One potential danger though is the possibility that Nick Saban is a vampire and will coach Bama for 1000 years
It is only a wildly speculative theory on my part, Don, but the fact that he looks more youthful as he ages suggests that he may have a longevity that only can be altered by a wooden stake, silver bullet, or a heavy dose of garlic etc.
Keep tinkering. 1973, Dr. Tom took over the Cornhuskers. MULTIPLE 10 & 11 Seasons...then, after all that tinkering, recruiting, system tweaking he did in the basement all those years, he unleashed a 5 year stretch of incredible football, with a 3 star average. It can be done again.
Well there is much unhappiness in the Notre Dame Nation, lots of people feel Kelly is not a championship level coach and should be replaced. There isn't much that they like about him. They aren't impressed with wining a lot of games the last 4 years (40 games), since he can't win the big game. They also don't like AD Jack Swarbrick. Obviously not everybody feels that way, but there is a large vocal group. The feeling is that he is a lazy recruiter, and can't prepare a team for a top 10 opponent, that he can't make in game adjustments. They esp didn't like his post game comments which were to say the least were a tad combative. If Nick Saban announces his retirement Alabama fans will be distressed, if next week Brian Kelly announces his retirement many ND fans would welcome it. I guess there is that chance he somehow gets on a run like Dr. Tom did after years of losing the big end of season game, but Dr. Tom got a generational QB in Tommy Frazier and Brian Kelly right now doesn't have that and while he does have a freshman coming in who was highly rated, we don't know what he can do till we see him play. The thing that perplexes me is that it's not like the only top WR's with speed are the 6 or 7 guys who play at Ohio State, Clemson and Alabama, but Brian Kelly hasn't been able to consistently been able to entice them to ND even though his offense likes to throw the ball and they are guaranteed to be on TV every week and if they do well to be well noticed. We had Will Fuller back in 2015, and he could take the top off of defenses like those Alabama receivers, but it's been few and far between. We have on speedster on the roster but he's been injured more than he's been available. Until ND has a QB who can make the downfield throws and WR's who can get open down field we can be a very good team, a top 10 team even and win 9-10 games every year, but we won't challenge the current big 3. That won't satisfy ND fans, consistent member of the top 10 who loses to the top 4 every year to end the season is a failure. Lou Holtz won a lot of big games, beat a lot of top 10 teams. That's what the fans want.
There is a lot of truth in the call for patience, tinkering, speed and coaching. My observations, while on the surface may appear superficial, are based on 32 years of frustrated observation. The biggest loss from last season was Chase Claypool. We had no one on the roster this year with his talents and strength. While Book had some of the best pocket skills and elusiveness I have ever seen, he could not stretch the field with his arm and he had no receivers who get get separation. Next year hopefully we will have 4/5 of a new OL , a new QB and hopefully a new K. That is a tall order.
Lou Holtz had a big game presence to him. He was IN the game. Kelly seems to almost disappear into the night on the biggest stage.
Not many coaches have survived 10+ years at a program that expect to win a Nat'l Championship without winning one. Fred Akers survived at Texas 10 years, John Cooper survived at Ohio State, Bobby Bowden eventually won one at FSU after 16 years at FSU, Terry Donahue was at UCLA a long time but I'm not sure a Nat'l Championship was the goal, Bo was one of the greatest Michigan Coaches but never won a National Championship and had a hard time winning a Rose Bowl. I doubt if a coach could survive 10 years at Alabama with Kelly's record. I doubt if he could survive 10 years at USC with Kelly's record, same for Texas. While the Irish talk Nat'l Championship, I do believe Kelly if he continues to win 8-10 games a year will retire on his own terms.
There are only so many national championships to go around. Saban's record at Alabama may never be equaled. Sometimes I think fans put too much emphasis on the big prize. Seems to be many good coaches are shunned because they could not win the big one?
I think it's at certain programs. Coaches at Iowa, like Frentz and at Wisconsin are not held to that standard, have a lot of good seasons and be competitive and you're fine. Both Iowa and Wisconsin have had great seasons recently that ended in big losses, Iowa got stomped in a Rose Bowl and Wisconsin was beaten badly by Ohio State in the Big 10 Championship game. Afterwards those fanbases weren't calling for firing of their coach. Gary Patterson at TCU has had some great years and some very average years, but TCU fans don't call for his head. Iowa State coaches don't have to be in the Nat'l Championship race, probably don't even have to win a conf title, do have to have good seasons win more than they lose, etc. Texas fans though were not happy with Mack Brown when he finally broke through in 2004 with a great season and a terrific Rose Bowl win over Mich and followed that up with a Nat'l Championship. Texas fans were happy through 2009 when the Colt McCoy team lost to Alabama in the Nat'l Championship game. But it quickly went south for Mack after that and calls for his head increased every year after that, fans quickly forgot the good years.
For me the bottom line is, are there any coaches out there that could produce more with the talent that ND has? Now before you say, well "all they have to do is get better players" ask this, if you were a very talented athlete that cared little if anything about a degree and just wanted to play in the NFL, would you go to a school that demanded you attend classes and attain grades? No online classes or majors created especially for athletes, no jock only dorms, etc. If Michigan, Penn St., Ga. and Fla. can't keep up with Alabama and Ohio St. is it realistic to think that ND can? In other words, the reason for the results is not the coaching it's the educational philosophy of the universities. It's not the jockey, it's the horse.
I would agree that it's probably not realistic to expect that ND is going to have Saban like recruiting results, but we could and should consistently be a top 10 program in recruiting. I follow Mike Frank a lot and his comments are that over the tenure of Kelly the effort in recruiting has not been what it could be, that Kelly himself hasn't been a dynamic recruiter and he hasn't demanded that of his staff like an Urban Meyer or Nick Saban does of their staffs. He's been happy with pretty good. If you consistently recruit top 10 talent then you are going to be consistently in the top 10 and occassionally get the right mix and have a realistic shot at the Natty. LSU is an example, they consistently recruit well and finally it came all together for them and they got one, might not happen again for 10 years or longer. Saban has been so successful because he is arguably the best coach in college football in the last 50 years and he has annually the talent to match anybody.
Ironically, LSU didn't completely recruit their NC team. Their Heisman QB was signed by OSU. (We talk about the riches Bama has with 3 Heisman finalists but OSU had not only a Heisman winning QB but also another who beat him our as a starter!!!)
Joe Burrow's story is sort of unique, according to him he didn't have many offers, Boston College was his best offer after Ohio State. But he wasn't a highly recruited kid. Don can correct me but he showed really well at Ohio State but got waylaid by an injury and decided to transfer to LSU, he didn't have a great year at LSU, he was ok but nobody who saw him play in 2018 would've predicted his 2019 season. But LSU also had a bleak history of mediocre QB's holding the team and the offense back, they had great RB and OL but nobody to trigger a good passing offense. So Joe became the missing piece along with the new guy from the Saints to coord the passing game. Irish might be looking for a QB in the transfer portal/grad transfer... Jack Coan of Wisconsin is a name that keeps coming up. Any how my point is that there is a tier of teams that are recruiting well and in any year might put it all together to make a legit run, but right now only Alabama,Ohio State and Clemson are doing it almost every year. Next year OU will be back in the club likely and A&M if they can replace Kellen Mond might be in the club for the 1st time. USC is a team that if they can get their act together has a motherload of talent that is within 300 miles of the campus and is inclined to want to go to USC, but will Clay Helton be able to mold that talent like Saban, and Meyer, and Dabo has and maybe now Ryan Day?
So what has changed? Notre Dame has won NCs in the past. As a matter of fact, Notre Dame has a winning record against Alabama. Have they raised their academic standards? Has Ohio State and Alabama lowered theirs? My point is all of these teams have won National Championships in the not too distant past but all of a sudden they are at a disadvantage/advantage because of academic standards? Also, Notre Dame is a private institution. Most universities in state systems have a much different charter and must be accountable and accessable to the people and the legislature of the state they operate in. However, I do know that there are some Coaches out there at public universities that do agree with you, Gip.
kp I would agree that academic standards are Notre Dame are not the primary issue. Sure they are higher than most of the top schools, but it's not like our recruits are honors grads at their HS. I read that we were able to offer most of the current top 100 in the recruiting rankings. There are kids that we can't get into ND, but it's not like its the majority of those top 100 players. Plus things at Notre Dame that impact kids haven't changed in forever, it's still not known for it's vibrant social/fraternity/party life, never has been. It's still in the Midwest where it's cold in the winter, it's still a Catholic school like it's always been. Sure some things have changed, many of the top kids are focused on what prepares them for the NFL and they don't remember that at one time ND had more players in the NFL than any other team. They see the recent history and that is that Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State kids are getting drafted and being successful in the NFL. So it's not a big surprise when a top rated kid decides for one of those schools. gipper mentioned that ND kids do have to toe the line in terms of classes. While not every major at ND is some difficult major, at Texas unlike ND there are a number of majors that when I see them I go..what you can get a degree in that, but that's the difference between an elite school like ND (or Duke or Northwestern, or Stanford) just not as much opportunity for crib majors. I have heard from the ND online guru's that sometimes kids like a lot of things about ND but decide to go to a school where the academics for athletes is looser and they can focus on football more. Before Covid, ND students were not able to take online classes, at a lot of State Schools, Texas included that has been an option for awhile, obviously not everything was online like today but a certainly a lot of credits can be taken online. But even so I do believe that ND still could be consistently in the top 10 of recruiting, the HC and the coaching staff have to work hard at it, but I'll bet they work hard at it at Alabama as well these highly rated recruits don't just show up at Tuscaloosa asking to play. That's the rub, many feel Kelly hasn't worked as hard at it as say Saban, or Meyer, or Dabo or Ryan Day. So we have what we have. I'll bet if Urban Meyer were to take over the job at Notre Dame we'd be a top 10 or better recruiting class every year even with the supposed restrictions. He'd demand it.
Rereading my response above I can see I did a poor job. Bottom line I do believe that while academic rigor at ND is a factor, it's not the only factor, and during the years where Ara, Devine and Lou won Nat'l Titles it's not like there wasn't academic rigor at ND. They just overcame it with hard work at recruiting and they were amongst the best coaches of their era. They won big games. Kelly is a notch below that. If we luck into another coach of Ara's or Lou's ability some time in the near future I believe we can win another Nat'l Title.
The situation with Joy Burrow was 1 in a thousand (my numbers) as to what occurred in his senior year at LSU. Everything thing came together, personnel, coaching and his superior play for the season.