In the immediate aftermath of Brian Kelly’s abrupt departure from Notre Dame for a $95 million bag of cash at LSU, Notre Dame trolled its former coach who referred to himself as a “player’s coach” in his intro meeting. Notre Dame trolled Kelly again this week after Kelly planned for two interviews in which he took subtle shots at Notre Dame.
If you missed Kelly’s mini media tour, he made several excuses for leaving Notre Dame other than saying LSU offered a boatload of money. Kelly blamed the training table at Notre Dame, the Gug, recruiting being too hard, and a few other reasons as to why he felt he needed to leave Notre Dame for a place where it would be easier for him to win a title.
Thus the “no excuses here” tweet from Notre Dame in response to the former head coach making it sound like it was almost impossible to win at Notre Dame and that the Irish won under his watch almost in spite of the University.
Greg and I discussed Kelly’s nonsensical comments in length on this week’s podcast, but his comments on recruiting specifically made Kelly, not Notre Dame, look bad. Kelly talked about how at Notre Dame he had to spend either four weeks or six weeks, depending on which interview you read, on a plane recruiting. That’s not a lot at all – especially when you add in the fact that Kelly was flying around on a private jet all the time for those recruiting trips.
Since Kelly’s departure, more has comet to light on Kelly’s aversion to recruiting. Tom Lemming said in the days after Kelly left that he cared more about golfing than recruiting and never stepped foot into several big-time Catholic high schools in the country during his time at Notre Dame.
Marcus Freeman meanwhile, has already shown he’s a tireless recruiter who won’t make excuses for coming up short on the recruiting trail. Minutes after his introductory press conference ended in December, he stepped foot on a plane to clean up the mess Kelly left behind when he left for LSU essentially in the middle of a recruiting visit with the Merriweather family.
Freeman makes recruiting a vital part of his job.
Kelly makes excuses for not doing his job.
Ridiculous, problem is NOT Brian Kelly, or any other coach, the problem IS Notre Dame. Haven’t won a NC in 34 years. THIRTY FOUR YEARS. Been to one, and a game away twice, with, who was that coach? Everything he said is absolutely true. As much as it hurts my heart, ND is a second tier school now, and has been for a while. Top dogs are always improving, expanding, and spending tons of money on the program, right away. HC says we need something, big time programs give it to them, or they leave (see Jimbo, BK). What Kelly did at ND was amazing, considering the limitations, and they are absolutely real. And don’ t give me another dumb article about Freeman dispelling all the recruiting issues. He’s recruiting at a higher level, but nowhere near the big boys. When he gets 2,3 five stars for a few years in a row, than we’ll see. Plus we still have to see if he can be a good HC, if the OKS game was any indication, it’s reasonable to have doubts. A small body of work, but some awful decision making, no adjustments while they tore us up, didn’t take part in the prep on Defense, didn’t establish a ground game, going for it on 4th with 3 mins left, etc..
Signed,
ND fan but not a domer (meaning I am realistic and not blinded by emotions).
The Clapback of Notre Dame.