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Post being replied to

Stop; this isn't about creating lists by ndzippy

This conversation has not involved any demands to fire Brian Kelly. After a pretty rough start to the season, he seems to have turned things around, which he deserves some credit for. The fact that the team's improvement has coincided with a significant decrease in the quality of our opponents, however, does complicate how its "turnaround" can and should be interpreted.

Brian Kelly has received unprecedented support from the Notre Dame administration, and he's playing some of the easiest schedules the program has ever faced. Rather than wonder if the same average to above-average coach we've known for years might simply be benefiting from some of that support/those schedules, a significant chunk of the Notre Dame fan base seems ready to anoint him a "changed coach" who has us positioned "exactly where we need to be". "Who knows; with a few lucky bounces, maybe he could deliver that long-awaited national championship."

Stop; he's gotten plenty of lucky bounces. His biggest win came against a team missing its starting QB (and #1 overall NFL draft pick) and many play-makers on defense. At full strength a few weeks later, that team murdered Notre Dame in the ACC Championship game. He gets to pile up wins against teams ND wouldn't have even considered playing 20-30 years ago...he's beaten South Florida, New Mexico, Bowling Green, Ball State, Temple, and Miami (Ohio) in the last four seasons alone! I think many former ND coaches would call that a pretty luck break.

My position remains consistent: He's a competent, average to above-average coach. There's nothing special about the guy. Plenty of other competent coaches could have produced similar results over the past few years given similar resources and schedules.

I don't think there's anything wrong with saying that, and I won't pretend to be able to generate 5 names who are guaranteed to produce better results than Brian Kelly has. At the same time, I think it's pretty damn hard to identify other competent coaches guaranteed to produce worse results.

Let's just stop trying to convince ourselves that the Ford Explorer we're driving is actually a Mercedes GLS 450. It's not.