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No, if ND/Kelly can finally win a big game I will stop my rantings. But one game does not absolve him. He has to have the team consistently play up to their potential and not down to the competition. How would you feel if ND beat USC, but lost to NC State, Stanford and Navy?
I thing with Kelly, it is one game at a time. If this was back in the day when the Administration cared and ND football was relevent, he would have been long gone.
Allow me to copy and paste my response from another thread that may give you a little insight into how I think...
"While I hope to see the team win out, I am more interested in seeing if they can continue to play with the poise, focus, and attention to detail. In the past there seemed to be a bunch moments of sheer stupidity and loss of poise, focus, and attention to detail that lost many close games. And I'm talking about both coaches and players. But this group, though they have made mistakes of course, don't seem to let it snowball and affect their mindset or performance on the next play or next series. That is refreshing. The MSU game was where it was most evident imho. If we lose a game or games the second half of the season and it is just because the other team was better, then I can live with that and feel good going into the next season. But if the team regresses to lacking focus and attention to detail and starts reaching for things that are outside of what they do normally or do well and it costs a game, then that's an issue."
I am actually in full agreement that 1 game does not absolve Kelly. I do not trust Kelly yet. I had a long rant about that weeks ago that I will not copy and paste from another thread. To me, it all depends on how the team performs. As I said above previously, if the poise, lack of mental errors, focus, and pure desire/care are evident in the game but ND loses, then ok. If things snowball, there's divisiveness, blaming (by Kelly to coaches or players), or fake enthusiasm (remember that ridiculous dancing on the sidelines last year?), then there's a problem. We haven't seen that this year. What we've seen is pretty good, flawed, but pretty good. Find a team that is perfect though without its flaws. Alabama has showed some this year, especially last weekend. Clemson is a fantastic all around team, but struggled and showed flaws last weekend. Ohio State struggles to find its identity and Oklahoma pounced. There is and never will be a perfect college team bereft of flaws. ND has flaws, multiple flaws in personnel and execution at times. But to this point they have shown resolve, poise, and focus in not letting those flaws get in the way of success as they have in the past. They lost to Georgia and bounced back in a big way. Let the season play out. If it tanks like it did in Charlie's last year, then yes, I will be calling for new leadership. But I at least know what I'm looking for from the team and do not automatically dive head first on one side or the other.
Those questions that I posted a long time ago in this thread, keep those in the back of your head. After the game, we can legitimately answer them. I was being 100% snarky when I posted them because none of us can actually answer those with full accuracy or even discuss them until after the kids meet on the field. Control what you can control.
