During the 10-year period from 1954 through 1963, Notre Dame's record was 51-48 under 3 different coaches (Terry Brennan 32-18, Joe Kuharich 17-23, and Hugh Devore 2-7). Following the 1963 season, ND hired Ara Parseghian. The rest of the story is well-known. This current slide has lasted 13 years - You could make a case for throwing in Lou's last 2-3 seasons to make it 15-16 years. Because it's not official, I have no idea if Brian Kelly or anyone else named as head coach is a savior or if we will continue to wallow in medicrity. I don't know what kind of coaching staff he will assemble. I see that Terry attributed a sarcastic comment in another topic about a successful coach from a lower division school campaigning for the job of D coordinator. TOK said: Let me give you a bit of a history lesson - considering my foggy memory - which may or may not apply to this situation. I can only recall specifically the backgrounds of two coaches that Ara hired. John Ray was a defensive coach. I think he might have been D coordinator, but I'm not sure. Ray came from John Carroll in Cleveland, which if memory serves me, was and still is a D III program. Wally Moore had been the head coach of St. Joseph HS in South Bend. I don't recall Joe Yonto's background, and I don't recall the names of other coaches. My point is, regardless of the individual backgrounds, it was a stable and highly successful staff over a period of 10 great years. Ara was a successful CEO/field general, and he assembled a staff that was cohesive and on the the same page. Who knows what kind of staff the new head coach will assemble? I can assure you that every single person on that staff will have my unqualified support, regardless of background.
Sid Another way to compare Ara and Kelly is that Ara was hired after a 5-4 season at Northwestern, Kelly hasn't lost this season as we know. Oh and I'm not sure but I think Ray was the linebacker coach.
I hope history repeats Sid. I'm happy we got Kelly, I naturally would have preferred Stoops just because he's done it on a bigger stage than Kelly. I actually wouldn't have liked Meyer at ND and Saban wasn't leaving Alabama in a NC game year. After that Kelly is ahead of Frentz, Edsall, Skip Holtz and whoever else might have been on the list. There are people talking who claim inside knowledge that say that Stoops was there for the taking but that he wanted somethings related to admissions and control over player discipline that were no go's. Everybody knows that players get punished harder at ND for transgressions off the field than at most places. We had some high profile transfers recently as a result of what those players thought was too harsh a punishment. But be that as it may, ND is ND and I assume that Brian Kelly agreed to work within the framework that is ND. Good for him. Charlie made mention of ResLife being not only his biggest problem as a coach, but that it impacts regular students as well. Maybe changes need to be made to the whole disciplinary system at ND. I doubt if either you or gipper ever got into any trouble at ND, you seem pretty much like choirboys to me, but back in your day things were different. I hope he builds a strong staff that is ready to coach at a high level and to recruit nationally. That was one of Charlies biggest problems. It turnerd out that he hired an OL coach who might be a good man and a decent coach, but at least at ND he didn't develope one single OL that we recruited. He hired a DCoord who'd already been at ND and was no great shakes, then he compounded the mistake by hiring a young NFL DB coach who'd never been a DCoord ....you see where this is going. Getting the staff right first time out will go a long way to solidifying Kelly's run at ND. If he gets it wrong, sure he can correct it ...if he's objective enough to do it....but he's not going to get 5 years like Charlie and Davie...he's going to need to win right away and recruit like crazy and not have any 3-9 seasons or losses to Navy. Terry
Heard Urban was making a run at Alford, I really hope not... IMHO, he was the finest RB coach that I can remember at the school.
There were 3 or 4 assistants of Charlie's that I really wanted to retain because of their ability to: 1. Coach 2. Recruit Alford is really impressive. Lost in the hyperbolic snow storm that is an ND coaches firing, was that not all of the coaches sucked...You should know that, your history run is piloted and powered by 'ND rejects' who were bad mouthed at the time but turned out to be pretty GD great..
Heh heh. :twisted: I agree with you, Terry, about hiring the right staff out of the gate, Needless to say, I hope that's what he does. My point above is that, regardless of the backgrounds of the assistants, you never know who the right staff is until they produce the results on the field. I don't know about the ResLife issue, so I can't comment, except to say that there are two sides to every story. I don't spend much time looking at NDNation, but from what I've seen, I'm pretty sure that you rarely, if ever, see both sides of an issue, especially where the university administration is involved. The administration is an easy target which gets shot at pretty consistently. Beyond that, I don't have an opinion on the matter.
Sid, Gipper...did you guys get the email from ND? Apparently they sent out an email to all the alums about Kelly being the guy. If you didn't get the email it supposedly means that you haven't contributed enough and they are recalling your degree!
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....I have saved Bills posts... Dec 1997....Congrats guys I think in Davie you got a good one. Dec 2001....Congrats guys I think in O'Leary you got a good one. Dec 2001...a little later....Congrats guys I think in Willingham you got a good one. Dec 2004...Congrats guys I think in Weis you got a good one. Dec 2009...Congrats guys I think you got a good one. I am detecting a pattern here, I believe Gator Bill is a member of a secret cult of Coach Jinxers and that his congrats is really an incantation to doom said coach to failure. :wink: :wink: But thanks anyway Bill!
Chuck Martin to be new DC under Kelly? <r>Chuck Martin <br/> <br/> He runs the 3-4 and is very highly regarded.... and claims he will take the job under Kelly if offered. <QUOTE><s> </e></QUOTE> <br/> <URL url="http://www.gvsulakers.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/martin_chuck00.html"><s></s>Chuck Martin<e></e></URL><br/> <br/> EDITED BY MODERATOR: While I don't think GVSU is out to get people/istes who copy and paste their webcontent. Still the rule is just part of an article and then the link.</r>
Terry, LOL! Good old Bill. He sure is predictably gracious. I hope he won't be offering us any more congratulations (on hiring a new coach) for a long time. I received the email from the university that Gipper linked above, so I guess I'm still in good stead.
Sid, did you get the additional request for more money? Something about an unanticipated buyout or something like that.
The difference between those that got into trouble and choirboys is that choirboys didn't get caught.