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//  Saturday, July 31, 2010

Will Brain Kelly Return Notre Dame to the Top?

Sunday, December 13, 2009
Posted by Adam Bunn

This past weekend Notre Dame ended their coaching search by hiring Cincinnati's Brain Kelly to take over the fighting Irish. From the beginning of the search a few weeks ago most around the nation believed that Kelly was the front runner for the job, no matter what ESPN would like you to believe. While the national media was creating these top 5 candidate lists Notre Dame was having discussions with Kelly on how he wanted to go about taking the job. While ESPN was talking Randy Edsell heading to the Irish, the Irish already had their coach.

But now that they have the man they wanted the question is: Whether he will return Notre Dame to the top of the college football world?

Since the end of the Lou Holtz era the Irish have gone through coach's faster than Pac Man Jones goes through dollar bills at a strip club. They gave Bob Davie just 4 years to right the ship and only 3 to Tyrone Willingham when he had one of the best Quarterbacks in the country setting up to lead his team the very next year. Then came Charlie Weis a man with no head coaching experience and off of just one year gives him a 10 year extension. With previous coaches the administration showed no loyalty at all yet with a Weis one year deserved basically a life time contract. Now Weis is gone and Kelly is the man who is going to be thrown into the fire next season. And he has his work cut out for him.

Kelly is going to an Irish completely different from the one Weis. When Weis took over in 2005 he had Brady Quinn as well as a decent enough defense and a great core of offensive weapons all coming back, which allowed him to win so many games his first two years. Kelly on the other hand is losing his starting quarterback is Jimmy Claussen, as well as his best wide-out in Golden Tate. His returning unit is not very good on the defensive side of the ball. The Notre Dame defense struggled all season long to stop anyone regardless of talent level. Teams like Navy, Michigan, and UConn moved the ball at will against the Irish defense.

The biggest adjustment for Kelly will be without a doubt the pressure that the fans will put on Kelly. While the head coach at Cinci he had the run of the place. He had the freedom to do whatever he wanted to do without the fans caring much about the success of the football team. Now he finds himself at a place where the fans have a huge ego that at this point in Notre Dame history is unwarranted. So not only is he going to have to worry about the product that he puts on the field every Saturday, but also he has to worry about Sunday morning when he wakes up and sees the headlines of the local papers.

So will Brain Kelly be successful at Notre Dame? The answer to that is not known yet as Kelly has yet to even hold a practice at his new school, but one can be safe in saying that if his first season does not go as well as the fans would like their displeasure will be known immediately. And if that happens Notre Dame may be looking for a new coach just as soon as this one arrived.

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