Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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UNDER THE DOME Day Feb. 3, the 54-year- old Kelly, in an inter- view with 2011-15 line- backer Joe Schmidt on UND.com, elaborated on four prime reasons why he wants to finish his career with the Fight- ing Irish. "First of all, the uni- v ersity an d w h at it stands for," Kelly said. "It's the preeminent Catholic university, and that means something. … As an Irish Catholic from Boston, I can feel that every day. It's part of who we are." Second is the pride in the type of student-ath- letes the school recruits that are also committed to the classroom and the community. "It's part of the fab- ric of Notre Dame," he said. "It's faith, it's foot- ball and it's the academ- ics." Third, Kelly recycled the line of longtime NFL c o a c h a n d t w o - t i m e Super Bowl champion Bill Parcells that only proven, elite coaches in the NFL such as Bill Belichick have the power to control the roster. "It's the ability to shop for the groceries and cook the meal," Kelly said. "It's very difficult to do that in the NFL. Having coached 25 years … you'd much rather have the control of pick- ing your team." Finally, he sincerely believes in the product Knute Rockne's Record If Brian Kelly does indeed coach six more seasons at Notre Dame, he would need to win 51 more games — or only 8.5 per season — to surpass Knute Rockne's hallowed standard of 105 victories at the school, highlighted by consensus national titles in 1924, 1929 and 1930, his final two seasons. Lou Holtz was 100‑30‑2 in his 11 years (one consensus national title) before stepping down at the end of 1996, while Ara Parseghian was 95‑17‑4 (two consensus national titles) from 1964‑74 and Frank Leahy 87‑11‑9 (four consensus national titles) in the same amount of years coached. Number of wins and winning percentage, though, are two distinct categories. Rockne's winning percentage of .881 (105‑12‑5) eternally remains No. 1 in school history. For Kelly to surpass that he would have to go 112‑0 the next eight seasons (14‑0 each time) — and then start 5‑0 in the ninth to reach .882. In the end, a Notre Dame football head coach is categorized two ways: either he won a national title, or he didn't. — Lou Somogyi Rockne still has the longest tenure for a Notre Dame head coach at 13 years, and holds school records for both career victories (105) and win percentage (.881). PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME MEDIA RELATIONS