How do we measure up to the playoff teams....

[4-4-3]

Let's get a few things straight....

I've already said having better material makes coaching easier. Anyone who's been directly involved in the game on the sidelines knows first hand that life is easier with great talent.

Having said that let's look at BK's two losses this year.
@UGA we come off the bus false starting. 7 false starts in that game. 7. One or two, can happen but 7 is a huge problem. Something is just off if you're going to have that many false starts. Apparently the problem was miscommunication between what Book was doing with the cadence/clap/silent count and what the players (Kmet) were expecting. You don't even need to be a great coach to recognize this is a problem early on and fix it immediately. He loves burning timeouts at silly moments but he won't call a timeout and gather the offense and say WTH is going on with the snap. This is what the cadence will be going forward so we're all on the same page.

He does nothing but stand on the sideline with that disgusted yet dumbfounded look on his face.
Then makes excuses post game.

That was a game his current so called lousy players could have won. @ Georgia mind you.

Michigan? Just another example of a huge ramification primetime game that his players decided to play flat and lifeless. One team wanted to win by 100 and our team looked like they wanted to be home. Again, it doesn't take a great coach to recognize Michigan is going to make a huge push in that game, especially early, and we better get amped up and match the opponent's emotional and energy level.

The QB play, lack of development, wrong QB playing....all things that have plagued our team for the past decade. Same coach this past decade.

All three things I listed have absolutely nothing to do with talent yet all three things were huge contributors to our losses this year.

They are a direct result of a sideline that has no idea what it's doing in preparation and in game. We have enough talent to beat weak teams in spite of BK. No team can beat an elite opponent and sometimes just an emotionally charged team being unprepared and unmotivated.

Give BK more talent and ultimately the results won't be much different. We'll beat the weak and struggle against the good. He's a lousy coach. Period.

I think the results with more talent WOULD be better.

But there's no way to know until or, more likely, unless he gets it. He's made this straightforward comment that recruiting must and will improve as he doesn't think ND will get to the next level unless it becomes a top 5 recruiter.

What took him so long to realize this?

Or has he known it all along but only now has been green-lighted by the university to do a little shopping in what Holtz termed "the other lane."

Frankly, I'm surprised he went on the record on this as he's now made a commitment people will hold him to. But, again, did he make this comment knowing full-well the university would play ball?

This would be quite a change as ND's biggest recruiting nemesis for 30 years has been ND.

Let's see what Kelly can do with better team-wide talent, if, in fact, he ever gets it. Personally, I'm highly skeptical that he will, but, then, I don't know what I don't know.

Are tectonic plates now shifting?

 

[4-4-3]

Yet he keeps winning and winning. And will continue to do so

Yes, there's also that.

Which is why I think that with an SEC level squad, he could run with the actual SEC. Alabama beat UM today because it made the necessary plays at critical junctures, whereas UM did not.

One team's athletes -- the better ones -- out-performed the other team's lesser athletes. The coaching variable at that level is, for the most part, narrower than assumed and in relation to play-maker input, has a smaller effect on the ACTUAL game.

For example, this has been a bowl season of remarkable one-handed catches. But, to my knowledge, NOT ONE COACH HAS MADE ONE.

Kelly has proved that at ND he can win at a 70% clip. Maybe somewhat higher. The last 3 years, he's had Parseghian-like numbers. I would argue that's not a bad record for someone considered by some a "bad coach."

But will it get you an NC? Not likely. Only zero or 1-loss seasons will get you that.

The NC bracket usually involves coaches who, over time, win at 77% to 87% clip. Which takes special players at all positions. Kelly doesn't have that, though he now says he will get those players. Brian, good luck!

But should he get them, ND will do better. And by that, I mean under him. To win an NC you don't have to be Leahy, but merely Dan Devine -- whom Kelly can hold his own against. But he will need Devine-type players, many of whom were recruited -- there's that word -- by Parseghian.

As for the future -- and this goes for any team -- stockpile the talent and the right coach will come. And, of course, he'll bring in talent, too. It's synergistic. That's because few who are talented -- and that's coaches and players alike -- turn their backs on opportunity.

But that opportunity must be real. As in a chance to win it all. Not just a traditional, i.e. mythical quest built on a value system that assigns high marks for good effort and/or moral victories