I really came into Notre Dame fandom in the fall of 2005. I was in sixth grade. It was Charlie Weis’s first year. I remember watching the opening-night beatdown of Pitt on the basement TV, the one across the cookies-and-cream colored carpet from the black futon. I remember watching the win in the Big House on the family room TV, the big bulky one in the corner closest to the kitchen. I remember watching the Michigan State loss again in the family room, with sunlight falling through the trees outside. I remember watching the USC game on the other basement TV, the little one up on the shelf in Dad’s office. If memory’s correct these sixteen years hence, my dad later said he’d considered getting tickets to the game, but that he was worried my oldest brother, who was applying to Notre Dame, wouldn’t get in, and that the experience would make that sadder.
My oldest brother did get in, and my middle brother followed three years later, and I followed three years after that, my freshman year lining up with the 12-0 season that ended impaled in pieces on Alabama’s cleats and Deadspin’s word processing software. I say this to put some context on my time with the Irish, because with college sports, it differs from person to person. Some become fans as freshmen. Some become fans at birth. For me, it was a fairly sharp turn in the fall of 2005. I remember watching the end of a game against Tennessee I think was the one in 2004, but I don’t really know. In 2005, it turned on. I suffered less than so many. I suffered, unlike so many more (a friend yesterday said he was excited to see if we could find a higher ceiling under someone new—he became a fan in 2013).
Looking back at it, it’s jarring how long Brian Kelly was at Notre Dame. Twelve seasons. More than Ara Parseghian. One shy of Knute Rockne. Thanks to my age during their respective tenures, the Weis era felt eternal, whereas the Kelly era zipped past. Twelve seasons. Twelve full seasons.
At the same time, it feels like Kelly was at Notre Dame for longer before 2012 and all the magic 2012 held. There was so much tumult in those first two years—so much tragedy, even—that it feels it should have been longer. But it was just two years. Two years before Kelly broke through, possibly just through a series of good dice rolls (the Irish were about five plays from being 7-5), but broke through nonetheless, and the program took a step forward nationally, into territory last occupied under Lou Holtz.
Kelly never reached Holtz’s peak. But after five more oft-frustrating seasons on the heels of 2012, he got the Irish to at least Holtz’s plateau. Consistent top-ten finishes. Consistent playoff relevance. When the playoff began, back in the 2014 season, it didn’t seem like Notre Dame would ever be a factor. There were glimmers—we hung closer to Florida State than expected in that game in Tallahassee—but the slide at the end seemed to confirm what we suspected. Our ceiling was New Year’s Six bowl blowouts. That changed over the years to come. We will play in a New Year’s Six bowl this year, and unless it’s a playoff semifinal against Georgia or Alabama or something weird lines us up against Ohio State in the Peach or Fiesta Bowl, a blowout won’t be the expectation. I wrote earlier this year about how rare bad losses have become. It’s staggering. Notre Dame was so bad under Weis at times. Notre Dame was so bad under Kelly at times. But these last four years…Notre Dame’s been good. Notre Dame’s been a good, solid football program. Notre Dame beat Clemson last year, and it wasn’t the wildest thing of the season.
For Kelly, it evidently isn’t good enough. That, or LSU was just willing to pay something Notre Dame was not going to match. It could be a mix of both, I suppose, and it’s fair to look at a school that just won a national championship and say it can win a national championship while the one that hasn’t won a championship since the 80’s cannot. Maybe those who think that are right. But we thought folks were right when they thought the ceiling was New Year’s Six blowouts. Kelly’s taking his chance, and I don’t begrudge him that (though I don’t fault those who do). He seems to think this is his best chance at finishing his career with a title. It’s a reasonable ambition. It’s a reasonable path to chase it. But at the same time, it has people upset. And that’s probably reasonable too.
I never liked Brian Kelly. There were moments of softness—almost all from 2017 onwards, when the transformation out of assholery seemed to begin ahead of this final heel turn yesterday. But for the most part, my internal response to his existence was an acknowledgement that he was doing a good job winning football games, at the moments when he was winning football games. When he wasn’t, well…I was all-in on P.J. Fleck, of all people, in 2016. Stupid? Yeah, in hindsight. But that’s what we came from. That’s what these five years came out of. I was ready to try the deck with P.J. Fleck. Again: It’s staggering how good these last few years have been.
Not having liked Kelly, I think it’s harder to hate him. He is what he is—a good college football coach trying to be a great college football coach. He’s behind Saban and Meyer and Swinney and few others among his contemporaries. He’s trying to join those three, or at least bump Jimbo Fisher and Les Miles and Ed Orgeron off their title-holding perches. Notre Dame’s program is entirely different from when he took over—modernized, competitive, effective not just at recruiting but at developing recruits into productive players. Some of the credit here belongs to Jack Swarbrick—the ACC move was genius. But Kelly did bring Notre Dame football a long way, and he seemed to have developed a pretty high floor, and it’s scary to not know what the new floor will be.
But still, there isn’t a lot of hate here. At least, not for me. There isn’t much anger. I’m stunned—USC made some sense to me, LSU did not—and I’m concerned, but I’m not mad at Brian Kelly. I think that confirms I never really cared about him that much. I don’t wish him well. I don’t wish him ill. It just kind of…is. Brian Kelly’s gone. Notre Dame’s facing down some uncertainty. We’ll get an answer to the first piece of that uncertainty soon, when a coach is announced. We’ll get an answer to the second piece shortly after, when recruiting commitments turn or stay put. We’ll get an answer to the third piece in September in Columbus, when we find out what we’re made of against one of the three to five best programs out there right now. And in the meantime, the season needs finishing, possibly with another playoff appearance, possibly with a chance of finally getting the BCS/NY6 monkey off our back. There should be some nostalgia. There’s not. Not for me, anyway. Just some mild bewilderment, some mild appreciation, and a lot of curiosity about what comes next.
We’ll see.
