T1B

Kelly is a good coach, there is no question. There are basically two camps of ND fans right now; Kelly lovers and Kelly haters. To the lovers, they wouldn't trade Kelly for Urban Saban. For the Kelly haters, everything that happens to ND is his fault. 6 players lost to season ending injuries? Kelly's fault for installing field turf/running this offense/working players too hard in practice.

I honestly don't care either way. He's better than the last three guys who actually coached a game at ND, and has built depth across the board. 3 of the 4 starters lost were basically guys that before the season ND fans would have said there is no way they can afford to lose that guy. From spring ball, he's essentially starting his 3rd string QB and 3rd string RB and is down to 2 and 3 players respectively at each of those positions.

The Kelly haters are probably the same guys who think that if ND were to fire Kelly they could gat Saban or Urban without a doubt.

Barring scandal, criminal acts, or poor moral judgement, you only let a coach go when you KNOW you will get better.

Left Seater wrote:The Kelly haters are probably the same guys who think that if ND were to fire Kelly they could gat Saban or Urban without a doubt.

Barring scandal, criminal acts, or poor moral judgement, you only let a coach go when you KNOW you will get better.

Nail, meet hammer. Add to your description that ND needs to hire someone that will bring back the fullback, run the option, rush for 400 yards a game all while having a top 10 defense.

I think Kelly can be shady as fuck, but he's been dealt a shit hand with injuries, transfers, suspensions, etc. There's a 5 star DE sitting out his second straight year because ND found out there was possibly some academic dishonesty going on and alerted the NCAA and suspended him. He's back in good graces with ND, but the NCAA is now holding him out.

This is the most depth ND has had in 20+ years, and it's showing. But depth only goes so far.

I agree with your last point. Honestly, QB is the least of my worries with Kelly. Given the shit he dealt with at Cincinnati (5 QB's in one year) I know that the system/QB play should always be pretty solid. He needs to fix his Red Zone issues because we're in year 6 and it has been shit all 6 years.

If you look back at ND playing Navy, Navy has typically run all over ND. The lone exception was 2012. Last year, Navy torched VanGorder and his defense. Knowing that, and the fact that Johnson fucking hates VanGorder because of shit BVG said about the triple option offense after he took over the Georgia State job in 2006, this game scared the hell out of me. But then Kelly did something extremely smart. He took former DB coach Bob Elliot who is now a "Special Assistant to the Head Coach" and had him spend all spring and summer on Johnson's option and how to defend it. He then recruited a kid and gave him a preferred walk-on spot at ND, specifically to be a scout team option QB to prepare for this game and Navy. They then spent time on it every week in fall camp and leading up to this game. Finally, VanGorder decided to attack the offense and let his athletes play instead of trying to mirror it and go with the flow.

I think that FB pass was open due in large part to ND dropping 8 and rushing 3 in the last few minutes of that game. Thomas couldn't hit anyone all game because of ND's pressure and when they finally let off, he started completing some passes. All that being said, I'm happy as fuck to never see a Skov play ND ever again.

Papa Willie wrote:VanGorder always eventually implodes.

Why, whatever do you mean?

Sin,
Rice 17
Michigan 0
Purdue 14
Syracuse 15
Stanford 14
North Carolina 43
Florida State 31
Navy 39
ASU 55
Northwestern 43
Louisville 31
USC 49
LSU 28

First 5 games in 2014 - gave up on average 12 points a game. Last 8 - 39.88.

GaTech was a huge test for him. He passed. Up next is Clemson in two weeks. We'll see how he does there.

We hate it for you...

Sin,

No We don't

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