Kelly Gamble Indicative of ND's Plunge

It used to be an American birthright, the concept that Notre Dame could secure the best and the brightest and never settle for less. But 21 years since its last national championship and 16 years since its last major bowl victory, a crumbling football monolith is spinning another roulette wheel. This time the man's name is Brian Kelly, and he is Irish and Catholic and a quotable character, but I really don't care much about heritage and religion and charm quotient.

Italian or Swahilian, Jewish or Southern Baptist, can he awaken the echoes and restore some sort of dignity and pride to the most underachieving, ridiculed, embattled program in the land? The fact no one is sure is all you need to know about the hire. The priests and money men have been reduced to venturing into the unknown, spurned by accomplished coaches -- Urban Meyer, Bob Stoops, Kirk Ferentz, and Jon Gruden among them -- who would have brought more cachet and a better chance of succeeding. The next coach who wins big at Notre Dame becomes a hero, but the frying pan has become so hot and unforgiving in South Bend that it no longer interests coaches who are secure in prime jobs.

Who ever thought Notre Dame, the program of Heismans and legends and Hollywood, would have to retain an executive search firm in Atlanta to help headhunt? And that Kelly, because so many bigger candidates said no, actually owned more leverage than the Domers themselves? Had he rejected the overtures and stayed at the University of Cincinnati -- let that sink in the cranium -- the focus would have turned to a desperation candidate, Connecticut's Randy Edsall, who has done a very nice job with a start-up program but isn't yet considered an elite, upper-crust coach. Kelly's appeal is in his offensive prowess and how he groomed his quarterback, Tony Pike, into a prolific player. He graduates his student-athletes, not always part of the Cincinnati tradition, and is a delightful guy to be around when he isn't admonishing the media for making up tales about, oh, how he'd become the next ND coach.

But do those traits necessarily translate into contending for national championships in his next job, the most pressurized in the college game? "Notre Dame remains a critical piece of the college football landscape," said athletic director Jack Swarbrick, the Indianapolis lawyer brought in to reverse a long run of futility. "I believe our ability to take the next step and return to a level of prominence is all about bringing the right individual in here. For people who value our approach to collegiate athletics and for people who are excited about being the head coach that restores Notre Dame to a place of prominence in college football, I think they'll be so excited to come, it'll be an easy marriage.''

Yes, but can Kelly reach that place of prominence when Charlie Weis, Tyrone Willingham and Bob Davie couldn't come close? Is he really "all that'' when they were not? The days of teenaged athletes gathering around the TV set with their fathers on Sunday mornings, watching Lindsey Nelson deliver the highlights, are decades gone. These days, great athletes want to play down South or out West. Does Brian Kelly, fun and successful as he was at Cincinnati, really have the name to recruit the best and coach them into champions?

Maybe he does. Maybe he doesn't.

But don't take the quantum leap of saying this is a tremendous hire when you honestly don't know, either. "I don't think you can infer from a period of 16 years that there's some continuing deficiency you have to overcome," Swarbrick argued. "This is a drought, and I have every confidence that we will end the drought and succeed spectacularly." I expect the AD to say that. When he uttered that comment, Swarbrick had just fired Weis and was aiming for the sky. Very quickly, he was rocked by punches -- a left from Meyer, a right from Stoops, an uppercut from Ferentz, a surprise shot to the gut from Northwestern's Pat Fitzgerald and a final pop from Jim Harbaugh. Instead of being in the mix, Kelly emerged as the only candidate with any sort of hot name. Over the last few days, Notre Dame had no choice but to listen to his demands about necessary changes he wants in the program. It became Kelly's call -- not theirs -- and even a late attempt to use Edsall as a power-play leak couldn't change the reality that this was Kelly or Die.

At least Swarbrick wasn't clumsy. He shook off the rejections, moved forward and made sure Kelly didn't slip away. The same couldn't be said for his predecessor, Kevin White, a puppet who was held responsible for some humiliating blunders: having to fire Davie a year after he was given a contract extension, hiring George O'Leary and forcing him out five days later after a resume scandal, hiring Willingham and firing him three years later, then hiring Weis. It's no wonder he tip-toed away to Duke last year.

Yet Swarbrick's response to the White era -- Kelly -- isn't as solid a choice as, say, Harbaugh, who graduates players at the approximate rate that Weis did (96 percent) and also produces winning seasons. Young and dynamic, with an NFL quarterbacking career to sell to recruits, Harbaugh would have raised hell -- am I allowed to say that in a Notre Dame column? -- and created exactly what he has at Stanford. But mysteriously, after appearing to show interest, he pulled out of the running. Hopefully, it wasn't because the Domers fell in love with the name Kelly, the Irish and Catholic end of things. When they showed the enterprise to break through and hire Willingham, an African-American, the mythical nonsense should have expired then and there. My guy all along was Stoops, but his wife and kids were comfortable at Oklahoma and he didn't have the stones to risk failure at Notre Dame. Meyer has paradise at Florida. Ferentz has become the lord of the cornstalks at Iowa. Fitzgerald loves being the overachiever at Northwestern. Gruden likes telling the world on TV that "Eric Mangini is one heck of a coach.''

It could be we simply must accept the new realities of Notre Dame football. For all the money and heavy-hitters behind the program, all the built-in advantages of NBC and tradition and a storied stadium, it's really just another program in the Midwest. Thursday, the wind chill was sub-zero in South Bend. Why wouldn't the best and the brightest players rather be in Austin, Gainesville, Tempe, L.A. or even Palo Alto?

Winning big in the easily negotiable Big East Conference at Cincinnati, a town that only has high expectations for the Bengals and chili parlors, was easy pickings for Kelly. Winning at Notre Dame, where every decision and move will be scrutinized, is an extremely more difficult task. "It's absolutely realistic," Swarbrick countered. "I don't think there are any endemic reasons why we can't. The standard for success in this industry now is to be in a position to be selected for the BCS each year.''

Kelly directed Cincinnati to a Bowl Championship Series game, the Sugar Bowl against Meyer and Florida. It's a damn shame that he apparently won't coach the Bearcats in the game, with his presence required immediately at Notre Dame for recruiting and continuity purposes. The NCAA, while investigating Tennessee for using female hostesses to recruit athletes, might want to launch a rule prohibiting schools from stealing a coach while a bowl game hangs in the balance. It's not fair to the players, especially after Kelly told his guys that he wasn't headed to Notre Dame.

Some were upset Thursday night upon hearing the news, thinking Kelly was being sincere when he told them last week that he was staying at Cincinnati. Liars are commonplace in sports, but why did Kelly have to be so blatant? "I don't like it," said Mardy Gilyard, star receiver and kick returner, in an interview with the Associated Press. "I feel there was a little lying in the thing. I feel like he'd known this the whole time. Everybody knows Notre Dame's got the money. I kind of had a gut feeling he was going to stay just because he told me he was going to be here."

"The Tuesday when we were practicing for Pittsburgh, he said he loves it here and he loves this team and loves coaching here and his family loves it here," Pike said.

It won't be the first time Kelly has been embroiled in controversy. At Central Michigan, he was reprimanded by the school president at the time for unfortunate comments after CMU players were charged with second-degree murder. Commenting to the Detroit Free Press about a perjury charge filed against two ex-Central players, Kelly said, "A number of them were African-Americans that had been in that culture of violence, and they're taught to look away. You don't want anything to do with it. Get out of there. You don't say anything to anybody."

"Completely unacceptable,'' said president Michael Rao, which prompted a Kelly apology.

At Notre Dame, such words might be grounds for dismissal. Kelly officially told his players at the team banquet Thursday night that he was history and that he wouldn't be coaching the bowl game. Whether he takes Notre Dame to a similar bowl game is anyone's guess. It won't be happening anytime soon, not with Weis' guys, quarterback Jimmy Clausen and receiver Golden Tate, headed to the NFL.

The press conference is Friday. We know that because athletic department employees at Notre Dame were told not to wear jeans, that this wasn't another casual Friday at the office. Brian Kelly will speak, do his song and dance and try to convince us that he's the man, not realizing that the creepiest coaching graveyard in sports is right out the back door.