Notre Dame Football: Should the Irish move on from Brian Kelly?

What changed in South Bend?

Somewhere amid the terrible 4-8 football season, Kelly began to speak like a politician who put his own career ahead of his constituents. When things began to go poorly for the Irish, Brian Kelly, like a good politician, began to deflect blame off himself and onto others.

There is the infamous post-game press conference after the Irish lost to Duke in which Kelly throws his players under the bus.

Brian Kelly looks to the players as the reason the game went bad. He committed to re-evaluating every position. He stated he would look at every position on the field “Every position, every position, all 22 of them”.

After a game is an emotional time for a coach and being frustrated with the performance of the team is natural. But Kelly is too refined in the political art of coaching to slip up. He passed the buck to the players. Even if the players were at fault, the best way to win the locker room would be to take the blame upon himself.

At that time in the season, the Irish defense was clearly struggling. The struggles led to the eventual dismissal of defensive coordinator Brian Van Gorder mid-season. But on this day, the defensive coaching was not the issue.

"“Actually, that’s probably the one area that I feel better about today,” Kelly said. “We did what I wanted today in terms of coaching. And coaching had nothing to do with the outcome today. I was pleased from that perspective.”"

The best political move for the coach here was to spread the blame all over the program. He could have kept the locker room and the coaching staff all bought in by simply stating there was room for improvement everywhere.

But Kelly did not take that route. He began to distance himself as a coach from the performance on the players on the field. It was as if the seasoned politician saw the eventual storm coming and already began immunize himself from blame.

It was a sad turn. Brian Kelly had begun using his highly touted political skills to embark on a CYA campaign. In the process, the support he enjoyed from the alumni, administration and players began to erode. The result was more loses.

The aftermath of the season would turn out to be just as political as the season