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I'll take a stab at it by Flanner89
If you are looking for honest opinions and not just baiting others, then I'll share some thoughts.
To be clear, I don't think Kelly will win a national championship at ND, so I think we should let him go. However, I don't want to let him go until we have a promising option nearly lined up. Kelly has us in a better position now than when he started. The below thoughts are more about what Kelly can do in the meantime, while searching for his replacement, that could move us to the very top:
Change #1) Recruit better -- Set a standard that ND needs to land a top three class. And that the class addresses the deficiencies in the roster. At this time I see that as perimeter playmakers on both sides of the ball. Set another standard that ND needs to land X number of 5 star difference makers at skill positions and have >Y% of the class at least at a four star level. ND averaged low teens with recruiting over the last five years. That's not good enough. Even with the talent on-board we are overperforming on the field. Look at Georgia for the flip side: Underperforming on the field from their lofty recruiting rankings. Now let's get a top three class and overperform with those guys.
Change #2) Take a hard look at what else needs to change to bring the program to the next level -- bring in someone to take an independent look at what's holding the program back and then address those items. Perform a detailed benchmarking study of Alabama as the gold standard. Who knows what they'll find. It will likely identify some inadequacies with Kelly himself that he needs to improve, but there will be a myriad of differences to consider. Maybe it shows that Kelly needs to fight to get some borderline students admitted, or maybe just be more involved in closing the deal with top recruits, etc.
Change #3) Hire top notch coaches and staff, and then don't interfere as they do their jobs. I don't know how to measure progress on this front, but I'm sure there is a way. The top programs have a virtual carrousel of coaches and manage to remain in the top tier every year under the consistency of the head coach.
These are the first three that jumped out at me. I'm sure there are others.
Most of these changes can be made immediately. One challenge is that the ultimate measuring stick, the college football playoffs, isn't available very often. We need to start winning our share of those games. We should not wait for the next CFP to see if things are better, because that is too late. It is a lagging indicator. I think we need to look at some leading indicators along the way too (such as recruiting rankings as a measure of our talent for example).
In the meantime ND should look for other options to replace Kelly and balance the potential risk vs. reward. There are very few slam dunks and even less that would take this job.(For example many thought Harbaugh was near a slam dunk for Michigan.) Taking a chance could set us through the whole cycle that started with Davie again, so we need to take a calculated chance and not just jump at the first shiny new toy that won 50% of games at Stanford.
I'm not convinced that those involved with the hiring decision will make a wise choice or have even been looking for viable options, so that's another reason I want adequate due diligence on the next coach. When we find the right person to take that calculated risk on, then we pull the trigger and get rid of Kelly.
Having said all that: Any improvements by Kelly will put us in a better position with a new head coach. And for the record I don't think Kelly will make those changes, or any others that will put us on a path to a championship, so we need to start moving on.