Blue & Gold Illustrated: 2012 Notre Dame Football Preview
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/998819
2 ✦ BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED 2018 FOOTBALL PREVIEW I n head coach Brian Kelly's eight seasons at Notre Dame, the Fight‑ ing Irish are 69‑34 (NCAA vacated wins notwithstanding). That averages out to 8.6 wins and 4.3 losses per year. Toss out the two outlier seasons — 12‑1 in 2012 and 4‑8 in 2016 — and it averages out to 9‑4. Hence, the relatively large sample size generally prompts the conclusion that Notre Dame has a "9‑4 coach," or one that has been not quite bad enough to get fired but also hasn't displayed enough consistency to become a con‑ sistent 10‑ to 12‑win program per year. Back in the 1980s, 1979‑87 Ohio State head coach Earle Bruce was dubbed by many Buckeyes faithful as "ol' 9‑3 Earle," a derisive reference to how he could take them to the prover‑ bial "solid" level but not quite to The Promised Land. Inheriting a 7‑4‑1 team from de‑ posed legend Woody Hayes, Bruce opened his career at Ohio State with an 11‑0 regular season before losing by one point in the closing minute to USC in the Rose Bowl. That set a standard for him in which he eventually became a victim of his early success. In some ways, that occurred with Kelly in 2012 when he had a 12‑0 regular season before losing the national title game to Alabama by a 42‑14 count. In Bruce's six ensuing years (1980‑85), the Buckeyes finished 9‑3 each time and generally in the top 10‑15 — and then 10‑3 with a final No. 6 ranking in 1986. When Ohio State fell to 6‑4‑1 in Bruce's ninth and final year in 1987, he was fired, but later would be enshrined into the College Football Hall of Fame. Based on his past work, Kelly, likewise, could someday join the late Bruce in the College Football Hall of Fame, but he needs to close his Notre Dame career with a flour‑ ish much greater than Bruce did at OSU. In three of the last six seasons, the Irish have finished No. 4 (2012) and No. 11 (2015 and 2017). They also had a No. 20 placement in 2013 with a — you guessed it — 9‑4 fin‑ ish. Extremely difficult to overlook was the 4‑8 campaign in 2016 that shook the faith in the leadership to the core. The upgrade from 4‑8 to 10‑3 was uplift‑ ing, salvaged by a late rally to victory in the Citrus Bowl versus LSU, but will quickly be cancelled out with another 8‑5 or even 9‑4 finish. One can even argue that 10‑3 isn't good enough anymore either, because it would be the 24th time in the last 25 years Notre Dame has lost at least three games. Talk about status quo! Can Notre Dame under Kelly become a "program" like a Clemson, Oklahoma and Ohio State … where 11 to 13 wins are the norm and 10 is the dregs? (The Alabama dynasty is in its own category after winning five of the last nine national titles.) Can the Irish even be a Wisconsin or Stanford, which have not recruited at Notre Dame's level — in 2018 the Badgers were ranked 40th and the Cardinal 63rd by Rivals — yet consistently produce 10‑win cam‑ paigns because of a consistent system that has been in place? Under Kelly, Notre Dame has recruited annually at a top‑10 to top‑15 level, and with two No. 11 finishes the past three years in the Associated Press poll, it is the first time since the Lou Holtz era (1986‑96) the Irish had two top‑15 placements over a three‑year stretch. Now, can it become a bona fide top‑10 program that reaches — and actually also wins — a Big Six bowl a minimum two out of four years, or even the College Football Playoff once per four‑year recruiting cycle? Getting to 10 wins has become the mini‑ mum benchmark of a successful or even tolerable campaign at Notre Dame, although even once moribund Northwestern has had the same number of 10‑win seasons the last six years (three) as the Fighting Irish. However, Notre Dame has not posted back‑to‑back 10‑win campaigns since the three in a row from 1991‑93 under Holtz, and has not won a major/Big Six bowl in 24 years. If the Irish are to reach top‑10‑program level status over the long term, they must demonstrate that they can put together dou‑ ble‑digit‑win seasons consistently, or at least consecutively, and then three, four ... years. This year provides another opportunity to finally start evolving into a consistent mini‑ mum 10‑win "program" under Kelly, who is on the back stretch on what has been a Notre Dame 11‑year term limit for past luminary figures such as Frank Leahy, Ara Parseghian and Holtz. The 2017 rebound was described as a "first coat of paint" by Kelly in the way of establishing long‑term consistency. By year nine, it needs to start sticking for good. ✦ A TIME TO PAINT A BETTER OUTLOOK THE FIFTH QUARTER LOU SOMOGYI Senior Editor Lou Somogyi has been at Blue & Gold Illustrated since July 1985. He can be reached at lsomogyi@blueandgold.com Last year's Citrus Bowl victory secured a No. 11 finish in the national rankings for the Fighting Irish, giving the program a pair of top-15 showings over a three-year stretch (Notre Dame also finished No. 11 in 2015) for the first time since the Lou Holtz era (1986-96). PHOTO BY BILL PANZICA