It's been 20 years. That culture you speak about is dead as it relates to dominance on the football field. The players that will be recruited to rebuild that culture weren't alive when it was vibrant. ND, it's fans and administration need to stop looking to what worked in the past and understand that in 1988, Notre Dame recruited like Alabama is today... At every position. That'S not possible in an Era where the vast majority of the top kids care very little about Notre Dame's affiliation to the Church or the education they can get in South Bend... ND can be successful, but they have to build in the model of Stanford (because of academic restrictions) but with access to better talent.
ND needs an ass kicker, who will give this team an attitude adjustment. They need to strike a balance between granting kids an opportunity to participate in things outside of football, and not having their leading returning receiver (a senior) retire. They can't have their 3 year starting right guard (a senior) retire. They can't have their starting defensive tackle spending months away from the team each season travelling the world... Or fans just need to accept mediocrity.
While Alabama and Ohio State's kids are living and breathing football, with an eye to the NFL, Notre Dame'S kids are involved in a plethora of other things. They're mentally soft... I'm all for the options ND gives a young man outside of football, but the next coach needs to be a prick relative to what his kids can miss and what the expectations are of them when FOOTBALL is the reason they are going to save $300,000 on a world class degree.
At other schools football owns your ass. Saban demands immense amounts out his kids and he's a complete prick, who runs his program like a military colonel.
That's what Holtz understood. You have to be absurdly hard on your kids 90% of the time and turn them into mean kids. You have to instill hatred and swagger and toughness into them, by being harder on them then they could ever be on theirselves... If they have a sack, they'll man up and grow from it and understand how it makes themselves better. If they don't have a sack, they'll check out and you can process them out of the program because soft kids don't belong on a major college team. When the administration started interfering with how Holtz did things, his run was over. You can't have "suits" that know sweet nothing about the game of football, interfering and medling in the program.
People cry like little girls on this board about Brian Kelly yelling at kids... You know when Brian Kelly was at his best and when this team was growing and improving? When he was tearing a freshman TJ Jones a new asshole on the sideline for screwing up a route in this the redzone. That kid sacked up, worked hard, became tough as friggen nails and made himself into an NFL wide receiver. Had a great senior year playing through a shoulder in need of surgery. He took some nasty hits as a senior and hung on to the ball. Led by example. Fast forward 6 years and Torii Hunter is a friggen bandaid. Doesn't play through a damn thing as a senior Captain. Holtz would have buried him. 2010 Kelly would have buried him. 2016 Kelly baby's him and makes excuses for him.
The fans have gone soft. The head coach has gone soft. The administration has gone soft and the team has gone soft with them... That's how a talented team, with a quality head coach, loses so many damn close games and wilts under pressure. Kelly has lost his edge and so have his kids.