I've been following this thread and to be honest, why in the world is anyone surprised by the state of the program? Lets be honest with ourselves. ND is NOT the brand it once was. Decades of predominately mediocre performance will do that to you. Kelly took the program as far as he could and I believe hit the ceiling as far as what the program is capable of. His exit should have been a strong indicator and warning. I wasn't a big fan of him, but I firmly believe he will make LSU a bonafide contender in the near future.
Rees leaving should have been yet another eye opener. But then again, who wouldn't want to coach under Nick Saban? If you aspire to be a head coach and or want to eventually step into the pros, coaching under the tutelage of Saban is a no brainer. Saban is better than ND... like it or not. I hope Rees shines at Alabama and I hope he has a great career.
Its evident that any coach worth the paycheck won't touch ND with a ten foot pole. They know exactly what they're getting into here and its career suicide for most. ND can and has offered huge salaries to lure these coaches to ND in the past and none of them wanted it. Instead, we ended up with Weiss and Kelly caliber coaches. The high expectations of the university, alum and fans, while you're working with limited sets of talent is not smart for any coach to involve themselves with. Kelly got them really, really close in many facets of the game as evident in their loss to Alabama in the playoffs a couple years ago. But that is that ceiling.
We can get into the argument of what is just and what is right in college football, but thats for a different post thats been covered a millions times already. Bottom line, college football has changed dramatically and ND refuses to change with it. They refuse to make the necessary changes to put themselves in a position to compete at the highest level.. aka, Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, etc.
I had the opportunity last fall to go watch Ohio State vs Penn State here in my hometown. Even with OSU being "down" this year, the level of play and talent on that team was remarkable. They have the size, the speed and a coaching staff that had them ready to play lights out in a stadium thats as rough to play in as it gets. ND would have folded like a cheap tent in that atmosphere.
Unless ND can convince the rest of the country and the NCAA to play by the rules that they think are fair and just, its going to be more of the same for ND football in the future.