Brian Kelly to ND, won't coach Cinncinatti BCS bowl game
Goes to show you just how important this BCS bowl game is to Kelly. I imagine if more was on the line (i.e. a playoff situation), Kelly wouldn't be focusing on any job offers until the end of the postseason. Anyway, it still leaves a very sour taste for him to leave before the BCS bowl game. I'd like to see a new NCAA rule which prohibits schools to contact other coaches of teams that made a bowl game until the bowl season is over. Thoughts?
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Can someone explain to me...
why coaches who take new jobs always do it between end of season and the bowl? It must have something to do with budgets, because I don’t know why any coach would hang their players out to dry like that.
Recruiting?
"Football's so important in Texas. On the West Coast, it's a social. On the East Coast, it's a culture. Here, it's a religion."
-- Major Applewhite
yes
They can’t afford to lose a month of recruiting season and then only have a month or so to recruit guys once they get to the new program (in addition to hiring new staff, moving, settling in, etc.). Meanwhile, other teams can use the uncertainty and lack of a face of the program to their advantage to swipe commits and recruits both programs are after. In ND’s case, the interim head coach, who was also the really dynamic recruiter, Mike Ianello, just got hired away to be the HC at Akron, so if Kelly had stayed in Cincy to coach for the Sugar Bowl, ND would have been without a HC and without a recruiter for almost a month. The NCAA ought to push back the commit deadline so that this doesn’t keep happening and coaches are able to finish out the season with their old teams without being severely disadvantaged in their new job.
I am absolutely thrilled about Brian Kelly though. I thought he came off really well in his press conference and I personally don’t think there is a better guy for the job who we could have gotten.
Agreed that it is awful for the players and school
It is the norm, but it sure is abnormal in every sense. I have no idea why either….recruits can wait a bit, they can’t sign until February anyway.
Ditching his team for their last game is 100% lame.
And Cincy players are starting to call him out for it. Good for them.
How do folks think he’ll do at ND, though?
I’m guessing he’ll be comparable to Weis. Somehow I don’t foresee any “Kelly national championships” over the next 5 years.
I don't think he's like Weis at all
Weis never had any college HC experience. BK has been a college HC for 19 years, 18 of those years winning seasons and several of them winning conference or national championships (DII at GVSU). And every program he has been at he has taken from utter mediocrity to winning in a very short time. I won’t predict championships, but I expect a big turnaround. He is also a lot different personality-wise – I’m not sure how to explain it, but watching his press conference it was just like he was the anti-Weis – charismatic, open with the media, he even said something about how “you don’t win on Saturdays with X’s and O’s, you win with hard work and accountability.” Pretty different from Weis and his “decided schematic advantage.”
I think he should have told his players before the news leaked, but other than that I don’t think he has done anything wrong. This is the way the system works – the system sucks a lot, but he’d be hurting ND severely to not come for a month and leave the program rudderless anzd without the ability to recruit in order to coach UC’s last game.
Yeah, I don’t think his personality is the same as Weis’s, I just think his track record will be comparable at the end of the day.
BK will have to rebuild the team, and, as you’ve seen, his playing schedule next year will be tough early. I think he’s in a totally new situation now, where he won’t be operating as much under the radar, and from now on every opponent will view him with a target on his head (an old problem for ND). I’m also a slightly pessimistic about his recruiting skills on this level, although there’s no doubt he can develop players.
And I think we just have to “agree to disagree” (or whatever) on the Sugar bowl thing.
Interesting to get to chat with an ND guy, though.
Not to mention he just lost two key players.
Tate and Clausen both are going to the draft this year.
TEXAS FIGHT
His hiring is somewhat confusing to me.
Seeing as he has won at every level is great but he is known for offense. Offensive output has not been the trouble at ND. The trouble resides on the other side of the ball in stopping opposing offenses. He better hire a stud DC because ND’s defense leaves something left to be inspired.
"I want to be remembered as the guy who gave his all whenever he was on the field."
-Walter Payton
He does actually have experience as a defensive coordinator
He was the DC at his alma mater, Assumption College, for 4 years, defensive backs coach for 2 years and then DC for two years before becoming HC at Grand Valley State. Granted it’s not in DI, but he does at least have the experience.
I knew he had some experience on the other side of the ball, but,
When I hear Brian Kelly and Cincy I think offense, though. If I was Jack Swarbrick (ND AD) my first and last target would have been Gary Patterson. He makes more out of less than anyone I’ve ever seen and he has consistently played BCS conference teams and has an excellent win/loss record against them. TCU was smart to wrap him up as quick as they did.
"I want to be remembered as the guy who gave his all whenever he was on the field."
-Walter Payton
You know Mack Brown left NC before thir bowl game as well . . .
by Hopkins Horn on Dec 11, 2009 4:18 PM CST up reply actions
Yeah – Mack was wrong too. Although the stakes were slightly lower, UNC definitely didn’t forget about it.
And, while I’m on this obnoxious moralist jag, I think it was wrong for Saban to ditch the Dolphins gig.
Saban does this kind of thing every five minutes
And it’s hard for me to say this, as I’m a Kelly fan, but Kelly’s starting to look equally slimy. Didn’t he ditch CMU and LeFevour for their bowl game?
by burntorangehorn on Dec 12, 2009 10:29 PM CST up reply actions
Just about every coach does this
Urban staying at Utah was the exception. Besides, I agree with BigJohnson that it was probably more likely Swarbrick and/or Cincy’s AD than Kelly’s decision.
This would not be a problem
if there was a playoff. Coaches would be worrying about getting their teams ready for the first-round of the playoffs and a chance at a National Championship instead of interviewing for other jobs.
I don't find anything wrong a Coach leaving before a bowl game.
I think the longer a school waits to definitively hire a coach the worse it is for both the school that is hiring and the school that now needs to replace that coach. In an ideal world there would be a perfect answer to this. However, there isn’t. In the case of Kelly, if he were to stay and coach Cincy in their bowl game he would be doing a disservice to both ND and Cincy. He would be employed at one place and coaching at another and on top of that he is slowing down the progress of both schools. I think the quick and clean exit is the best way to do it.
"I want to be remembered as the guy who gave his all whenever he was on the field."
-Walter Payton
I tend to agree . . .
. . . although Urban Meyer’s staying at Utah for an extra month didn’t exactly hamper Florida’s quick return to prominence.
by Hopkins Horn on Dec 11, 2009 4:27 PM CST up reply actions
No, it didn't
But I just think you are doing a disservice to both schools when you stay there. You’re really just doing both jobs half way.
"I want to be remembered as the guy who gave his all whenever he was on the field."
-Walter Payton
But I just think you are doing a disservice to both schools when you stay there.
Is that what he told his players in his final meeting? “I’m actually doing you guys a service by leaving now.”
Sorry to be a pain, everyone. But come on.
What favors is he doing them by staying there?
He has already accepted a job elsewhere and would only hold Cincy back from moving forward.
"I want to be remembered as the guy who gave his all whenever he was on the field."
-Walter Payton
Really, what choice does the coach have?
What choice does his new school have? His old one?
Season ends in November/early December. You’re not going to wait until January to fire a coach. The search begins immediately. The coach isn’t always the instigator, but he often is. Oh, Notre Dame’s open? Tennessee? UCLA? Might as well apply. The coach can’t wait three weeks to apply. Once he applies, or is contacted and doesn’t give a quick “no,” the process is underway.
Once a coach is picked, you can’t sit on it until Jan. 2 . . . it’ll leak out. Once it’s announced, the new school is right to think it’s time for him to go to work; the coach is antsy; his old school wonders how much he’ll put into bowl prep and recruiting (for them). Not really any choice but to do it the way it’s being done now. And has always been done.
This is classless, but not surprising...
For starters, there is a lot of work to be done at Notre Dame. Not just the typical off-season work of recruiting, drawing-up schemes, meeting with boosters, pacifying the AD, etc. but actual re-building. From the ground up. At Notre Dame. Think about that pressure. An extra month means a lot in getting up to speed.
More cynically (and as I’m inclined to believe) skipping the Sugar Bowl also creates a no-lose situation for Brian Kelly. If the Bearcats get slaughtered it will be because he isn’t there, of course. If they pull of the upset it will be because of the amazing work he did, obviously. But, if he stays and the Bearcats get into a Georgia/Hawaii kind of beat-down he’s going to lose a lot of luster. (And Lord knows he needs as much of a honeymoon as he needs going into the train wreck that is South Bend right now). And if he stayed and won? So what? He’s already done a great job coaching…enough to land a coveted job with a 5-year contract…and people would probably just say it’s because Florida was playing a let-down after dropping bad to Alabama.
If I were his agent I’d tell him to do the same thing.
As a fan, I think it shows an embarrassing lack of class, faith in his (old) team, and professionalism. A coach not finishing his season with a shot at a BCS win?! Just because of a pay-day? It looks deperate. It looks tacky. It looks cheap. It looks like Notre Dame found the perfect coach…
And, uh, real jobs in the real world don't operate the same way?
Not defending Kelly — but what would you have done in his situation.
Turned down a shot at one of the best dozen, 15, 20 jobs in the country to play the SEC runnerup for the right to be No. 2 or No. 3 in the final poll?
I don't see the real world comparison
but I agree about the lack of motivation as far as what’s really on the line for winning the bowl game besides pride. This goes back to a playoff scenario preventing this. A lot more is on the line if Cinn was playing in a tournament where winning leads directly to a national championship.
by goingforthecorner on Dec 11, 2009 8:08 PM CST up reply actions
Turned down a shot at one of the best dozen, 15, 20 jobs in the country to play the SEC runnerup for the right to be No. 2 or No. 3 in the final poll?
Well, wait a minute. Playing in the Sugar Bowl wouldn’t cost him the ND job, and historically it’s certainly possible for people in his situation to still make their final game.
Bottom line, several posters have it right: BK didn’t want to play Florida because he knew there was a decent chance he’d lose. Maybe lose big. And he sees the game as an unnecessary risk.
Makes sense
Pursue the offers when your stock is at its peak. Makes you wonder if he’d do this even in a playoff situation.
by goingforthecorner on Dec 12, 2009 2:35 PM CST up reply actions
Everyone seems to assume it was his choice to leave before the bowl game...
I had assumed the opposite from some of the things he’s said. I seem to remember several quotes regarding wishing he could have stayed to finish the season.
I could definitely see an AD telling him to get the hell out if he hadn’t been up front about the possibility of leaving. Or maybe he asked the players if they wanted him to stick around for the bowl game and they told him to f**k off.
Has anyone read anything specific on who’s decision it was?
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