Florida Horn

Kelly's last 3 DCs at ND were Mike Elko, Clark Lea, and Marcus Freeman, and his DB coach (Mike Mickens) is one of the best in the business. They were very well coached on that side of the ball. His offensive staffs had some decent coaches, but they weren't as uniformly strong.

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Kelly is going to retire $100 million richer thanks to Mike Elko. Kelly likely would have been fired after 2017 had Elko not orchestrated a miraculous turnaround for ND's D.

My dad went to ND, so I'm a pretty big fan and watched basically every game he coached there (including the Denbrock era). I grew up in Houston, so I'm familiar with LSU but not an expert.

That out of the way, I actually think you're over complicating things a bit. BK, like you said, is a pretty good coach overall, but his offensive philosophy and his QB management/development blow. Did any ND QB actually grow and progress under Kelly? Not that I can think of. Many, e.g., Golson, Kizer, Wimbush, actually regressed.

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He’s also the winningest coach in their school’s history.

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You do realize he's also the losingest coach in ND history as well? He coached there for a long time . . . and in an era where they play more games per season. He's ND's version of Charles McClendon, which is not bad, but not exactly spectacular either.

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What QB recruit did Kelly have at ND to develop? Only 1 decent QB. He turned him into the most winningest QB in ND history. Ian Book was smart but very flawed. Give Kelly LSU talent at WR and RB and let's see what happens.

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Dayne Crist, Gunner Kiel, and Phil Jurkovec are his most notable failures. In each case, Kelly went with dramatically less talented but more cerebral QBs.

Brian Kelly did an excellent job rebuilding ND after the 2016 4-8 debacle. Lest people think I'm some sort of Kelly hater or jilted ex, I will repeat that, he did an EXCELLENT job his last 5 years at ND. He is, however, a flawed coach in many ways, and he's not anywhere close to being on the same level as Meyer or Saban.

During Kelly's 12 years at ND, the weakest facet of the team was almost always the facet Kelly was most directly involved with, QB play and the passing game. QB is also the position that is probably least affected by admissions or academics, so that excuse doesn't really carry water. Kelly cycled through, if memory serves, 6 OCs (including Denbrock for 1 mediocre year), and the results were always the same. The OL could maul most teams on the schedule, but anytime ND played defenses with equal athletes, the offense couldn't throw more than 10 yards down field. The one constant was always Kelly and his rinky dink passing scheme. That Cincinnati/Bama game looked eerily familiar yesterday.

That brings me to Kelly's self awareness. At ND, he was always pushing the administration for improvements to the football program, admissions exceptions, facilities, recruiting budget, you name it, and for the most part, he got what he asked for. The ND admin is typically slow to react, so this was a good and necessary thing by Kelly. He put every aspect of the program under the microscope, but he never seemed to appreciate that the aspect of the program that most directly had his fingerprints on it could be a weak link of the team. The hiring of Denbrock leads me to believe that he still doesn't recognize this. If he were a young coach trying to rebuild a mid-tier ACC school like Va Tech or BC, then I get why you go with a known, even if unspectacular, quantity like Denbrock. Kelly, however, is in the twilight of his career and has accomplished every thing in the sport except for a national title. In this scenario, I'm mystified why he'd go back to the well with Denbrock. The only plausible explanation is that Kelly is simply incapable of looking in the mirror and accepting that he could possibly be part of the problem.

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His classes were consistently the best of any program outside of the South except USC (w California recruiting base) and Ohio St. Given academic restrictions and geographic limitations, he did very well. Much has changed since the time ND was a college football superpower. Your perception of Kelly seems to be coming from a perspective that ND should return to glory. I’m not sure that’s a realistic expectation in the modern era.

Kelly personally may not have been a charismatic recruiter, but he clearly put together a staff that could recruit with the best of them. I’m excited to see what he can do with a natural recruiting base in LA and free of ND’s academic restrictions.

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His recruiting classes were deep but lacked top-end talent. Look at the number of 5 stars he landed. Also, one of the biggest reasons ND couldn't win big games under him is they never had championship-level QB play, and QB is probably the position on the team least affected by academic restrictions.

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Something he CAN do is not look like a blubbering idiot on National TV and interviews.

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Brian Kelly is extremely capable of looking like a blubbering idiot on national TV. He is a massive tw@t, who only cares about himself. ND fans despised him, and despite his success, were happy to see him go. You're in the honeymoon phase right now, but trust me, in a few years, probably less, you will neither like nor respect Brian Kelly. It's possible though that he will win enough for you to tolerate him, as ND fans did for 12 years.

Yikes, fairly mediocre hires if true. Kelly couldn’t recruit/develop elite QBs at ND. I’m not sure Denbrock is the solution to that problem.