I’m a big fan of the 80’s classic movie Wall Street that starred Micheal Douglas and Charlie Sheen. There is a quote from that movie that has stuck with me for more than 20 years:

“Man looks in the abyss, there’s nothing staring back at him. At that moment, man finds his character.”

Well………Notre Dame is in the college football abyss and the new head football coach, Brian Kelly is about to take a long hard look!

I’m not really sure how Brian Kelly is qualified to be the head coach at Notre Dame. We are talking about a guy who only has 6 years of experience at the Division 1 level. Three years at Central Michigan with a combined record of 19-16 (not very impressive) and then three years at Cincinnati where they went 34-6. The 34-6 is impressive when you hear it but how impressive is it really?

Prior to Kelly arriving at Cincinnati, the head coach was Mark Dantonio. Coincidentally, Coach Dantonio was also only at Cincy for 3 years in a rebuilding effort. He is the coach, not Kelly that should be getting all the credit for Cincy’s recent success. In his 3rd year he took the Bearcats to an 8-5 record against the 2nd toughest schedule in the country. Four of his 5 losses that season were at #2 Ohio St, at #6 Louisville, at #10 West Virginia, and at #19 Virginia Tech. That season he also beat then #6 Rutgers.

Dantonio did such a good job reviving the Cincinnati program that he got offered and took the Michigan State head coaching job. So the team that Kelly inherited at Cincinnati was gift wrapped by his predecessor!!! Just look at Kelly’s two best players on his current 12-0 squad, QB Tony Pike and WR Mardy Gilyard are seniors that were both recruited and signed by Dantonio.

As soon as Notre Dame lost to Navy this year, the ESPN hype machine went into full gear plugging Brain Kelly as a perfect replacement for Charlie Weis. It’s obvious that current Athletic Director at Notre Dame Jack Swarbrick, fell for it hook line and sinker! “I am very pleased that a thorough and extensive search has led us to a new head coach in Brian Kelly, who I am confident will help us accomplish our goal of competing for national championships,” said Swarbrick.

First let’s look at the “thorough” comment. Bob Stoops is not interested, neither is Urban Meyer, and then you interview Kelly and Randy Edsall from UConn. So by “thorough” you mean: 10 days, 2 feelers and 2 interviews. That’s a joke! Now let’s breakdown the second and even more ridiculous part of that statement. He didn’t say National Championship but “National Championships!”…..Plural!!! Need I remind Mr. Swarbrick that it has been 21 years since Notre Dame last won a National Championship. You can barely win a game, you pull a quick trigger hire and now you expect multiple National Championships………..We should be discussing YOUR replacement!

What’s done is done and now Coach Kelly is starring at a slow, bad and extremely over-rated football team. If Tate and Allen decide to follow Clausen to the NFL, Kelly’s best returning player will be tight end Kyle Rudolph. That’s not exactly the position you build a championship around! Listen, College football has adapted into a speed game and the majority of great high school players with speed reside in Florida, Texas and California. Kids that live in those states don’t want to go to cold weather schools to play. I’m a perfect example of the trend that is happening in college athletics. My dad played baseball at Notre Dame and out of high school I got recruited to play baseball there. We were living in Dallas at the time and my dad and I went to visit the campus early in October for a football game. When we left Dallas and it was 78 degrees and sunny. When we arrived in South Bend, Indiana where the Notre Dame campus is it was 30 degrees and sleeting with a strong wind. That’s as warm as it got all weekend and I’ve never been so cold in my life. When we left that weekend I asked my dad how you are supposed to play baseball in that weather and he said, “You’re not!” I ended up signing at the University of Florida where it’s considerably warmer. My dad was an alum and they still had no hope of signing me!!!

If linebackers didn’t run 4.4 forties and if the triple option was the still the offense of choice, I’d say that Notre Dame would still have a shot to be good. However, linebackers do run that fast and offenses want to spread you out and beat you with speed. That’s why Notre Dame, the Big 10 and the Big East have become inferior to teams in the SEC, Big 12 and PAC 10. They just can’t get the speed recruits anymore! Coach Kelly is in for a rude awakening because he runs a spread offense and the key ingredient to the spread is speed and he doesn’t have any!!!

Looking ahead, Notre Dame could easily start next season 0-6. If that happens, I can only imagine how difficult things will get for Brian Kelly. He’ll be looking dead into that dark abyss and wondering what he got himself into and all of us are going to find out just what kind of character he is made of!