People were happy to see LSU lose last night.
People were really happy to see LSU lose.
I don’t know how strong a grasp I have on the broad cultural pulse of college football fandom. I’m confident in my grasp on young adult males of means—“the coveted 18–34 year-old demographic”—but I don’t know how well I understand the affinities and annoyances of the true average fan. This is a problem for a lot of us in media. It’s easy to be out of touch.
I do have the following impression, though, and I’m fairly confident in it:
Not many college football fans like Brian Kelly.
There are certain coaches in college sports who transcend their schools. Notre Dame had one of these coaches for a long time in Mike Brey. It was common for a decade or more to hear sentiments like, “I can’t stand Notre Dame, but I do love Mike Brey.” Notre Dame also had one of these coaches for a long time in Brian Kelly. Because Notre Dame has always been among the more hated programs in the country, I never grasped quite how personal Kelly’s dislike was. I think I’m starting to understand now. People *hate* this guy. They’ll cheer enthusiastically for Florida State if the opponent is Brian Kelly’s team.
Usually, hated coaches have some fans of their own. They are, to use a term, polarizing. Mike Krzyzewski has a large share of loyalists. Nick Saban has plenty of fans. Even Urban Meyer still enjoys some goodwill from Ohio State and Florida, enough that it’s evidently not detrimental to Fox to pay him to hit on coeds next to the Big Noon Saturday set while the network returns from commercial break. Brian Kelly, though? I’m sometimes not sure he has a single fan. Cincinnati folks generally don’t like him. LSU folks sure aren’t happy with him right now. I don’t think Notre Dame fans are big Brian Kelly backers.
…Right?
I’m curious about the legacy question with Brian Kelly. I’m curious how he’ll be remembered in the long term at Notre Dame. On paper, he should be remembered fondly. The program improved over his time in South Bend, turning in top-five seasons three separate times, something only otherwise done by Rockne, Leahy, Parseghian, and Holtz. Brian Kelly did something Dan Devine didn’t, and he did it on the heels of Notre Dame’s longest stretch without a top-five season since rankings became common practice. He did not bring Notre Dame football “all the way back,” but he brought the program forward in college football’s most competitive era yet.
Kelly did give us an out by leaving the way he did, sneaking away with one game left to play for what may turn out to have been a lateral move. He also gave us an out by never winning a national championship. There’s no historic precedent which points towards a Brian Kelly statue outside Notre Dame Stadium. But even now, it’s hard not to acknowledge that he made Notre Dame football a better program, and it’s only going to get more difficult when that judgment is made by Domers who never knew him as their coach. Brian Kelly helped Notre Dame win. Brian Kelly made Marcus Freeman’s current job easier. If Freeman succeeds, Brian Kelly will have been the one who initially recruited his successful successor to South Bend.
In the end, Brian Kelly is one of college football’s ultimate mercenaries, cut uncomfortably from the Urban Meyer cloth. As with Meyer, it’s hard to dismiss the loathing Kelly generates. His list of sins outweighs any moral argument in his favor and goes far deeper than “yelling at players,” the immediate criticism of him for many. It’s a little embarrassing, in hindsight, how ready we were to cover for him, how ready we were to put up K’s in his honor during the 1812 Overture. Time will tell whether Notre Dame improves or worsens in these years after his departure. But it’s good to have him gone. Do I hate the guy? I don’t think so. But I think I pity him. And I think that might be worse.
How the Florida State Win Helps
Good things about Florida State smoking LSU, excluding any Brian Kelly spite:
- The original plan for this post was to write about how Notre Dame might need an insurance plan in case the ACC gets too bad at football to keep the partnership feasible. We can shelve that now until FSU starts barking about leaving the league again.
- The Florida State game in November of next year suddenly looks really, really fun.
- A weaker LSU weakens the SEC, which now only has three known playoff contenders. It’s a good three—it probably includes the two best teams in the country—but it’s fewer than the Pac-12’s five, and any reduction in the SEC’s power helps keep the country somewhat balanced, which keeps Notre Dame on firmer footing.
- A weaker LSU weakens a significant recruiting competitor. The overlap in targets should be lessening as the coaching staffs diverge from their shared roots, but it’s not nothing.
- A good Florida State could ultimately keep Michigan and USC from making the playoff, if we can’t eliminate the latter ourselves.
- For those of us who don’t like Clemson: Florida State’s resurrection would be a very bad thing for Dabo Swinney.
ACC Expansion and the Fighting Irish
The ACC’s long-term quality does remain a concern for Notre Dame football, even as its quality improves in other sports with the addition of Stanford. What the ACC’s weaker schools did here was, in effect, band together and invite a few other weak football programs as insurance against a handful of stronger football programs leaving. Boston College and the others saw the Pac-12 fall apart and realized that a similar dissolution could happen to them, leaving them relegated to mid-majordom like Oregon State and Washington State. There’s strength in numbers, or so the thought goes.
The potential problem with this, for Notre Dame, is that if Florida State and UNC and perhaps a few others do manage to wrangle Big Ten or SEC invites one day, a surviving ACC with weaker topline teams no longer does for Notre Dame what it has for the last decade. It still might be an acceptable home for other sports—especially with Stanford in the mix—but if the ACC becomes a mid-major league and Notre Dame plays five games a year against the ACC, a different solution to the semi-independence desire might become necessary.
Thankfully, in the short term the expansion is good for Notre Dame, and not just in sports other than football. The current understanding is that not only will the Stanford series continue, but the Cardinal will count as one of the five ACC opponents at least once every three years, opening up additional space on the schedule to be handled as we choose. Cal and SMU each exist in one of the nation’s best recruiting states, and while the impact of that is debatable, it can’t hurt to shift the schedule ever so slightly in a more Californian and Texan direction. I’ve personally been annoyed with Jack Swarbrick’s approach to the situation (why do good academic schools deserve to play in good athletic conferences, and why does Jack Swarbrick not pound the table for Rice or UC Irvine), but it does help Notre Dame right now, and any future hurt is of uncertain likelihood and impact.
Quick(er) Hitters
The men’s basketball team will, per Jon Rothstein, play in the Rady Children’s Invitational next year, a four-team event in San Diego. This year, it’s a two-game event over Thanksgiving weekend. If that holds next year, both Notre Dame men’s basketball and Notre Dame football will be in southern California for that holiday. Consider your travel plans. Purdue and BYU will also be in the event’s field, with the fourth team to be determined.
Men’s basketball walk-on Alex Wade is now on scholarship, which feels reasonable given there are scholarships to spare.
The football game went well on Saturday, well enough that we have nothing to report from it other than that it was fun to have Tennessee State in town and we still don’t have a great read on Steve Angeli’s capability, though that latter one might not be the best sign for 2024. If Angeli was a great option to be the starter next year, we’d probably know by now. I would like to pluck a top-five college quarterback out of the transfer portal again, please. Just for a year. Let CJ Carr get his feet under him.
Gabriel Rubio, a defensive tackle who should see action when healthy but isn’t a starter, is going to be out a few more weeks with a knee injury. Drayk Bowen, a freshman linebacker in a similar playing time situation, is expected to return this weekend against NC State. Matt Salerno will be out for what Pete Sampson described as an “extended period of time, multiple weeks.” Tight end Eli Raridon isn’t back yet after tearing his ACL last year. Overall, it’s a positive injury report for the football program. Keep knocking on whatever wood you’re knocking on.
Tyler Buchner did not get the starting job at Alabama, with Jalen Milroe leading Tommy Rees’s first string instead. This is not unexpected.
This Week
It’s a big game this weekend down in Raleigh, of course, and it’s nice having Central Michigan next week as opposed to already having Ohio State looming on the horizon, to ease any “trap game” concerns. NC State and Sam Hartman are well-acquainted, but Hartman’s running such a different offense at Notre Dame than he did at Wake Forest that Notre Dame should benefit more from the mutual familiarity. As has often been the case with NC State under Dave Doeren, the Wolfpack should have a good defense and a middling offense, an expectation they did nothing to dispel on Thursday as they managed only 24 points against UConn despite not turning the ball over and missing just one field goal. I see the 7-point spread, I know this isn’t going to be an easy game, but if Notre Dame can’t beat NC State without drama, our collective discussions about Notre Dame football are going to pivot in a vastly different direction from where they’ve been since last weekend. It’s a nice situation, though, in that a blowout victory would show a lot. NC State’s good enough for that to be the case. These guys haven’t lost by three scores since 2020. Notre Dame has a chance to increase reasonable expectations on Saturday, even if they can only meet the unreasonable ones.
The volleyball team split its weekend in Pennsylvania, beating Villanova in straight sets but losing in five sets to Santa Clara. They’ll host Illinois and Oklahoma this week, each of whom has only one loss so far but neither of whom is getting votes in the volleyball poll of record.
The women’s soccer team won at Michigan State. Ellie Ospeck had a goal and an assist. The Irish will welcome Michigan to town on Thursday before visiting Bowling Green on Sunday. I believe Notre Dame should be favored in both those games.
The men’s soccer team beat NIU on Thursday, 1–0, and will now host Detroit Mercy tomorrow before opening ACC play on Sautrday against Clemson. That game is in South Bend. Clemson was named the ACC favorite in the preseason coaches poll.
The women’s cross country team won the invitational at Valpo while the men’s team finished second, the pair splitting what was effectively an exhibition dual meet against Purdue. I don’t think either the men’s or women’s team ran its best runners. The programs are off this week.
The golf teams began their fall season today, the women playing in the Boilermaker Classic, hosted by Purdue, while the men played in the Folds of Honor Collegiate, hosted by Michigan State. We’ll check in on the results from those next week.
