Blue & Gold Illustrated: 2020 Notre Dame Football Preview
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1264448
38 ✦ BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED 2020 FOOTBALL PREVIEW one season — resulting in the promotion of linebackers coach Clark Lea, who Elko had brought with him. The result from 2017-19 has been a 33-6 ledger, qualifying for the 2018 four-team College Football Playoff and registering the fifth-best winning percentage (.846) in that time among the 65 Power Five schools. In Lea, Kelly has one of the nation's pre- mier defensive coordinators, and he had been a top candidate for the Boston College head coaching job. In Long, the on-field production was solid, but the off-field drama made them the in-Fighting Irish in many respects, leading to a divorce from the staff. SEGMENT 4: Closing Chapter? That brings us to the home stretch of the Kelly era that ultimately will define his tenure. It has come full circle. That first segment with the 37-15 record and .711 record was followed by two other segments that pro- duced a 55-22 mark — an almost identical .714 percentage. All three segments manifested the ebbs and flows of Kelly's 10-year tenure, although stability appears to have been achieved in the last three seasons. His current contract expires at the end of the 2021 season, and the plan has called for him to coach at least two and maybe more seasons after that, which will include home- and-home series with Clemson and Ohio State in 2022 and 2023. Kelly has a chance to surpass Knute Rockne (13 years) for the most seasons as head coach at Notre Dame, but ultimately the success of his tenure will be measured by whether or not he can win a national title. PHOTO BY ANDRIS VISOCKIS Year 11 Results The last three Notre Dame football head coaches to reach their 11th season at the school stepped down after the final game that year. There doesn't appear to be any such plans for Brian Kelly, who is on pace this September to own the record for most games having coached the Fighting Irish. With a contract extension expected to be announced later this year, in 2023 he could surpass Knute Rockne for the most seasons as the head coach with 14. The missing element is a national title, which five previous coaches have achieved at Notre Dame, including Dan Devine (1977), whose tenure lasted only six years. Here were the other year 11 results from best to worst: 1. Frank Leahy (1953) — 9-0-1 Fittingly, "The Master" capped his career with his sixth unbeaten campaign in 11 years (and seventh in 13 overall when including his stint at Boston College). He was merely 45 years old, but would never coach again. However, 10-0 Maryland was awarded the national title at the end of the regular season while the Irish finished No. 2. The Terrapins ended up losing to Oklahoma — a team the Irish had defeated in Norman— in the Orange Bowl, but bowl games were not included in the vote back then. 2. Ara Parseghian (1974) — 10-2 One year after winning his second consensus national title, Parseghian became overwhelmed by off-the-field setbacks and demands of the job and stepped down that December. His 9-2 team rallied around him as a double-digit underdog to topple 11-0 and No. 1 Alabama 13-11 in the Orange Bowl to finish No. 6 in the Associated Press poll and No. 4 in the UPI poll. Notre Dame played 48 quarters that season. In 46 of them it allowed a total of merely 88 points. In the other two it permitted 59 — a 24-0 first quarter by Purdue during a 31-20 loss, and a 35-0 third quarter at eventual UPI national champ USC in the regular-season finale after Notre Dame had led 24-6 at halftime. 3. Lou Holtz (1996) — 8-3 After a remarkable 64-9-1 mark from 1988-93 with a national title and several near misses, the program took a conspicuous dip his final three years with a more modest 23-11-1 ledger. A mid-year overtime loss at home to Air Force helped cement Holtz's decision to depart, and in his finale he lost again in overtime, this time at USC, against whom he had been 9-0-1, for a No. 19 finish. 4. Knute Rockne (1928) — 5-4 One-third of Rockne's losses during a 105-12-5 output came in year 11 — but he would follow that up with back-to-back national titles. Highlighting this sea- son was the epic 12-6 "One For The Gipper" upset of Army to end the Cadets' national title hopes. However, the Irish suffered the ultimate letdown the following week with a 27-7 humbling to Carnegie Tech (the first loss at home in 23 years) and falling 27-14 at USC the ensuing week to close out the season. — Lou Somogyi