I’m only going to address your QB comments as I’ll cover the other points in my responses to other posts dealing with this overall topic.
While I’m far from a Kelly APOLOGIST, I don’t subscribe to the theory that he was a QB killer. I think it’s an overworked theme and largely inaccurate. Here are my thoughts:
- Crist wasn’t doing badly, but he got hurt and Rees won the final four games down the stretch in 10. Then Crist got yanked in the first game against USF the following season. Kelly lost confidence in him, while Rees wound up finishing, career-stats-wise, among ND’s top 5 QB’s. And I say that as someone who much preferred Crist to Rees. But Kelly certainly didn’t wreck Rees. And then, Crist did really poorly at Kansas under Weis. If Kelly wrecked Crist, did Weis help him?
- Golson played mostly well in 12, lost the 13 season due to his own foolishness and was doing fine in 14 until he flamed out over the last 4 games? Was that a Kelly flameout or was that Golson? And then when Golson moved on to FSU, he did about the same as he had at ND. In other words, he was playing at his CEILING.
- Hendrix simply didn’t have it at the ND level despite being awesome in HS, while Kiel and Jurkovec couldn’t unseat the people in front of them. Kelly repeatedly said that to him Book was the better option than Jurokvec. How was that destroying Jurkovec? Hasn’t he been tearing it up at BC? He hasn’t looked destroyed to me.
- Zaire never fully got untracked, so we don’t know what he might have done, but he didn’t do much as a transfer either, so how good a player was he really at the college level? We’ll never know.
- Wimbush was a hell of an athlete – maybe too much so – and did seem to regress as a passer, though my sense is that he passed “over his head” his first year. And he, too, did nothing as a transfer. Barely played after getting beaten out just as he had at ND by Book.
- As for Kizer, his drop-off in his final year was in no way MAJOR. Stats-wise it was negligible while playing on a poor team. It was his second full season, and often players experience that kind of drop-off and then come back strong in year three. But for Kizer, there wasn’t any year three.
What’s more telling to me is that regardless of who the QB was, ND played for the NC in 12, almost made the playoffs in 15 and did make them in 18 and 20. How does a team do that over a 9-year period with WRECKED QB’s?
And what about Jack Coan? Did Kelly wreck Coan? Coan played almost statistically identically the way he’d played his last healthy year at Wisconsin. Coan would have been the PERFECT EXAMPLE of Kelly taking a good QB and destroying him. But it didn’t happen. And I’d argue that it’s largely because Coan was the best downfield pocket passer Kelly had. Which is exactly why Kelly played him and continued to have confidence in him even through ups and downs. Just as he’d done with Golson in 12.
Kelly never went back to Crist, Zaire or Wimbush, but he did go back to Coan SEVERAL TIMES. Coan was his MEAL TICKET. The others, not at all.
To be blunt, NONE OF THESE GUYS were in the same league as Manziel, Lawrence, Burrow or recent QB’s at OSU, OU, Bama and Georgia. Has ND had a Kyler Murray, Baker Mayfield or Justin Fields? ND has simply not recruited a QB of that caliber – WHO ACTUALLY SHOWED HE HAD THE GOODS AS A COLLEGIAN – since Clausen. Who wasn’t as good as any of those guys just mentioned either. And who was the last ND QB to make it in the pros? STEVE BEUERLIEN
who graduated in 1986. And while he had some good years as an NFL starter, he spent most of his career as Troy Aikman’s backup at Dallas.
Only four ND QB’s in my lifetime have made it big in pro ball: Daryle Lamonica, Joe Theismann and Joe Montana in the NFL and Tom Clements in the CFL. And I've been watching ND football since Ralph Guglielmi and Tom Carey were co-starter QB's in 1954. Carey didn't make it in the pros either while Guglielmi was a career backup with the Redskins and Giants.
As for Freeman, who I’m not trying to knock here, let’s see how well HE does with Buchner, Pyne, Agnelli and Powlus? To be honest, I’m not sold on Buchner as an accurate downfield passer. That may simply be a matter of small sample size, but if he can’t throw the ball with accuracy downfield, ND isn’t going that far with an offense where Buchner is a RUN-FIRST QB. He’s good, but he’s not that good, and a good DL will shut down those little read-option, off-tackle jaunts of his pretty fast.
Also, given the way he runs, he’s a prime candidate for a serious knee or shoulder injury. He plays tougher than his frame.
Bottom line, I don’t think Kelly DESTROYED any of his QB’s. They simply went as far as their abilities could take them. Kelly also didn’t destroy any QB’s at Cincy that I'm aware of, and I seriously doubt he’ll destroy any at LSU. There’s no way they’d have gone after him down there if that’s what they thought he would do. Kelly will be as good as the players he gets, and that includes his QB’s.