To first assess what kind of coach Notre Dame needs, you must first assess what Notre Dame has. Let’s face it. Notre Dame has gone from arguably the best coaching job in the country to just another Catholic school in the Rust Belt.
Camelot has become a trailer out by the river.
You can trace the decline of Notre Dame football to the retirement of athletic director Dick Rosenthal in 1995. He allowed then-coach Lou Holtz to recruit Proposition 48 players who wouldn’t normally have been accepted without “Prep All-American” by their name.
“Michael Stonebreaker, Tony Rice, Chris Zorich; there’s no way those guys could get in today,” said Denver attorney Dave Menzies, one of the more active of the estimated 3,400 members of Notre Dame’s Denver alumni chapter.
To Holtz’s credit, however, those same kids graduated. Zorich is now an attorney. But when Mike Wadsworth replaced Rosenthal, he and Father Ed Malloy, Notre Dame’s president, wanted the university back. They tightened up the academics, which are among the best in the country.
Many feel that’s the principal reason Holtz eventually left, paving the way for the Triad of Tragedy that became Bob Davie, Tyrone Willingham and Charlie Weis.
The last time Notre Dame was a national title contender, 1993, today’s prospects weren’t even potty trained. Forget about Knute Rockne and Paul Hornung. These kids don’t even remember Rocket Ismail.
The advantages of Notre Dame’s exclusive TV contract with NBC have been canceled out by ESPN, conference networks and blanket seven-nights-a-week coverage. Notre Dame’s new top-notch facilities are beautiful, but in the 21st-century arms race, almost all major conference schools have shining facilities.
And its beautiful campus is negated by one of the ugliest college towns in the country.
The mere notion that Notre Dame would even ask about a coach in the Bob Stoops or Urban Meyer range is laughable. When Meyer was coaching Utah to an undefeated season in 2004, he knew then that Florida was a better job than Notre Dame. After leading the Gators to two national titles, he certainly knows that even better now.
What Notre Dame needed to do was find the next Urban Meyer. Find a coach with Meyer’s ability who doesn’t have his profile but wants it, craves it, thinks he can achieve it.
It appears to have done that with Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly.
Both Kelly and Meyer are Catholic and had huge success in the Mid-American Conference, Meyer turning around Bowling Green and Kelly doing the same at Central Michigan. They both moved up to mid-major schools and went undefeated. Yes, when Kelly arrived three years ago, Cincinnati was a mid-major in everything but conference affiliation.
Both are good with the media. Meyer has masterfully handled the media circus that is Florida football and Kelly, the son of a Boston politician, will do the same at Notre Dame.
In some ways, Kelly is even more suited to Notre Dame than Meyer was. The Irish this season had a top-10 offense and a bottom-10 defense. The defense has been a sieve since Weis arrived in 2005. Kelly has a defensive background. He was a small-college linebacker, then became defensive coordinator at Grand Valley State before leading it to back-to-back Division II national titles as its head coach. And, with one defensive starter back this season, Cincinnati was picked fifth in the mediocre Big East. On Jan. 1, the third-ranked Bearcats (12-0) will play Meyer’s Gators in the Sugar Bowl.
“It can come back with the right coach, somebody who can really bond into that place,” Menzies said. “I don’t know if Brian Kelly will be a bust or not.”
Camelot needs a new king. It has settled for a prince.
