Don't forget the completely flat performance vs Michigan in 2019.
BK post pressure….
- Thread starter ftnfan62
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If you saw the whole PC he said some peculiar things - starting with he was angry at his team (and it's lack of discipline, lack of killer instinct). It was a bit passive/aggressive - saying he needs to "coach it better" but mostly due to (implied) the team is not doing what he wants them to do...so he's very frustrated/angry.
He also gave USC zero credit for playing a good game - which they did. Really never mentioned them.
Also said his QB got outplayed (which statistically he did) but his QB was very good for his initial start (over 300 yards).
It was very whiny/bitchy session - not a good look.
You make an interesting point about Kelly's inability to motivate players. That has always been a weakness for him. His players seem to fear him, and I suppose they largely respect him, but I am not sure they would run through a wall for him. Watching Kelly go purple while he screamed at Dayne Crist is an image I cannot forget with Kelly. Correcting a player when he makes a mistake (even loudly) is one thing; berating them will make them tune right out. How many times did I see a player walk right past Kelly like they didn't care while Kelly was going purple on them? In Kelly's defense, he got better at that as time went on, but I am not sure he ever learned the ability to truly motivate his players. Seeing Marcus Freeman try to fire up the team as they stood in the tunnel waiting to run out onto Kyle Field offered a pretty stark difference between MF's and BK's styles. Freeman has things he needs to get better at, but there is litte doubt his players love him, respect him, and play hard for him. When the game is on the line, those things can make the difference between winning and coming up short.
The image of QB Golson just ignoring Kelly and his teaching tantrum is one that will always stand out to me.
No listen to interview. He throws players under bus before saying it's on him.
Brian Kelly was in South Bend 12 seasons, and the focus here is on a QB in year 2.
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Notre Dame also suspended and expelled Everett Golson for violating the Honor code. Golson ignored a lot of things in South Bend.
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He was also 4-8 in year 7, if that doesn't tell you he lost the team, not much will.
You have moved on from Kelly, and that's fine, but posters on this board will continue to talk about him as a point of comparison with Marcus Freeman. If you don't care about what people have to say on those topics, don't read their posts.
I don't know, man, I think what he is is wildly successful. I don't know the degree of his strategizing prowess or the nuance of his motivational ploys, but he pretty much wins and wins big wherever goes, and so I guess what I'm saying is wtf are you talking about? That's what's so surreal listening to the interminable litany of anti-BK screeds, and your's is comparatively thoughtful and charitable. But they all have this knowing tone that he's a figure naturally to be condescended to, when he's not being outright scorned, when what he actually is, is an uber successful CFB coach who's doing just fine so far at LSU, who turned a middling ND program into an annual playoff contender, almost had Cincy in the national title game, made Central Michigan MAC champs in his first D-1 gig, and before that had a remarkable run of success at the D-2 level, enabling him to make the rare leap to the big leagues. How does all that render him such a flawed coach to be pitied and patronized?
That's what's so fascinating. The inclination, or rather the compulsion to denigrate and belittle the guy is so irresistible to ND fans, while at the same time his actual record of success renders him almost immune to significant criticism, and yet you guys simply refuse to be deterred by it. And you create these narratives, I guess you'd say, and nevertheless attempt to portray him as some sort of a mildly pathetic figure when there is nothing about his career that would naturally inspire such sentiments. You have to pick and search for imagined flaws, that you don't even know if they exist or not, because outside of that, what is there to even criticize? I guess that he's not at the level of Saban and Urban Meyer. That's his fatal flaw....
You failed to mention the next 5 years.
When you finish 54-9, the losing the team mantra doesnt stick.
GREAT REBUTTAL POST.
And not so much in your defense of Kelly -- although that's extremely sound and well documented -- as in your observation that people here have an INORDINATE DESIRE to denigrate the man. You would think that he was an MLB manager with a sub .500 W/L record who'd bounced around for years and never won anywhere.
My take?
A lot of people -- EVEN GROWN MEN -- want a GOOD DADDY. And Brian Kelly comes off like a BAD DADDY. And that apparently offends people or makes them feel INSECURE.
But since I grew up in a world of mostly BAD DADDIES, I don't get that reaction at all. I mean, when WASN'T my father's or uncles' faces NOT PURPLE. People were clutching for the American Dream and getting kicked in the teeth or laid off along the way.
And that after getting SHOT AT in WWII.
I hobbled off the field once with a sprained ankle in a HS football game only to be called by my coach when I couldn't go back in, "A GUTLESS WONDER."
SO WHAT. The ankle healed, and the insult DIDN'T CRIPPLE ME EITHER.
I never had a problem with Brian Kelly.
Wow. That is a lot of psycho babble. Not sure how one can respond to that.
We are fans on a CFB team message board doing what fans do: discussing topics of interest about the team we follow. You and Savvy get pretty defensive when Brian Kelly is brought up, though you are not nearly as passionate or sensitive on the topic as Savvy is, but why is it you feel that Kelly is immune from criticism? Did he do good things for ND? Undeniably. Is he a very good college football coach? I would say yes, though some may disagree. I am trying to understand why Kelly could never seem to make the leap from being very good to great. He had a great W/L record at Notre Dame. He restored stability to the football program. He did some really good things. But he never won a national championship, and always seemed to stumble on the big stage. Was that failure because, as Kelly famously said, he was "shopping down a different aisle" when it came to recruiting? Or were other factors at play? It is a fair topic of discussion as to why that is so. You, and certainly Savvy, think differently.
Maybe Kelly will make that jump at LSU. Based on the early indications, I don't think he will, but time will be the judge on that. I may hold a different opinion of Kelly if he is able to win a national championship at LSU, but I am not there yet.
If you think we are being unfair to Kelly on this board, spend some time on the ND Nation board. They absolutely revile Kelly over there.
I have a number of friends who are Michigan alums. Years ago they engaged in the same kind of discussions of Bo Schembechler, another HC who was very good but could never seem to win "the big one."
Probably none of us here would like to see our own lives dissected in this manner. But none of us are the head football coach of Notre Dame. The criticism comes with the territory. We all have our own "Mount Rushmore" of ND football coaches, and discussing who is on that mountain is something that fans do. For me that Mount Rushmore is Rockne, Leahy, Parseghian and Holtz. Kelly isn't on it for me, despite his wonderful won/loss record, and he never will be.
I am a huge supporter of Marcus Freeman, and have made that plain in my postings on this board. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but my perception is that you are not a supporter. At the very least, you have your doubts as to whether he is up for the job. That is fine. But how is the criticism of Kelly any different that the doubts you and others have expressed as to Freeman's ability, or the likelihood he will win a NC at Notre Dame?
Contrary to what you and Savvy may think, many of us here don't have some pathological dislike of Kelly. I certainly do not. I recognize him to be an excellent football coach. I am simply curious as to the reasons why he couldn't get over the hump from very good to great, and have expressed my thoughts on the subject on this board.
Swarbrick forced him to change.
Last 2 seasons:
Marcus Freeman 8-4 vs Top 25
Brian Kelly 3-6 vs Top 25
I stopped reading your drivel after "but he pretty much wins and wins big wherever goes,"
Show me where he wins big. Have you seen his record vs top 25, vs Top 10 while at ND:
vs Top 25: 34-34
vs Top 10: 2-13
Big wins he does not have.
"Contrary to what you and Savvy may think, many of us here don't have some pathological dislike of Kelly. I certainly do not. I recognize him to be an excellent football coach. I am simply curious as to the reasons why he couldn't get over the hump from very good to great, and have expressed my thoughts on the subject on this board."
I see little to no "pathological" dislike of Kelly here. What dislike exists is a reaction to his coaching, decision-making, demeanor and recruiting deficiencies. You recognize his coaching "excellence", but are curious about why he couldn't get from good to great? How can he be both excellent but only good, not great? He appears to have a track record of demanding loyalty but failing to reciprocate. He disappoints in big games almost always. (The win over Bama in the recent past was an exception). As a side note...Kelly is a prick who can't dance.
For me, Golson was the most frustrating QB of the Kelly era. Incredible arm, threw a beautiful pass, had athleticism to extend plays and represent a true dual threat, started off like an All American talent. But turnovers, an inability to throw the ball away when no one was open, failure to accept coaching, etc… ruined what looked like a promising career in Kelly’s offense. Him walking past Kelly and just ignoring Kelly’s outbursts was incredibly disrespectful of his obligation as the team’s starting QB…much more an indictment of Golson than Kelly. But as I said, the image of him just ignoring a red faced Kelly screaming over yet another mistake filled series is one hell of a lasting image.
Kelly has that enormous contract...to be sure. However, underperforming is grounds for termination with cause. The contractual details are unknown...but I can't imagine LSU tolerating 3 loss seasons routinely. This is year 3 of said losses or worse. My guess is....he will get one more after this one to make the playoffs. Could be wrong. But a pattern is already developing at LSU...starting with losing the opener.
I was right there with you, Telx1. I remember watching Golson's HS tape and being blown away by what I saw. I thought he would be ND's next great QB, and that he might even win a Heisman in the process. In fact, I was goaded into making a bet (a not insubstantial one) by a couple of my buddies who are ND haters that Golson would win a Heisman during his time at ND. Needless to say, after a promising start, that bet did not end well. I am not sure which was worse, paying off the bet or enduring the ignominy of all their taunts afterwards.
Golson had as much arm talent as any QB I have ever seen at ND. He threw a beautiful ball and, as you note, he had athleticism to extend plays. He should have been a great one, but that never happened. Makes you understand that arm talent is only part of being a great QB. Some guys, like Joe Montana, not only excel when the pressure is on, they thrive. Sadly, Everett Golson just never developed that talent. Some of that, I feel, was on Golson's lack of development by Kelly. But Golson shoulders much of the blame himself, including (obviously) his suspension for an honors code violation. I wonder how much that self-inflicted wound stunted his development when he came back from the suspension. It must have been tough for him to go back to his home town in South Carolina and have people look at him and think of him as a cheater.
Good write up. I always questioned whether he wanted it bad enough. He seemed to love music and the piano, and played qb because he was good at it. Maybe just not very football smart, or maybe lack of commitment to learning the intricacies of the position beyond what he could do with his natural talent. I think the later. My “guess” is that Kelly views Golson as one of his biggest disappointments in a long successful career; one that I’m glad ended at ND when it did. I’m also glad I didn’t lay a big bet on Golson winning the Heisman with friends 😅
I still remember Brian Kelly keeping his team on the field at halftime at USC in 2016, the day Adoree Jackson and the rest of USC throttled Notre Dame. The man never lost the team, despite your assertions.
Just when you thought Kelly's reached a new low....
"He just pointed his finger at his friend" wtf?
www.outkick.com
"He just pointed his finger at his friend" wtf?
Brian Kelly Describes Gun Shooting Penalty As 'Pointed His Finger', Unsurprisingly Misses The Point
LSU Tigers head coach Brian Kelly doesn't appear to know why his wide receiver got an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, describing the fake "gun shooting" penalty as pointing fingers.
www.outkick.com
And here you are, unblushingly fantasizing about his early termination, on some sort of legal grounds that presumably don't exist. Indeed you're lusting after it, when there's absolute stone dead zero basis to think something like that is in the offing, nor would it or could it play out the way you long for, they would simply fire and him buy him out if they wanted to replace him. And he'd get all his money. You obviously don't want to hide your loathing, and your unconcealed desire for his personal ruin, you want to wallow in it, you want to celebrate it, you want to publicly express it to anyone who might sympathize with and validate it. But you insist on, I suppose because of your own silly pretensions toward respectability or whatnot, to frame your hostility as if you're simply making a hard-boiled observation and it's nothing personal. When all you really want to do is hurt BK however you can, however impotently and pathetic, from your computer room, for reasons only a trained and talented cognitive psychologist might understand.
The word for this is indeed 'pathological', and very much in the clinical sense. This is not the typical disgruntled fan syndrome. This is definitely some form of social contagion that overtook you at some point, and which taps into a deep, rich vein of innate male aggression, finding continuous manifestation and vent through this unrelenting e-persecution of ND's all time winningest coach. Yeah, you definitely could be wrong.
Are you Brian Kelly's bastard child? Your comments are literally hilarious. I'm lmao 🤣 😂 reading your stuff.
Good for you that you’re dissociating yourself from those on this board who truly HATE Kelly. Because they exist. In one of the posts just following yours, someone referred to him in the usual prickly manner as a PRICK. Not exactly a term of endearment but pretty routine here.
And in line with that, I’m totally comfortable with my comment that “people here have an INORDINATE DESIRE to denigrate the man” because the evidence for that is EYE-POPPING in every thread in which Kelly appears.
Or else why would Savvy be writing all of those REBUTTAL POSTS? Almost every one of them has been written as a COUNTER-PUNCH to someone launching into an anti-Kelly snark or screed.
And neither of us is being defensive. We’re merely DEFENDING the guy against relentless slurs that CONFLATE his coaching, his character and whatever other cheap-shot opportunity seems handy. I mean, what do I have to be DEFENSIVE about? I’m no more invested in him than you are. I just hate seeing him used as a pinata.
I’m going to ask you to be honest. Do you actually think that a guy who’s been as successful a coach as Kelly – I’ll dispense with all of his accomplishments and assume in good faith that you’re aware of them – is deserving of the LEVEL OF ABUSE he routinely gets on this board? Do you think it is in any way JUSTIFIED?
Because I DON’T.
To me, it’s a pretty BAD LOOK and just another variation of KICK-THE-DOG-BULLYING. And of a guy who isn’t available to defend himself. I find it simply OVER THE TOP. All of this wishing that he fails and that he can’t do this or that. It’s in no way PROPORTIONAL.
As for Freeman, he CLEARLY would not have been my first choice, though not because I have any ANIMUS towards him (and you can verify that by examining my posts in which I’ve never denigrated him once as an individual, nor will I) but because of his lack of experience.
Yet, he’s done well and even if he doesn’t, I GUARANTEE I will never denigrate him as a person. It’s NOT MY STYLE, and it’s POOR FORM which is why when I see people GET VENOMOUS with Kelly, it TURNS ME OFF.
Seriously, why are people heaping abuse on a HIGH PERFORMANCE guy at a level they NEVER GOT TO and whose shoes they couldn’t shine on their best day – at least in his field – who was also the coach who made their team again relevant?
In other words, WHY MUST THE PERFECT BE THE ENEMY OF THE GOOD?
And how about that Kelly hired the guy who has been all but anointed as the one who will accomplish everything he himself fell short of?
And sorry if you’re DISMISSIVE of Oedipal references, but as I said – BAD DADDY/GOOD DADDY. BK, BAD; MF, GOOD. It’s the basic WANNABE BINARY employed by school kids. Yet, WE SEE IT HERE.
Normally, I don’t get involved in these Kelly hate-fests, but this time, I thought Savvy’s post was so lights-out that I simply had to acknowledge him in support of his effort. I never like missing the opportunity of crediting someone on a good piece of writing.
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I judge a man by his CHARACTER. Kelly has shown he is of POOR CHARACTER time and time again. The way he left Notre Dame alone shows the type of person he is.
As for winning. Sure he won games, but when it came to games vs TOP 25 he was at BEST a .500 coach. When it comes to games vs the top 10 he's well BELOW AVERAGE at 2-13.
THROWING his players under the BUS and blaming EVERYONE else but himself for his FAILURES.
He's a good coach and program builder, but he's FAR from great. His teams looked UNPREPARED and UNINSPIRED in most BIG GAMES.
The DENIGRATION you refer to is more towards his CHARACTER and how he REACTS during his FAILURES.
With all due respect, I called Kelly a prick. I don't refer to Kelly as a prick because I dislike him. I dislike him because he's a prick. To interview for a pro job on the cusp of a Natty game is something a prick would do. To be in a recruit's home blowing smoke up the family's rear end on the eve of his bailing on the ND program is something a prick does. To berate Dane Crist in the manner he did defines him as a prick. He took the opportunity to take digs at ND after taking the LSU job, subtle as they may have been....because he is a prick. These examples only scratch the surface. Nick Saban is the king of college football coaches....he isn't a prick. Neither was Lou Holtz. Even Jimmy Johnson's heavy weight swagger didn't qualify him as a prick. I was elated when Kelly left...but he left ND the same way he came in....as a prick.
Interesting article on Kelly. Worth the read.
That was a good read. Whether you agree with it or not it touches on several points that have been discussed here.
1. Kelly was a good coach, and the program was stable. Usually won the games he was supposed to. Left the program better off than when he arrived.
2. Lack of ability to win big games. 23-24 at ND against top 25 teams. 3-10 against top 10 teams. He is 3-6 vs. top 25 teams at LSU.
3. Smugness as a person, usually blaming others for inability to win big.
1. Kelly was a good coach, and the program was stable. Usually won the games he was supposed to. Left the program better off than when he arrived.
2. Lack of ability to win big games. 23-24 at ND against top 25 teams. 3-10 against top 10 teams. He is 3-6 vs. top 25 teams at LSU.
3. Smugness as a person, usually blaming others for inability to win big.
LSU does not provide Kelly with the educational restrictions crutch. It is providing everything else Kelly needs to be successful. He has lost 3 openers in a row. That is a red flag. I think Kelly will feel the pressure when the long knives come out; much more so than at ND...where he had more rope than anything else. His contract has a "termination with cause" clause where "underperforming" is grounds. We can't know what LSU determines to be "underperforming." I couldn't even figure that out at ND...where he kept breaking his own record as the "winningest coach in ND history". (Participation trophies notwithstanding).
So you studied up on BK's matter of public record contract looking for vulnerabilities to exploit? Yeah, you're no hater. And according to you, by your incredibly jaundiced reasoning, two 10-3 seasons in the can, a Heisman winner and three top fifteen draft picks, but with an 0-1 start for the third straight season to USC this time, and he's already getting a little uncomfortably close to 'termination with cause' territory.... You're definitely no obsessed, pathological BK hater, that's just calling a spade a spade.
You left out the part where I said 3 consecutive opening losses is a red flag...and more importantly...the part about "we can't know what LSU determines to be underperforming". But, no worries...I fixed it for you.
There are no red flags. You are very visibly continuing to denigrate BK, unsubtly I would add, and attempting to insinuate whatever doubt about his future or fitness you can that you hope might sound plausible. At least the rude and crude BK haters don't try to get all insidious about it. They just want in on the gang-bang so to speak, and to get their licks in whenever LSU loses a game. You really want to see him go down, you want to watch this man fail and be humiliated. A coach that lifted ND back to perennial playoff contender status, without which who knows where the program would be today, and you want to see him destroyed. That's pathological.
