Irish ND fan

There's been six college football games in Dublin this century. Navy played Notre Dame back in 2012, then in 2014 Penn State played UCF, and in 2016 Georgia Tech played Boston College.

Notre Dame were supposed to play Navy in 2020 but that was cancelled due to the Covid lockdowns, and rearranged for three years later.

Since 2022 they've had the 'Aer Lingus College Football Classic' each Week 0 to start the season. In 2022 it was Nebraska-Northwestern, in 2023 Notre Dame-Navy and in 2024 Florida State-Georgia Tech.

In 2025 it's scheduled to be Iowa State-Kansas State in Farmaggedon, and in 2027 it's Pittsburgh-Wisconsin. All of these games, with the exception of the 2014 one, have been at the Aviva Stadium, the home of the Ireland soccer and rugby national teams, which has a capacity for college football of around 47,000. (If and when an NFL game, likely a Pittsburgh Steelers game, is played here, it will almost certainly be at the 82,000 capacity Croke Park, Ireland's national (GAA) stadium).

The current series of games are sponsored by Ireland's national airline, Aer Lingus, and supported by the Irish government. They basically pay the teams to come over here to help promote tourism to Ireland. Most of the tickets that go to US fans are sold via travel packages that usually involve at least a five day stay. And if you like golf, there's the option for an awful lot of that.

They've already had Notre Dame (several times), a Big Ten team, ACC teams and this coming summer Big 12 teams. I understand that they would love to bring over an SEC team, and given that Brian Kelly was here in 2012 (and involved in the planning for the 2020 game that never came to pass) it was an obvious avenue to explore with him.

Plus LSU is one of the SEC teams that is historically open to playing week 0 neutral site games (though I appreciate that recent results in them understandably impact fans' views on their suitability). If they do bring an SEC team over then I expect it would be against either a G5 or lower level P4 team.

Given the capacity of the Aviva Stadium, and the fact that the last two games have sold out, I can't see LSU-ND ever happening, as both fan bases are just too big when combined together. ND took a record 40,000 fans here in 2022 and LSU I would imagine could bring 20,000-30,000 at least, so the organisers would rather bring them both, if they could, but in different years.

I'd say you'd be more likely to see something like LSU-Memphis. LSU-Houston, or LSU-Purdue than an all SEC game with LSU, or LSU-ND, if it were to happen. The earliest it could happen is August 2026; if not then, then 2028 is the next open date.

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Favorites are 10-0 straight up

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That's not actually true. Favourites are 9-1 straight up.

Although Notre Dame opened as -1.5 point favourites over Penn State, by kickoff the line was Penn State -1.5. The Irish were the first underdog to win a game in the new twelve-team playoff.

And hopefully the second.

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Football existed before 2000. Notre Dame and USC have the most Hall of Famers

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Notre Dame, off the top of my head, would do very well at the likes of QB (Joe Montana), RB (Jerome Bettis), TE (Dave Casper) OL, DL (Alan Page and Bryant Young) and Safety (Harrison Smith and Kyle Hamilton).

WR doesn't feel like a similar strength, though ND does have Tim Brown in the Hall of Fame.

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Bet you that didn't exist at ND.

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Kelly also had a leadership council at Notre Dame.

So far this season, ND has worn:

blue/gold (normal home)
white/gold (normal road)
green/white
blue/white
white/white
blue grey/blue grey (for the Four Horsemen 100th Anniversary game against Army)

And the reaction of ND fans is similar to here; some, usually older fans, hate it; other, mostly younger fans, think if the players love it - and they absolutely do - then go for it.

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And not only fail to qualify for a 12 team playoff but fail to crack the top 25.

What would you have said?

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That he's an above average golfer whose game has improved since moving south to warmer climes?

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He was making in the $1,000,000’s or 2,000,000’s at ND until he basically went to LSU. Assuming he was spending a reasonable amount of money, which I’m sure he was, he wasn’t accumulating anywhere near generational wealth until literally right now.

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No, its pretty true. LSU basically quadrupled his ND salary

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Going off USA Today from the link in my post.

$2.67M in 2021
$1.86M in 2020

So if you’re saying otherwise, then either USA Today is wrong or there was some creative setup where most of BK’s money wasn’t paid directly from the school.

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I'm afraid everything you wrote about Kelly's total compensation package at Notre Dame was completely incorrect. Except for the second half of your final sentence.

Kelly was paid around $7.5m-$8m per annum by the time he left ND. A portion (much less than half) was paid directly by the school, and is a matter of public record, as per your USA Today link. But Notre Dame is a private school that does not have to disclose all the relevant information around this issue.

Much of the rest of his compensation package was paid via Under Armor as fas as I'm aware. But he was certainly paid a lot more than $2m. And his successor is on around $7m p.a. at the moment. For context, ND's two coordinators are currently on around $2.25m p.a. each.

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BK made a 4 team playoff there twice.

They wouldn't be in a 4 team playoff this year, but suddenly Freeman is better.

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What makes you think they wouldn't make a four-team playoff this season?

They are currently ranked #4 and most, if not all, of the likely outcomes of the Big Ten and SEC Conference Championship Games would see them remain in the top four.

Notre Dame are 3-7 in their last ten visits to thew Coliseum, though that's going back over 20 years. They're 3-3 since Brian Kelly became head coach.

They're also 2-5-2 all time in Los Angeles when the Irish are ranked in this game and USC are not. Though the two ND wins are from the only two such games this century: 2012 and 2018.

Even in years where USC have been average, they almost always play ND very tough.

In 2012 USC went 7-5 and #1 ND won a tense game 22-13 where USC had nine plays inside the Irish 5 yard line in the final five minutes without scoring.

In 2018 USC went 5-7 and #3 ND only won 24-17 in a game that went to the wire.

On current form I could see a scenario where the Irish win by two scores or more, especially if USC continue to turn the ball over at the same rate. But I think it's more likely that it's a one score game in the fourth quarter and it may come down to how well the ND offence can move the ball on a decent P4 defense.

It was both. I don't doubt for a minute that Kelly genuinely felt - and in all likelihood still feels - that he has a better chance of winning a national championship at LSU than at ND. Personally I don't think he will because ultimately he has never worked hard enough at recruiting, but we shall see.

But the money also has to have been a factor. As you say, ND's AD refused to extend his contract unless he won a natty, and his agent was able to get him a deal that was well worth it from an LSU-standpoint if he were successful, but an absolutely ridiculous total amount if he's not.

I don't even think it's the $9.5m per annum that was the bad part - that's around the going rate for a top coach in the SEC; rather it was the ten years with 90% guaranteed. His agent definitely saw your AD coming!

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He'll voluntarily retire, before he's fired.

He'll realize that he's in over his head at LSU and get the hell out of Dodge.

It will happen sooner than expected too............

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Why on earth would he retire? He has the best pension plan in college football. $9.5m per year, with 90% of that guaranteed, and he's still another seven years left after this season.

He'll keep winning at least eight, usually at least nine and occasionally ten regular season games, but not the natty. And by the middle of the 2027 year it will become clear that it's not going to get any better and by the end of the 2027 season he'll get his pink slip.

You'll then have the choice of either paying him 90% of $9.5m for the remaining four years, presumably in monthly instalments, or negotiate a smaller total amount that gets paid up front. By that stage I should imagine that will be more manageable.