Notre Dame Football: Is Coach Kelly on the Hot Seat?

With the disappointing end to the 2011 season, many Irish fans are growing impatient with Brian Kelly and his staff and many are questioning whether Kelly is, indeed, the right man for the job.  

For most coaches, their third season is generally a defining season and in Coach Kelly's case, at least for the Irish faithful, Kelly will be expected to provide nothing short of a BCS type of year in 2012 despite having, arguably, the toughest schedule in the nation.

As for this season, Coach Kelly will take the blame for an 8-5 season that had a favorable schedule, when it could have been a 10-11 win season, and could have ended with a possible BCS bowl bid.  He will take the blame despite the fact that it was a season marred by a number of injuries to key personnel, and by inexplicable lapses in execution by Kelly's best players.  Kelly will also endure being compared, unfavorably in the off season, to coaches like Meyer, Stoops, Saban and even Hoke who turned once storied programs into BCS contenders in short order.       

For those of us who have watched Notre Dame football for many years and have lived through several Notre Dame national championship seasons, it was painfully obvious in the first game of this season how far the program had fallen over the last 15 years. 

It did not take long for the astute Notre Dame football observer to see the lack of athleticism in the secondary, the lack of play making ability all over the field and the impending struggles the Irish would experience at the quarterback position. 

It was also painfully obvious that Coach Kelly and his staff were trying to execute an offensive and defensive game plan with athletes they would not have necessarily recruited. 

Kelly supporters recognize that the rebuilding process is going to take longer than most Irish fans are willing to wait and with a possible 7-5 or 6-6 season looming on the horizon they recognize that some fans and alumni will be calling for Kelly's head if the Irish continue to struggle next season. 

However, it is likely that next season will be a struggle.  

The Irish will face five top ten teams next season including two teams projected to possibly play for a national championship in USC and Oklahoma.  They will face these teams with: a totally revamped secondary, with the loss of their top receiver and playmaker, with uncertainty at the quarterback position, with question marks on the offensive line, with little experience on the defensive line, with average talent in linebacking corps (excluding Manti Te'o), and minus two key members of the coaching staff. 

Because of the loss of two coaches, Kelly has been forced to reshuffle his staff, assign new responsibilities to those staff members who stayed, fill two vacant positions, complete an extremely important recruiting cycle and still produce an outstanding team next season.     

In all honesty, that is simply not reasonable. 

For those fans who haven't forgotten the disappointments of the Weis, Willingham, and Davie eras, we will gladly take the 8-5 seasons with the real promise of brighter days ahead.