Notre Dame made some unexpected news on Friday when it announced a brand new, 6 year contract extension for head coach Brian Kelly which will keep him on the sidelines of Notre Dame Stadium through the 2021 season. The extension, Kelly’s third, gives the Notre Dame football program stability the likes of which it hasn’t seen in over 20 years.
The Notre Dame head coaching position had become a carousel ever since Lou Holtz coached his last game for the Irish in 1996 prior to Brian Kelly’s arrival in 2010. None of Holtz’s three successors managed to give Notre Dame any kind of stability and none lasted more than five seasons.
Bob Davie’s tenure was a roller coaster ride that is now known more for the assistant coaches from his staffs who have gone on to become head coaches than it was for any wins during his time in South Bend. He never had back to back winning seasons and didn’t win a single bowl game. Tyrone Willingham started off 10-0 in 2002 before the wheels completely fell off and Notre Dame cut bait with him after just three seasons and back to back terrible seasons on the field and on the recruiting trail.
Charlie Weis took the Irish to back to back BCS bowl games in his first two seasons, but Weis’s lack of experience running a college program eventually caught up to him with his revolving door approach to defensive systems leading to a waste of some all-time great offensive stars.
Enter Brian Kelly. Kelly took over a program that was literally in shambles. Notre Dame had fallen behind the nation’s elite in many areas – not just in the win column. Kelly has completely rebuilt the Notre Dame football program in the last six years though and has Notre Dame on the doorstep to becoming a perennial elite program once again.
Friday’s contract extension will give Kelly the opportunity to reach rarified air at Notre Dame. If he coaches out the entirety of this extension, he will have coached at Notre Dame for longer than anyone else in program history other than some guy named Rockne. The 2021 season would be Kelly’s 12th in the charge of the program – just one year less than Rockne and one year more than Lou Holtz, Frank Leahy, and Ara Parseghian all of whom coached for 11 seasons.
The kind of stability Notre Dame has gained under Kelly has not been felt in South Bend since the days of Holtz and should put an end to the yearly speculation linking Brian Kelly to any NFL coaching positions especially when you consider just how many open positions there were in the NFL this season.
Like it or not – and I happen to love it – Brian Kelly will very likely be at Notre Dame until he is ready to retire whether that be before the end of this contract, at the culmination or it, or beyond. Kelly still has work to do at Notre Dame to accomplish the mission, but he has the security to know he has time to continue to build this program out the right way just as he has for the last six years.
With a contract that runs through 2021, he is locked up through the graduation of the recruiting class of 2017 that is still in the very early stages of development. We haven’t heard too much about recruits questioning Kelly’s long term stability on the recruiting trail but with a contract that was set to run out at the end of the 2017 season, it is not a stretch at all to assume that point has been mentioned against Notre Dame on the recruiting trail once or twice at least.
After three botched coaching hires that set the program back years, it’s now abundantly clear that Jack Swarbrick nailed his highest profile task as Notre Dame athletic director back in the winter of 2009. Brian Kelly has not just stabilized the program, he rebuilt it and undid a lot of the damage that was done through the 13 year stretch of mediocrity that had many questioning whether or not Notre Dame could be great again.
Kelly still has work left to do to truly make Notre Dame great again. The Irish still struggled this season against the nation’s elite and still haven’t won a major bowl game since Holtz was in charge. Kelly does, however, clearly have this program trending in the right direction still has not reach his ceiling.
Brian Kelly now has plenty of time to finish the job he started six years ago and all Notre Dame fans should be very happy about that.
Come Ron. You can do better than that. Your years of useless retorts is catching up with you. Ever try posting something of value?
It’s a smart business move for ND.
Chatter about him leaving a year or two from now, still and always possible, adds to recruits uncertainty- and keeping committed elite recruits is plan A.
BK won’t be there six years from now; probably not three years from now.
High pressure resulting from not reaching the high expectations, and throw in mucho miles recruiting the whole nation (even Canada this year), and ND coaches don’t last twelve seasons.
If the lawyers and athletic administration don’t know how to write a better contract with less expensive buyouts than they did with the Weismeister, they deserve to pay again. And somehow I suspect they’ll be able to come up with what it costs to move on from BK without hitting up NBC for a loan if the next two seasons don’t pan out.
Is 9-3 good enough for the athletic administration? If it happens, stay tuned.
I’m used to the 3+ loss seasons under Kelly so none of this is a surprise. It will be more of the same.
Cameron Diaz on The Herd? Nice.
I don’t talk about yourself that way bj, if you don’t believe in your abilities who will?
Six more years of on the job training and mediocrity
I agree with Frank. This is good news. I’m not sure what why some posters here feel ND should part ways with BK. I mean, what do they see that the rest of the country doesn’t. By and large, every person who knows anything about CFB thinks ND made the right choice in hiring and retaining BK. They’ve all said what a great job he did this year considering all the injuries. I think some fans (SOME, not all) are so spoiled by ND’s history that they expect a NC now, no matter what happens. BK has work to do, that’s true. I won’t be totally satisfied until ND wins a NC. There’s nothing wrong with that either. I also don’t have an issue with reasonable fans who have legitimate criticisms of BK. I don’t always agree with them, but not every BK critic necessarily thinks he should be fired.
I think ND is moving in the right direction, but to be clear, it is a process. We’re not finished yet. I think there’s still further to go. I want ND to continue to improve, and yes, I want it done the right way, with academics ahead of football, ahead of athletics. I’m not in the camp that believes you have to sell your soul to the devil to achieve greatness. It’s ok to look at SEC schools to see what makes them successful on the field. But ND should stay true to what makes it a great school, and one I’m proud to be a fan of.
When Ronny Doody makes any comment, it is then overused.
C-Dog
August 23, 2009 at 11:53 pm
The “cool aid” comment is about as over used and intelligent as “You DA MAN!”
It certainly is the best thing Notre Dame could do at this point. So it’s clear to the idiots who post like 10 year olds. I do not think Kelly and getting fired for wins and losses should be mentioned in the same sentence. As long as h runs a decent program with no violations and they play well he should be retained.
But make no mistake frank. You are loving this because you can sell more hope and advertising under these conditions. A 9 to 11 win Notre Dame team keeps them coming back for more hope about next year.
Anyone who was around the campus for previous national championships knows it was amazing and mostly because the players were among us students and that the school was still primarily a Catholic school. The stadium was good enough with reasonable upgrades periodically taking place. Now it’s a rich man’s school with some Catholic character to it (but too much to offend anyone) and the football athletes really look out of place sometimes.
Notre Dame will complete its mission when it does the following:
1. Win a national championship
2. Win clean with true student athletes
I believe Kelly is a solid coach. I am not sure if he can do both those things.
Finally it’s great that Notre Dame has him under a long term contract. But let’s face it. If some NFL team is willing to pay the rest in say 2018 then the chances of him leaving early go up.
The schedule stacks up for a properly coached team to go 12-0 and get in the playoff. I wouldn’t bet on Notre Dame winning the first playoff game. I’d like to see it by I wouldn’t bet on it. The conferences are going to push against Notre Dame more and more every new season so the chances of Notre Dame getting a fair shot are likely to decrease and there could be significant action taken against Notre Dame by 2018.
So for all you drinking Frank’s cool aid realize the chances of Notre Dame winning it all and winning the way that once made Notre Dame special and not just anmarketing concept…….those are slim indeed.
Fire bvg
For stability, I put a few bags of sand in the back of my pick-up in the winter.
Getting rid of it in the Spring is easy and cheap.