I think we should not call someone 'the winningest coach' when he's also the losingest coach.

and also, 'winningest' should not be a word.

Well I didn’t call him that. He’ll have more wins than Rockne, but obviously he’s a few National Championships short to date.

At what point though is he going to get credit from the non believers in the fan base? Is it simply a binary black and white question of winning a National Title or not?

Nattys are not the only thing missing. There are no major bowl wins. ND always gets the toughest available bowl opponent, but back in the day it was our policy to always accept the toughest invitation. There is also a dearth of regular season big wins, but a plethora of big busts. [thank you SAT flash cards].

So Kelly has established himself as top second tier coach who racks up lots of regular season wins over the 2nd and 3rd tier teams. He stabilized a program that was in chaos from bad coaching and lack luster University support. That gets you a statue at Michigan or Arizona State. But ND still has high standards.

I would think that’s a one eyed view, that probably turns on the definitions of appropriate “standards” he should be held against.

When he took over it had been 21 years since Notre Dame had won a National title, and effectively 16 years since they had played for one in November. He brought the program back to a National Championship game within two years. He weathered numerous challenges external to football to keep things afloat and deepen the quality and depth of incoming talent before establishing a near half decade run of consistent competitiveness.

The crucial bit is that he is doing this in an era where the power base of college football has long shifted to a handful of programs, an era where Nick Saban is a thing. It seems to me to be a very negative glass half empty conclusion to say that it is “second tier” in any respect. The reality is Notre Dame have been in the National Title conversation most years with three appearances in the National Title process itself out of his eleven seasons. Is it as good as it was under Lou Holtz? No, it isn’t. But between Holtz and Kelly was Davies, Willingham and Weis. In that context his tenure has been a complete marvel.

I don’t know what people really want from all of this. On Saturday Notre Dame play a big game against a ranked opponent where winning opens up all sorts of possibilities. We’re getting these games almost every year under Kelly. He has lost a few of them. But he has won a few too. And we keep coming back to them each year. We would have been delighted with this under Weis. Or, at least, we should have been delighted with this.

I appreciate I’m talking to myself here, but I wonder if that’s a “good” win?

I think so since we were almost a TD underdog in Vegas. Wiscy is a 1-2 team now and next week they play Michigan.

One of the best 4th quarters in Irish history? Can’t say I ever remember seeing KO returned for a TD followed by consecutive Pick 6s.

I’m just gonna enjoy these wins. OL is super porous and that’s gonna put a hard ceiling on this team, but the D is really starting to gel plus some exciting skill players on offense that will keep giving us a chance.

It's not too early to speculate. I don't think an 11-1 Irish gets into the playoff barring some 2007-like chaos of multiple 2-loss conf champions. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Alongside Kelly's 'record wins with no national championship' confession today, he also has no major bowl wins. We don't need another Bama beat down to validate this team.

Well we knew this was coming eventually. Just not that it had to come against Cincinnati

Sheesh to LSU.

Funny how many members of the former wishlist are not coaching or underperforming.

Petersen
Patterson
Shaw
Herman
Strong
BUGw various variance beneficiaries.

I guess we should just hire whomever coaches Toledo or Cincinatti.

Happy for Kelly, he probably took the program as far as he could. Huge money, better weather and no limits on recruiting / facilities / support towards winning a National Championship.

For the portion of the fanbase who had wanted Kelly gone for years, they’ve gotten their wish I guess. Whether they’ll wonder what LSU taking him on for 10 years / 95m means as to their low opinions of Kelly is another matter.

College football has a broken structure with financial incentives substantially misaligned to any notions of it being about student athletes and the development of young men. Leaving a team which still has a chance of a national title is somewhat unseemly, but that’s the way it is. Hate the game, not the player.

I am highly dubious that Notre Dame picks up the pieces from here. Kelly was perfect for us and had built up the system over the decade. He leaves an excellent platform, but it will be difficult for the next man in to maintain this level of consistent competitiveness so many are dissatisfied by.

As an aside, this is probably a fine end point for this thread. We started during the nightmare of the Weis era and we end after seeing the full cycle of Brian Kelly. The future we argued over in 2007 - 2009 is known. I think we probably have seen the ceiling of what’s possible for Notre Dame in the modern era. Though I hope I’m wrong.

You seem to see a glass ceiling.

Promoting Freeman to HC (who loves to recruit) with Kelly leaving (who hates recruiting) is basically addition by subtraction.

Tommy Rees is sticking around, makes Freeman look like a lock pretty much

Probably a good outcome.
We’ll get to see what value Kelly was bringing to the table.

The fan base is still pleased about the new promotion that they cannot hear critical questions like How is Freeman qualified to be the head coach of ND football?. Our own Coach-Bama.

Because we are shooting our shot with a fine defensive mind and A+ recruiter with gigantic upside. The staff will mostly remain in place (reminds me somewhat of when Mike Tomlin took over his own iconic football brand also in his mid-30s, with lots of supporting pieces).

In the absolute worst case, he struggles and moves on in 3-5 years but still leaves the roster stocked with elite talent. I expect some bumps. Freeman still doesn’t know what he doesn’t know about being a HC. But I truly believe he will grow into the job.

You forgot, get called racist after we have to fire him for not being ready[again].

TW probably had the worst work ethic of any D1 coach in history. Remember, he got fired as much for not bothering to recruit as he did for marginal on-field performance. The 2007 disaster was Ty’s last two classes as upperclassman. He also managed to go winless at Washington in a season afterwards.

Freeman OTOH goes big game hunting and comes home with recruiting trophies.

At least he's got those things over whatever it was that Gerry Faust brought to the table.

It was a pretty assymetric year.

Remember we started a QB transfer from Wisconsin and Oline transfer from Marshall, and finished with true freshman at left and right tackle. That is not the complexion of great ND teams. This was [un]balanced by one of the easiest schedules of the era. And a HC that was unsurprisingly looking for an exit ramp.

As frustrating as today was, we were kinda fortunate to win 11 games. Boob Weisingham would go 6-6 with the same team and with angst going down to the last play.