What Brian Kelly is But Was Not

Submitted by joelrodz on

So, much has been made about Brian "the God" Kelly and his coaching abilities, which has led many to consider him the "Best Damn Coach in the Land" (couldn't resist, sorry). While i have been utterly impressed as many of you have by Mr. Kelly, i have also noticed he has not always been a dominant coach in his career.

In particular, what i'd like to focus on is on BKelly's performance at CMU (19-16, 54% win%), where he barely maintained a winning record over the 3 years he was there. In fact, the current coach at CMU, over a similar 3 year span, has amassed a better win% than BKelly ever accomplished [CMU 8-6 (2007), 8-5 (2008), 9-2 (2009 to date) = 25-13 (66% win%)].

I would argue that at the end of 2006, it would of been difficult to make the argument that BKelly would perform as well as he has at Cincy. In fact, it can be argued that back in 2006, BKelly was a mediocre coach not cut for coaching at a bigger conference (coming from the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference to the MAC).

Obviously, those who saw something in Kelly new better and provided him the opportunity to perform at a bigger stage in the Big East, where he has excelled. The point here is that even good coaches have droughts, and there are many reasons for why those droughts occur, some of which are invisible to the lay person's eye. As a social psychologist i know many reasons for why the first instinct is to point fingers at what is observable (coach and players) and thus perceived as responsible for any change in W-L records even though situational factors (recruiting, lack of depth, etc) can drive much of what is actually happening (thank you Misopogon). So while we continue to ponder what lays ahead for our Wolverines, lets continue to keep in check our tendency to make the fundamental attribution error.

Brian Kelly, 19 yrs head coach - Total W-L Record: 169-57 (75% win%)
Grand Valley State: 118-35 (77% win%)
Central Michigan: 19-16 (54% win%)
Cincinnati: 32-6 (84% win% thus far)

steve sharik

November 23rd, 2009 at 11:25 PM ^

The current HC at CMU is Butch Jones and he virtually copied the Rich Rod program. And Trent Dilfer was doing the broadcast last Tuesday night lauding what a great program Butch runs.

LJ

November 23rd, 2009 at 11:28 PM ^

CMU was a perennial loser before Kelly arrived. He got progressively better each year (4-7,6-5,9-4) and won the MAC in his final year. Credit Butch Jones for maintaining the program, but there's no question who laid the groundwork. I think you can reasonably compare that with some of the RR transition periods as he turned around WVU, Glenville State, etc.

Not to mention he ran a powerhouse in GVSU. He's been successful at every stop.

Muttley

November 24th, 2009 at 12:53 AM ^

is either intentionally disingenuous or a sure sign that the OP is not sufficiently informed to comment. In DeBord's last year, our OC-in-training went 3-9. Kelly followed by going 4-7, 6-5, and 9-4 (10-4 if you count the bowl won by the team he constructed).

If you're going to make the case that Kelly was a poor coach at CMU, you better have an argument for why he lucked out and left the program in much better shape than he inherited it.

TomVH

November 23rd, 2009 at 11:46 PM ^

He did a lot more for that program than stats will tell you. He started to do what he's now doing at Cinci, and get people to come to the games.

I was there when he was hired, and it went from everyone going tailgating, then straight to the bar, to tailgating and going to watch the game. He had to change the culture, and he had a lot of work to do with the players.

gpsimms not to…

November 23rd, 2009 at 11:43 PM ^

Kelly's record at CMU was damn near heroic, considering the havoc Mike D. wrought during his brief tenure as the Chips head man.

Kelly's trajectory was definitely upward, and he was an "interesting/exciting, yet maybe unproven" choice at the time of the Michigan search.

cbuswolverine

November 23rd, 2009 at 11:44 PM ^

Yeah, why in the world would you look only at the years after Kelly left and not the years before he got there?

"I would argue that at the end of 2006, it would of been difficult to make the argument that BKelly would perform as well as he has at Cincy. In fact, it can be argued that back in 2006, BKelly was a mediocre coach not cut for coaching at a bigger conference (coming from the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference to the MAC)."

annnnnnnnd you would lose that argument

joelrodz

November 24th, 2009 at 12:05 AM ^

i was trying to make is that the leap from the intercollegiate conference to the MAC leaves a lot to be desired in terms what can be construed as success. And though he did built the program, as some of you have pointed out, his final numbers at CMU were not necessarily indicative of what would be expected of him at Cincy (32-6).

Don

November 24th, 2009 at 12:28 AM ^

And if anybody took the time to look at the season-by-season progress at CMU under Kelly rather than just the aggregate won-loss total, he just as easily COULD HAVE been perceived by some others as a damn good coach.

aenima0311

November 24th, 2009 at 2:10 AM ^

He also lost the star RB he inherited to a murder charge.

That isn't meant as smack. I had a friend at CMU at the time who thought their season was over at that point. They ended up overcoming it and doing very well.

DamnYankee

November 24th, 2009 at 8:30 AM ^

2 years ago, Brian Kelly's name was mentioned and then quickly dimissed because he had "issues". What were they - just curious? I live down here in Atlanta and there was never any info. divulged - only that he was mentioned as a possible candidate.

Seth

November 24th, 2009 at 9:30 AM ^

By taking the overall record of his time there, you're skewing what Kelly did for that program.

Year Team Record Postseason
2004 Central Michigan 4–7 (none)
2005 Central Michigan 6–5 (none)
2006 Central Michigan 9–4 Did not coach bowl
2006 Cincinnati 1–0 W International Bowl
2007 Cincinnati 10–3 W Papajohns.com Bowl
2008 Cincinnati 11–3 L Orange Bowl
2009 Cincinnati 10–0 ???

Until Kelly, CMU hadn't been to a bowl game since 1994.

That he had a 4-7 record his first year there, and was 6-5 his second season. is an important lesson -- the talent when he came in wasn't there. It took a few years before the system clicked. Like WVU today, CMU is still going on Kelly's momemtum.

It can't last. One thing that nobody's arguing is that the State of Michigan has experienced a very heavy population loss. We already have an Uber program in the state, in addition to a sizeable major conference program just down the road from Central, and then two more in-conference programs. Michigan can make up for the shrunken in-state recruiting base by going outside the state, obvs, and MSU can do that as well, to a much smaller degree. But the lower down you go, the harder-up these programs are going to be for talent. I wouldn't be surprised, if they spend, say, another 10 years as a MAC doormat, if Eastern's programs folds, or drops down to FCS.

Anyway, this all comes back to the point that Kelly was doing a lot at CMU with very little.

My understanding, having lived, and now just re-lived, through the whole coaching fiasco, was that Brian Kelly "rubbed people the wrong way" and "was never a candidate for Michigan" and "is a dick."

By the morning of December 14, 2007, Brian was showing all conceivable signs of doing whatever the blogging equivalent is of jumping up and down and pointing to Cincinnati while stodgy guys in pressed shirts ignore you and do things like give Mike DeBord a serious look.

I don't know if this translated into "will totally ignore academics and all things Michigan stands for" or "is just a fucking dick." I do know that before Pat White's finger got tweaked, we were (in the case of Bill Martin, literally) adrift and about to become Notre Dame, with Lloyd Carr hanging around playing Negative Nancy, the key players focused more on "process" than finding the best candidate, and the fanbase absolutely bewildered at how, with Carr's retirement looming for years, an heir apparent hadn't even been discussed until deadline day.

What I do know is that on the afternoon of December 14, 2007, West Virginia's head coach was on a plane to Toledo.

Ziff72

November 24th, 2009 at 10:36 AM ^

Look at Kelly's depth chart. He's done a great job but he has 43 of the 44 guys on his 2 deep have been there at least 3 years. Makes a huge difference.

NHWolverine

November 24th, 2009 at 3:23 PM ^

During the WVU game I remember him having some words with a QB coach for not relaying signals quick enough and as I recall it had a huge impact on the series. They're his staff so if he wants to give them an earful on the sidelines for making an amateur mistake when they're trying to be a legitimate NC contender I have no problem with it.