Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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54 OCT. 30, 2021 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED D ouble-digit win seasons have become the norm for Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish have enjoyed four of them in a row, five in the last six seasons and seven in head coach Brian Kelly's 12- year tenure. If Notre Dame does it again in Kelly's 13th season in South Bend, it'd be arguably the most impressive of them all. Let's make that case right here, right now. Kelly's first double-digit win season was a 12-1 campaign that ended with a national champi- onship game loss to Alabama. An undefeated regular season was certainly impressive, but the Irish had a Heisman Trophy finalist in Manti Te'o and one of the best all-purpose offensive players in the country in Theo Riddick. Don't forget about tight end Tyler Eifert, who like Riddick and Te'o enjoyed a lengthy NFL career. Even the quarterback combination of Everett Golson and Tommy Rees worked out. Everything came together for the 2012 team in a way it hasn't for the 2021 team. More on that later, but first — what about those other double-digit win Notre Dame teams during Kelly's tenure? The 2015 team was still in the College Football Playoff hunt going into the last game of the regular season, but Stanford beat the Irish 38-36. Then Notre Dame lost 44-28 to Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl to cap off a ho-hum 10-3 season that had so much promise through the first 11 games. Notre Dame's only loss to that point was a 24-22 defeat at then- No. 12 Clemson, a team that ultimately lost 45-40 to Alabama in the national title game. That stood up as a decent loss, if there is such a thing. The 2015 Irish were special. There's no doubt about that. The two-headed running back monster of C.J. Prosise and Josh Adams combined for nearly 2,000 rushing yards on 6.8 yards per carry. Will Fuller had 1,258 receiving yards and 14 touchdowns. Quarterback De- Shone Kizer accounted for 31 touch- downs and more than 3,400 yards from scrimmage. Linebacker Jaylon Smith had 115 tackles. Sheldon Day and Romeo Okwara combined for 29 tackles for loss and 13 sacks. But again, like with the 2012 team — was it really Kelly's best coaching job? Sure, it takes one heck of a head coach to steer a slew of top-tier talents in the right direction and get them all pulling on the rope the same way, but some- times you just let them do their thing and it's still enough. Kelly does not have the luxury of let- ting the 2021 team do its thing. The offensive line isn't reliable enough for that. The quarterback situation has handcuffed the Notre Dame offense at times, too. The defensive personnel still aren't completely sound in first-year defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman's system. Junior safety Kyle Hamilton is the only nationally recognized player Notre Dame has on that side of the ball, and there's only so much he can do to impact games at the position he plays. In spite of it all, Notre Dame finished the first half of the season 5-1 with the lone blemish coming at the hands of a Cincinnati team that rose to No. 2 in the Week 8 Associated Press poll. If Notre Dame goes 5-1 in the second half of the season to finish the regular season 10-2, then that'd be the best coach- ing job Kelly has ever whipped up in blue and gold. Better than the 2017 team that needed a 21-17 Citrus Bowl victory over LSU to reach 10 wins. Better than the 2018 team that once again went 12-0 in the regular season but got beat up in the postseason, that time a 30-3 loss to Clemson in the CFP semifinals. Better than the 2019 team that suffered a narrow defeat to Georgia and got walloped by Michigan on the road only to defeat an unranked Iowa State team in the Camping World Bowl. And yes, even better than the 2020 team that went 10-0 — including a victory over No. 1 Clem- son — before losing the ACC title game to Clemson and the CFP semifinal to Alabama. All of those teams had that feel at one point or the other. The 2012 team reached No. 1 in the nation. The 2015 team reached No. 4. The 2017 team reached No. 3. The 2018 team reached No. 3. The 2019 team reached No. 7. The 2020 team reached No. 2. The 2021 team has only risen as high as No. 8 and was ranked No. 13 through Week 7 with no games against ranked teams left on the schedule. The voters know what Notre Dame has — or doesn't have. This wasn't a Notre Dame team that was supposed to contend for a na- tional title, no matter what Kelly's man- tra of "Graduating Champions" says. But if the Irish reach 10 wins for the eighth time in Kelly's tenure, then it'll end up being the best piece of coach- ing the man with more wins as Notre Dame's head coach has ever put forth in South Bend. ✦ GOLDEN GAMUT TYLER HORKA Notre Dame is on pace to reach double digits in the win column for the fifth straight year and the eighth time in Kelly's 13-year tenure. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER Brian Kelly's Best Coaching Job Yet Tyler Horka has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since July 2021. He can be reached at thorka@blueandgold.com