ND/BK Post USC
I found MSC comments interesting in John Bacon's "Three and Out" regarding Brian Kelly and having observed him now for a season and a half in post game comments and sideline antics I think we dodged a bullet with this guy and ND has found themselves another Head case in Head coaching.
Besides The Color Purple
and his role in the Death of Decland Sullivan...where he did indeed play a role Kelly has no problem throwing his players under the bus publicly and does a very poor job IMO of taking personal responsibility.
You can get away with these kinds of things at Grand Valley State and Central Michigan. Even the press corps at Cincinatti will not take notice but when you coach at ND your true purple colors will be exposed.
The most recent USC post game presser has some final coffins in the nail as i read them and if I were an ND fan I would want him gone.
"I’m supposed to say, "everything’s our fault?"There are things players gotta handle too.It’s always going to be both of us.Don’t go criticizing if we give you the right answer and it is on them. Certain parts of the year, they’ve managed it well.Other times we haven’t.Ultimately,we gotta get them to do it right. In the end, it’s always the two of you.End of story. It’ll be that way till they quit playing football.”
"Generally, I'm going to fall on the sword nine out of 10 times," he said about his team’s lethargic start. "I know what I'm doing on a bye week. I've had great success. I know what it looks like. And for us to come out and be less than what we should be, I'm not happy about it. But I'm certainly not going to go back and second guess the way I've prepared over 21 years in a bye week.”
"Cierre wood didn't live up the our expectations that have here for Notre Dame Players"
After giving him received 6 carries!!!
http://www.irishsportsdaily.com/football/football-articles/5779-bk-transcript
"We had some guys that didn't play with poise that need to play with poise," Kelly said. "Championship football teams play with competitive grace, which means that when the stakes are high and the stage is great, they raise their game. Today, in that same situation, some of our players didn't raise their level of play.”
October 24th, 2011 at 9:14 PM ^
A sign of insecurity.
October 24th, 2011 at 12:35 PM ^
"If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, we did it. If anything goes really good, then you did it. That's all it takes to get people to win football games for you."
From Bear Bryant
October 24th, 2011 at 9:38 PM ^
That's a great quote. Notice that Hoke took the blame completely on himself and the coaches after MSU.
October 24th, 2011 at 12:35 PM ^
His style will look a lot better and he'll look way smarter when he starts cycling through some NFL level talent. Right now, he has 1 guy.
October 24th, 2011 at 12:38 PM ^
I'm interested in seeing what Kelly does next year with Charlie Weis's last batch super recruits starting to graduate (or in Teo's case, mabye leaving early). The classes that Kelly has been pulling in don't have that same level of talent. The offense will find the going harder when they don't have Michael Floyd out there to get quadruple covered on every play.
October 24th, 2011 at 12:43 PM ^
He pulled in the seventh best class according to Scout in 2011 and has the fifth best right now for 2012. He's also getting top defensive guys to an extent that Weiss never did.
October 24th, 2011 at 12:55 PM ^
I just looked at ND's depth chart, and this is a "win now" year for them. According to rivals, they have seven senior starters on defense, plus Teo. On offense, they've got three seniors on the O-line and Michael Floyd. Kelly's job could be in jeopardy next year. They are going to have a lot of holes to fill.
October 24th, 2011 at 1:21 PM ^
The next four games ND plays Navy, Wake Forest, BC, and Maryland. Wake is the only team with a winning record and the only one they play on the road. Win on Saturday and they had a very realistic shot at 9-2 going into the Stanford game with lots of momentum and a BCS bid on the line.
Now they are probably looking at 8-4 as the best case scenario and any slip-up in the next few games probably spells the end of the road for Kelly with a huge bulk of the ND fanbase.
On the flip side, it was an equally big win for USC who are now looking at 9-3 as probably their worst case scenario rather than a 2nd straight loss to ND and a third straight mediocre season heading into the first scholarship reductions next year.
October 24th, 2011 at 1:42 PM ^
Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!
October 24th, 2011 at 1:47 PM ^
Their record sucks, but it seems like every week they have lost by a field goal or less (including a 3 point loss to South Carolina).
Anchors Aweigh!
October 24th, 2011 at 1:18 PM ^
The Notre Dame-Air Force game had the lowest television ratings every for a ND broadcast on NBC. With the loss to USC plus a less than exciting schedule for the rest of the season (Navy, at Wake Forest, Maryland in Washington DC, Boston College, at Stanford), you can imagine the television executives at NBC and ABC/ESPN are less than excited with Notre Dame (4-3) as a draw on television for the rest of the season.
The bigger picture surrounds conference realignment. With Missouri looking more and more likely to be SEC bound and with the Big XII apparently preferring to add West Virginia as their tenth team (with BYU, Louisville and Cincinnati as possibilities), then the Big East's position as a standalone football conference is looking more perilous--and that includes maintaining its BCS status. Notre Dame may have some major decisions to make here and the future of Brian Kelly might be a bit down the priority list.
October 24th, 2011 at 1:31 PM ^
If Stanford wins out, the Stanford-ND game will do huge ratings, particularly with the "suck for Luck" mantra surrounding the bad teams in the NFL this year. But that'll be an ABC/ESPN game.
NBC's schedule is crap even if they get the Maryland neutral site game (do they?) But NBC's sports offerings are so terrible that ND will out perform any options they have.
October 24th, 2011 at 1:20 PM ^
As much as we were unrealistic with our expectations of RR in his first year (3-9) upon which we said..damn next year is barely going to be better (5-7) we at least adjusted our expectations.
ND fans however take the cake. I mean they went 8-5 in his 1st year and now they expect to be this 12 win all BCS team, I'm sorry but ol' Charlie did not leave the program in the best of shape. ND's problem for the past 15 years is that they cannot coach up the kids while they are in school (this is evidenced by the 15 kids they have put in the NFL lately) and Charlie was the epiotomy of that.
The problem with BK is that he pulled a RR (granted he walked into a fan base that did want him) but he made critical miscues early on which has caused the luster to fade combined with losing and until Urban decides to stay retired ND Nation will be calling for his head.
October 24th, 2011 at 1:26 PM ^
October 24th, 2011 at 1:34 PM ^
What did Cierre Wood do besides never get the ball handed to him? Was there a play I missed that he is getting blamed for?
How about Kelly taking a little heat for destroying Dayne Crist's confidence by pulling him after one half (where he threw exactly one interception) despite winning the QB battle that went on all offseason. He then comes in off the bench and performs admirably before Kelly decides to put him under center (something he rarely if ever does) in a super high pressure situation. Just like calling the pass play against Tulsa last year and subsequently blaming Rees for throwing a pick, Kelly seems to have a habit of putting his guys in difficult/unfamiliar situations and then blaming them if/when they screw up.
October 24th, 2011 at 11:11 PM ^
Very good point.
Crist is a senior and the end of his career will essentially be marked by a mediocre half of football against South Florida. You have to let him find a rhythm. He never had a chance.
October 24th, 2011 at 7:07 PM ^
I could understand the comment about Cierre Wood if he had broken a team rule or something, but because of his play on the field? I don't get it.
October 24th, 2011 at 8:31 PM ^
making blanket judgements here is impossible. its not like its morally reprehensible to call a guy out. its a little jerkish, certainly, but lots (most? all?) good coaches have a healthy jerk streak.
the question, is whether it works. is wood a guy who responds to getting called out and steps up his play or is he a guy that gets bitter, pissy and stops playing hard because he thinks kelly is a jerk?
lots of old-school retired players often talk about how their coach impacted their character. lots of that "character development" could easily be categorized as verbal abuse. so, its all about: 1. does it work? which is related to: 2. what does a player expect?
October 24th, 2011 at 1:38 PM ^
Reminds me a little of the way Izzo calls out his players in the press as a way of motivating them. I always thought Izzo was way too overboard in downgrading the performance of his individual players in the media...
October 24th, 2011 at 1:47 PM ^
the real signature of an institutional failing that makes it improbably hard to win at nd would be if folks who succeeded at nd went on to succeed as head coaches elsewhere. none of the 3 pre-kelly hires went on to do anything after nd. i suspect that lack of opportunity to fail elsewhere (ie: davie) relfects the judgement of athletic directors on their likelihood of success.
the options are either: 1. the institutional failure is in selecting coaches, and bk may or may not represent another failure or 2. the instibutional failure is a failure to create an environment conducive to winning and nd coaches have just had back luck or lacked opportunity elsewhere.
i think #1 is by far the most likely explanation - nd has done a lousy job of picking coaches. the question remains whether bk is a similarly lousy choice. the last two years haven't exactly inspired optimisism, but the jury is still out. the possiblity that he has run into a patch of disproprotionately crappy luck is still feasible.
October 24th, 2011 at 1:47 PM ^
That fumble through Crist's legs that was returned 90 yards for a TD has got to one of the most unbelievable OMG LOL bad luck plays I've seen.
Got to feel bad for Crist though.
October 24th, 2011 at 5:46 PM ^
...was that at my former high school's game the night before we were down 5 but had driven to within inches of the opponent's goal line with a minute to play and only had to punch it in to beat a rival we hadn't beaten in over 20 years...
...and snapped the ball over the qb's head and had it run back for a touchdown.
To see it once was unreal, but twice in two days? Somebody had their finger on the Infinite Improbability Drive.
October 24th, 2011 at 2:02 PM ^
And Cierre is thinking the same thing... He (Kelly) didn't live up to the expectations that we have for our coaches at Notre Dame....
October 24th, 2011 at 2:16 PM ^
Is a story going around that after the game a group of fans was cheering for Urban Meyer...
October 24th, 2011 at 2:37 PM ^
I don't understand the obsession with Brian Kelly around the blog. Everyone seems to be openly rooting for a guy to get fired that we've never lost to.
October 24th, 2011 at 3:56 PM ^
He's a great coach, and this year's team is better than any team Weis put together. They've had unbelievably bad luck, the worst I've ever seen in a single year. I also get the sense that Kelly is dealing with a bunch of players with deeply held senses of entitlement, which may be a holdover from Weis era stuff.
Management is a tricky business. Sometimes calling people out is what you have to do, especially if you feel like they will respond to how they are perceived as opposed to what is said privately. When Kelly was at cincinatti I don't ever recall him having a press conference like the one he had on Saturday.
October 24th, 2011 at 4:26 PM ^
Go ahead and re-post this next week after they lose to Navy .... again!
Truth is Kelly lost this team after the USF game with his less than manly sideline antics. The press jumped him & then they lose to Michigan. The USC was to be their statement game - and if they come out flat then that falls TOTALLY on the coach (yeah right - great team GMAFB).
Go Blue!
October 24th, 2011 at 4:42 PM ^
No one watches the press conference when you're the coach of Cincinnati, so I can't say whether he took respsonsibility when things went poorly. But I doubt it. Kelly was an asshole at UC, too. He was constantly berating the players and throwing sideline tantrums. He didn't suddenly develop a propensity for empurplement at ND.
He wore a shamrock-green tie to the end of the year banquet where he told the team at UC he was leaving (the end of the year banquet that was supposed to be a celebration of their great year), after telling them he wasn't leaving a few days earlier. I get that maybe he changed his mind (or didn't want to count his golden chickens prior to their hatching), and so had good reason to go back on what he had said, but there has to be a better way to tell the team you're leaving than at their awards banquet wearing your new team's colors.
October 24th, 2011 at 5:10 PM ^
Well done, OysterMonkey.
October 24th, 2011 at 5:24 PM ^
What would you think of a CEO who, on the investor call to discuss a bad quarterly report, said "I'm supposed to say it's all management's fault? Ultimately our workers have to get it done...."
Head football coach is, above all else, a management position. Taking responsibility, especially in public, is part of the job.
October 24th, 2011 at 6:13 PM ^
After this season, I'm wondering if MSU sold their "Sparty, NO!" to the Irish.
October 24th, 2011 at 7:25 PM ^
He should just admit he's not good at preparing his team and getting them ready for big rival games, instead of blaming them for his teams loss. SMH terrible coach
October 24th, 2011 at 11:39 PM ^
Is that every mistake is amplified x1000. BK yells at a player? OMG HE'S THE DEVIL!! WHAT A BAD MAN!!! And I'm still hearing about it on ESPN. Notre Dame doesn't use their timeouts when USC has the ball inside the ND 10 with 2 minutes left down 14? OMG THEY'RE QUITTERS!!! QUIT QUIT QUIT!!! HAHA ND SUX!!!
Meanwhile Nick Saban flips out in a press conference and curses at the media and everyone just laughs it off. Oh that Nick Saban... his temper is so adorable. Nick Saban also grabbed a kid by the facemask and chewed him out basically spitting in his face. On natonal TV. And no one cares.
It is just insane the microscope Brian Kelly is under. I think about some of the stuff I heard our lax coach say to the players and refs during games... and I just crack up thinking about what the reaction would be if he had to live in the same fishbowl as Kelly.
October 26th, 2011 at 12:44 PM ^
So, what you're saying is "Brian Kelly = Nick Saban"? Got it. I agree, then. I don't know why anyone would think Kelly is an asshole if he's just like Saban.