Notre Dame Football: 5 reasons the Irish will be contenders in 2018

2. Kelly may be coaching with his job on the line

We see it all the time. Soon-to-be free agents often seem to put together the best years of their careers when money’s on the line, making sure that their performance instills enough confidence in prospective teams to earn as much money as possible. While this is often the case for athletes, it doesn’t always work out well for coaches.

For whatever reason, sitting on the hot seat seemed to work well for Kelly, but he’s now on a different hot seat despite going 10-4 this season. One of the reasons for Kelly’s current condition is his unending struggle against top-tier teams.

Kelly did well against middle-tier ranked teams this season, taking down No. 11 USC, No. 14 N.C. State, and No. 17 LSU, but struggled against other ranked teams as the Irish dropped games against No. 15 Georgia, No. 7 Miami, and No. 21 Stanford. Again, Kelly did well in rebuilding the Irish, but Kelly has to prove that he has the ability to keep the Irish among the best of the best.

Given Kelly’s ability to turn around the Irish with his job on the line this year, it’s not unreasonable to think that a little more pressure could persuade Kelly to take yet another step in terms of his coaching. Should this be the case, look for Kelly and the Irish to have an extremely successful 2018 season.