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Following Otter's lead... by pmcdnd96

I do agree with you about Holtz's final few years. People revered Holtz, but that didn't stop us from bitching about the results.

But the critiques of Holtz should be looked at as MORE reason to be critical of Kelly. Holtz's 1994 season was horrible...despite finishing over 500. He was 17 - 6 in his final two years, a .739 clip, and people were looking to get rid of him. Compare that to Kelly. If we forget about his vacated wins, I believe Kelly's record at Notre Dame would be 102-39, or .723. If people were critical of Holtz for a short run of .739-level performance, why not be critical of Kelly for the same thing.

Also, I don't think you're being accurate in your depiction of what the situation with the team was when Kelly took over. Doing so makes Weis look worse than he was and that contrast makes Kelly look more successful. You assert that Kelly stabilized a team that was top heavy with offensive weapons but no defense. Our scoring defense ranked 23, 24, and 2 in Kelly's first three years at Notre Dame. Kelly had 4 offensive players drafted after his first three seasons at ND, and 8 defensive players drafted. The cupboard was hardly bare.

Re: the ten win seasons, you do realize teams play more games now, right? By the ten-win standard, Knute Rockne had 5 one-loss seasons and three undefeated seasons that were failures.

Finally, regarding wanting the "big fans" to appreciate the fact that we're better than 100 or so other programs, I think that misses a big aspect of what makes Notre Dame special. It's not enough to be an elite academic institution that has a very good football team. The point is that we believe we can be elite in both areas and don't think we should settle for less than that. We realize it's not easy, and that's part of the reason so many are so passionate in their demands.

I agree with you that sometimes the tone of people's posts can go over the top. But I don't think many people get that way because they think Kelly has an easy job. They get that way because they care so much and wish Kelly appeared to care to the same degree.