kelly didn't win an NC himself, but I think it would be reasonable to consider that he'd have set the program up to win an NC. I think that would be a successful tenure coming off the Davie, Willingham, Weis era.

I consider the above-scenario extremely, extremely unlikely.

Clemson I was one of his best games, but then Clemson made adjustments, kept Book from running and shut down our offense. Kelly had no answer. He didn’t make adjustments in Clemson II. Then he had no offense game plan to attack Alabama.

Really good coaches like Lou or Ara would have made their own adjustments and been competitive.

I'm not suggesting what I described is at all likely. It isn't. I think it is closer to "impossible" than "likely." But the question, I think, was whether there was any scenario under which he could become a success over the next three seasons without winning a title.

From a football perspective, I think the answer is "yes." There is a scenario. It's highly unlikely to happen, but it is theoretically conceivable. From a broader perspective, though, I still think the answer is "no," because winning football games - or even a title - won't fix what's broken right now with Notre Dame and Brian Kelly.

A sculpt of him going after David Grimes on the sidelines would seem apropos.

as though he was just steamrolled by a top 10 team.

without at any point having a believable case to be made that his team was the best in the country and still have his tenure described as being successful? I think Davie should return, the standards he bemoaned have come down to an acceptable level for him.

Referring to every head coach since Holtz.

No major bowl win, no NC, no playoff win/ multiple blowouts

team.

"Q. Also you mentioned the challenges of this job. In your coaching DNA, what appealed to you about coming here and taking on some of the challenges that are very unique in college football?

BRIAN KELLY: Well, first and foremost, restoring it to the traditions that we all know about and the history, and those aren’t 8 and 4 years; those are National Championship years. So any time you’re talking about restoring a program and the challenges, it’s not about winning the Conference Championship; it’s about winning championships and being in the BCS and being nationally prominent. And that’s a challenge. We’ve got to get to work on that.

So when I refer to the challenge, it’s strictly obviously getting to that high bar that has been set at Notre Dame for Notre Dame football.

• Click here for link at https://und.com/coach-kelly-press-conference-transcript-dec-

The ND admin and BOT love this guy. Their definition of success is far different from ours. They think success is defined by financial terms. TV revenue. Winning? An afterthought. In the business world of college football, you don’t have to win that much to be successful, you certainly don’t need national championships! “Pretty good” is good enough.

"In the conversation" was fabricated for his own legacy and is lapped up by Jenkins and others. If ND football is viewed through the lens of a family business, we are well into the third generation of poor leadership. We are no longer the gold standard of college football and haven't been for about 30 years. Kelly has been at the helm far too long and his results don't correlate to an objective measure of success. For his tenure and available resources, no NCs and no major bowl wins is not success.

college football. They can never take that away from us.

Bo couldn't win bowl games either

Though OSU might have been (rightfully) even more frustrated. Their teams from 95 through 98 were incredible (particularly 96 and 98). It boggles my mind they couldn't get the job done.

They absolutely choked against a pretty mediocre Michigan State led by a relatively unknown head coach.

Although, despite being the DC of the Browns, he was relatively unknown at that time, and that Michigan State team was definitely mediocre.

who played in that Ohio State game and, as you noted, had a pretty good coach.

I remember watching the game as my dad went to MSU but was at some event that night with my mom. He kept excusing himself from wherever he was and calling me at home for updates and stayed on the line for the end of the game.

They put it together the next year and went 10-2 with wins over (ranked at the time):
#24 ND
#3 Michigan
#20 Ohio State
#13 Penn State
#10 Florida (Citrus Bowl).

They did get blown out by ranked Wisconsin (who ended up winning the Rose Bowl) and ranked Purdue (who had a QB who's now headed to Canton).

The draftees:
Dimitrius Underwood (1st rounder)
Sedrick Irvin
Plaxico Burress (1st rounder)
Julian Peterson (1st rounder)
Gari Scott
Greg Randall
Aric Morris
Paul Edinger (kicker, but had a long career and went 5/5 on FGs including a 49 yarder that day but missed an XP)
Robaire Smith
Renaldo Hill
Tupe Peko - removed, did not transfer to MSU from JC until 99
TJ Turner
Chris Baker

There is a malaise. Now we need a rabbit.

Never was, never will be. If we are handing out statues for the great ND coaches--he probably deserves more than a plaque above a urinal--but a statue? For what? Beating Ball State 24-18?

Brian Kelly's tenure has been littered with mediocrity. After all of these years he has yet to establish an identity for this program. There is no consistency. Point to one thing in this statement. "Brian Kelly stands for..." "Brian Kelly is all about..." "A Brian Kelly team is known for X"

The guy is an above average football coach with average leadership skills. If you put Brian Kelly at Alabama, do you think he would have had the success Nick Saban has had? F no.

As long as he is our coach he will continue to be above average, but not elite. He is who he is.

Not worthy of a statue without a NC.

Jenkins, Swarbrick, and their acolytes may consider it successful, but only because they dream too small, as it were.

Both will end up with more wins at ND than any other coach or QB. This is due to:
- Played considerably more games than any other coach/QB (extended 12 game seasons and minor bowls.
- Played against a much weaker schedule (manufactured by JS to make a 10 win season the new standard for success rather than NCs).
- Lack of winning very few big games (one Clemson game, one Oklahoma game, one very strong Michigan game).

However, I greatly respect Book as an overachiever and he exceeded expectations. He ranks behind ND's NC QBs and quite a few QBs that did not win NCs (Horning, Huarte, Theismann, Mirer).

On the other hand Kelly is an underachiever by ND standards (perhaps he is meeting expectations based upon his leadership and coaching abilities). But the biggest concern is effort, which is illustrated by his recruiting based upon ND's traditional standards. His recruiting classes consistently are in the top 10 to 16 programs, while the ND's Top coaches were consistently in the Top 1 to 5 programs. BK's biggest issue is lack of effort and now it has morphed into having a reputation of not winning NCs - but you can win 10 games a season against weaker schedules.

on the list of non-winning National Championship quarterbacks who were better than Book. Arguably others.

Aside from their respective records which are markedly different, Book never had Tate, Floyd, or Rudolph to throw to.

He averaged about 300 yards a game in 2009. Was a very good drop back passer. His game was different than Book’s. What he did best, he did it better than what Book did best.

But I do like and respect what Book did and accomplished

Hires, complicating the offense, holding on to Longo for too long, not getting rid of stache, playing less talented kids who are older, “half” committed because he was focused on too many things...

It’s a long list. Swarbrick had to force him to fire stache and Longo

Failure to be a head coach = focused on meddling with the offense and ignoring ST & defense and getting to know his players (the reboot)

There were some nice wins, and a couple real fun regular seasons, but Kelly is not a success here and won't be without a title (I could have stopped at "won't be.). Football ain't hockey. And as a pprogram, the football team no longer even resembles what it once was.

Notre Dame football is about legendary accomplishments: championships, Heisman trophy wins, and since 1970 major bowl wins. Kelly has none of those. I didn't even mention the unprecedented sanctions on his watch.

The verdict is clear: Kelly is not good enough to build a team that can win two playoff games. He's never come close to winning one. He's topped out with a few big regular season/minor bowl wins in a decade at the helm of his program. Any decent coach in College Football can boast of a few big wins. Given ND's position in College Football, those results are not "success".

The next three years is unlikely to change the verdict.

....with a dishonest agenda.

Most of the regulars here know what real success means.

Therefore if Kelly is happy he was successful.

Some immediate success by his successors based on his recruits and his coaching tree and his “stable” program would be needed to deem BK’s coaching tenure a success.

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.

win last year; that kid who played against us is a stud, and we played our asses off and won. That was a great win, IMO.

It looked like it could've been monumental and historic, but in the basis of hindsight, it clearly was not. They destroyed us at full strength. They themselves (at full strength) got destroyed by Ohio State. Since the end of the 2014 season, only Clemson's 2017 team was worse than their 2020 team (and that's when looking at the 2020 team in full strength, which they weren't in round 1).

The fact that it's almost certainly Kelly's best win in 11 seasons is a pretty big indictment on his ND tenure. Pat Narduzzi has been the definition of mediocre at Pitt and only been there for 6 years and even he has a bigger win (2016 Clemson) than Brian Kelly does in 11 seasons at ND.

He has no legendary wins on the level of 88 Miami or 93 Florida State. Overall, how many "great" wins does BK have at ND? 3? 4? Stanford 2012 and Oklahoma 2012 could maybe count, although neither team, despite being really good, were titans that year. Should 2013 MSU be in there? They ended up being a great team, but no one knew at the time and the game was a snoozefest, penalty-ridden affair with hardly any pregame hype or extra buzz. But around 3 or 4 great wins for ND's head coach in more than a decade is pretty sad.

Anyway, I originally brought it up to talk about the feeling, not the result itself. There was a lot of joy throughout the fanbase in beating the #1 team of course, but it felt like it didn't mean much for the prognostication of how we'd do in the playoffs and I got that sense too from a lot of my friends (many of whom like Kelly). It just feels like there's no "hope" under him the way there was in 2012.

Lol. Are you serious?

I don't like the video board, turf, the Irish Guard changes, the decreasing frequency of the band's role and the decreasing frequency of the student section chants/organic noise & energy (due to the increase in piped-in music and video board), etc., all of which have come under Kelly's watch. The only one on that list that I'm sure BK did not have a role at all in in any capacity is the Irish Guard. The others I think he either had a direct role in (turf) or indirect/requesting role (the video board/music). I think all those changes have hurt our tradition. But those are all, relatively speaking, inconsequential compared to the faith.

We are a Catholic institution. The change happened probably 8+ years ago now, so I don't recall the exact reasoning, but I think BK requested it because he thought Mass didn't get the players in the right frame of mind and/or they had too many responsibilities on Gameday. That shows a complete lack of understanding of what the Mass is (I can't think of anything more masculine than the Lord sacrificing himself on Calvary), which is a failure on us as an institution, both from a standpoint of educating our players and for not having our priorities in the right place (we can't do a 25-minute Mass on Gameday, because we have to have one more position meeting, that they couldn't do before or after or throughout the week? Or the guys need that time to just sit around? What exactly?).

It's disappointing when the football coach thinks it's not important enough. It was fine for everyone from the devout successful coach (Holtz) to the devout failed coach (Faust) to the non-Catholic (Ara, Willingham). Ultimately, if the Mass is incompatible with football (it's not, by the way), then we need to drop football.

And it ultimately is an example of one of Kelly's biggest drawbacks of all, something I didn't but should've mentioned in my OP: frequently trying to shift blame/make excuses when things don't go the team's way on the field. In this case, it was the fact that they had to go to Mass. But that's far from the only example.

I find it interesting too that that's what you chose to comment on out of my entire original post.

Even if he had won most or all of Tulsa 2010, USF 2011, FSU 2011, Pitt 2013, and Northwestern 2014, I think he'd still essentially be the same coach. The games that could have changed his legacy were obviously Bama 2012, Clemson 2018, Clemson 2020, and Bama 2020, but also FSU 2014, OSU 2015, UGA 2017, and UGA 2019. Had he won a couple of those games, I think you can make the case that he had a national championship caliber team even without actually winning the NC. Holtz had several national championship caliber teams that didn't win the NC, like 89, 92, and 93. Even Kelly's best teams, while very good, were still clearly not NC-level teams.

What I was trying to convey was if BK had only a 7-year run from 2010-2016 that was about the equivalent of 2017-23 (presuming similar results in 2021-23 as we've seen the past four seasons, which is not guaranteed) and then left/resigned/retired in 2016, I think it'd allow his tenure to be viewed more favorably - even if not a homerun success - because he clearly turned the program around, showed that it's possible to still win big here (even though he couldn't do it himself) and then got out of the way, presumably for us to hire the next coach who actually could win the national championship. Instead, we'll end up having wasted a decade-and-a-half under Kelly, an extra 7 years than we would have in the hypothetical scenario.

4 out of 9 if you want to add Clemson '15. I still think that ND got jobbed v. FSU '14, and the 2 UGA losses were close. Talking about winning any of the other 5 games is like arguing about how Gen. Custer's reputation would be had the Little Big Horn turned out differently.

... with added emphasis on that fact Kelly botched the two-point conversion strategy (again) and cost his team a win - or in this case overtime and a chance at win.

Hell, even beating Michigan under the lights in Ann Arbor in 2019 would have built up a slight ounce or two of good will - but instead - the polar opposite happened.

At the time of that game, Clemson wasn't the Clemson that they are today, but I guess the same could be said of UGA 2018. Both teams were expected to be very good, but neither had any recent history of being truly elite, although UGA knocked on the door a few times under Richt.

... Alabama to the wire in the national championship game.

I know what you're saying - "at the time of the game" - but I think with Watson & Lawson etc, it was pretty apparant that Clemson team was exceptional when we played them at their place in October.

Plus, much like Kelly blew the Northwestern game in 2014 by mismanaging the two-point conversion strategy, he did it again less than a year later at Death Valley - albeit with much higher stakes. We were ranked 6th at the time.

So let's never miss a good opportunity to remind people our coach is a moron.

Nobody knew Clemson would have the season(s) they were about to have, but they were #12, we were #6 and College Gameday was there. It was a big deal. That's in contrast to, for example, 2013 Michigan State, when they were unranked and we were #22 at the time of the game and it was a bore.

I do think end of season ranking is more important in judging an opponent, but "time of game" has a bit of a place too, as far as managing hype/emotions/the big stage. Probably like a 70/30 split to me in terms of determining how big a win ends up being (and of course, games near the end of the season have less variance between those two variables).

Decidedly not. I think most people will think he's done a good, not great job(not most people here.) But that's relative to the ones who preceeded him vs. legacy coaches.

He's had "three" top 5 finishes in 11 years.

Definitely not.

Zero National titles.
Zero major bowl wins.

And it is not like Kelly only had the standard 5 year term to accomplish said goals. He has had 11 years to accomplish nothing and is on his way to 14 or 15. Ridiculous.

I think most will consider him successful. Kind of like George Bush was successful in debates... b y clearing a low. bar.

There should be no statue.

If I had told you the day that Weis was fired that the next head coach at Notre Dame would not win a national title, would finish in the top 5 three times - getting disemboweled all three times in the bowl game against the eventual national champs - and that would be over a 14-year period, would you have said "sign me up"?

If he left it better than he found it and the job was attractive to successors, I would deem it "successful" relatively speaking.

It would not be get-him-a-statue successful. In the pantheon of ND coaches, he probably would be hanging out behind Elmer Layden.

If you squeezed Kelly's accomplishments into a 5-year tenure, then I would have considered him a success based on where the program was versus where it is. Stretching that out over a decade-plus means he has simply set a new standard of what is acceptable.

especially at a place with Notre Dame's legacy, a head coach that takes the program from one level to another intermediate level, without reaching the highest level -- and takes 11 years, or longer, to do so -- doesn't deserve that kind of leash or that kind of credit.

If Kelly had moved the program from Point A to Point B in 3-5 seasons and then got the hell out -- or was removed by leadership that clearly understood Point B wasn't an acceptable final destination, I'd be more inclined to view his tenure and contributions charitably.

Plus, again, what Andy said.

Particularly at Notre Dame. He's like a roach-will survive a nuclear holecaust, but does that deserve credit? With an Athletic Director enabler?

well actually hundreds of them. And put them in the bottom of the stadium urinals. That would be fitting tribute.

Because that would piss him off forever. Little four foot BK statue next to the others.

Ingenious but cruel and unusual. Mini-Bri. He could stand there next to Moose on the bench.



I think I could dig it. Skilled or unskilled Photoshoppers - here's your chance.

25% of his success was because of ND being ND...a lot of coaches have been successful at ND...only the clowns really floundered.

75% of his success has been due to a watered down schedule that has helped him get into bowl games where he has gotten his arse outcoached.

It is not merely a review of what others would call "metrics."

It is the net result of his tenure. He has dragged ND down, with the complicity of Swarbrick, to a different and lesser place. He endeavored to define success downward. He has made the program indistuoshable and fungible. The damage he has done is permanent.

Kelly is who he is: a football coach who spent most of his pre-ND career toiling at the lower levels of college football, which, along with some of his inherent shortcomings, has led him to fall short on the historical standard at ND both on and off the field.

On the other hand, Swarbrick is Kelly's boss and, more importantly, an alumnus who attended ND during the glory years. He should've known better and should have forced Kelly to adapt to ND instead of the other way around.

Swarbrick is not a leader, but rather a self-absorbed strategery aficionado who enabled the largest case of sexual abuse against girls and young women in US history. But don't call him a liar.

did it come to this at this storied school?

Tag line for the Swarbrick/Kelly Era

That's a significant difference. I don't know what Layden's schedules were like--my guess is that they didn't include UMass, Temple, and a healthy dose of MAC teams. Both of them were at ND practices on horseback, although the picture of Layden on horseback (w/ his 3 backfield mates) is slightly better known than BK on horseback is.

As to BK v. Devine--1 of them had a 3-1 bowl record (3 majors, 1 near major). In postseason games of comparable caliber (counting Citrus win over LSU), BK is 1-4. The win resulted from a great catch & run in waning moments--all 4 losses were by 16+ points.

In Devine's last year, Irish were unbeaten (9-0-1) through 10 games. Like 2020 Irish, they lost their last 2--finishing by losing to an unbeaten SEC champ on New Year's. That SEC champ wasn't a Saban powerhouse, but the Irish gave a far better accounting of themselves. 1980 beat a 9-3 Miami team w/ J. Kelly @ QB, while 2020 beat a 1-8 USF team whose QB I could not name. 1980 also beat 2 major bowl winners (MI and AL). They put up an "uNDefeated" sign commemorating 2020 team in the Gug--1980 season, by contrast, was considered to be nothing special in context of the time.

I think most people would agree that the Top 3 ND coaches (in no particular order) are Rockne, Leahy, and Ara. People could argue for hours about which order these three belong.

I think there is general agreement that Holtz, Devine, and Layden are 4, 5, and 6, respectively.

I wouldn't put Kelly ahead any of those six men. But looking at the rest of the post-Rockne coaches (excluding McKeever and Devore), I don't think any of them belong ahead of Kelly either.

I would put Holtz in the top tier at #4. He was a far better coach than Devine. His record from '88-'93, against schedules tougher than any we've played before or since, places him much closer to Ara than those behind him.

does that single game place Devine closer to the Kelly neighborhood than the Holtz neighborhood in your estimation?

For one, some of those left-it-better-than-found-it dynamics are:

A) driven by forces above Kelly and/or decisions made in spite of Kelly (firing his S&C coach, improving his staff by going with younger, non-family members, investments in facilities and nutrition, etc.).

B) in the relative context of a horseshit list of coaches preceding him.

And, second, the description fits a "bridge" coach - someone that gets you out of the desert but not to the goal (championships). And I struggle to think that should be considered success when it is a 14-year term.

He definitely won more games than Weis.

If Elmer Layden was an asshole, of course.

He's clearly not a success as far as what the standard is for Notre Dame football. You *must* win a title to join those ranks.

However, he is quite clearly a step up from Weis/Willingham/Davie, solely because he has made the job attractive again. I do not believe the same quality of coaches who will be interested in taking over for BK would have been interested in 2001, 2005, or 2009.

Put it this way- the Utah version of Urban Meyer would likely take the 2023 Notre Dame job that he turned down in 2005.

Elite coaches should understand, now, that it is absolutely possible to win a title at ND if you work your ass off in recruiting and know what the hell you're doing on offense. Would that BK make it easier on us and just do those things himself...

ND had plenty of options after each of the aforementioned were fired. Only incompetence, faulty process, bawrongheaded priorities, woeful recruitment of candidates.

How would you compare Kelly and Swarbrick's performance the way that Davie, Weiss, and Willingham, with the complicity of Wadsworth, White, and most notably Malloy handled things?

that when the time comes to hire a new coach, the assclown posse will be demanding a guy like Rees or some other on-staff assistant to "maintain recruiting continuity" and the same types of guys who hired and kept Kelly will be the ones making the decision.

if you hire the right replacement coach.