Notre Dame Football: Pressure is Squarely on Brian Kelly's Offense in 2012

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish have looked nothing like a Brian Kelly-led team in his two years at the helm.

At Cincinnati, the offense was a well-oiled machine with a QB in Tony Pike that was nothing more than average. It worked because of the system and the trust Kelly’s players had in him. Efficiency was the key.

When ESPN’s Matt Fortuna spoke with Kelly recently about the woes on offense since coming to South Bend, the key word was consistency:

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We certainly have not had the success that we want offensively. But I would say more importantly the consistency. I think we've shown signs of it, we haven't been able to do it consistently. And that's really why we're an 8-5 football team.

We've been inconsistent as a football team. And so I think we have not got to where we wanna be, we're not even really close to where I wanna be. That's why we had the movement that we did on the offensive side of the ball.

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The obvious issue is with the quarterback play. Dayne Crist never panned out and the jury is still out on Tommy Rees (2,871 yards, 20 TDs, 14 INTs). Kelly typically is able to mask the deficiencies of his quarterback, but not at South Bend. One minute they were dropping 59 points on Air Force, the next they were scoring 16 against Boston College.

To shake up the staff, Kelly promoted safeties coach Chuck Martin to offensive coordinator. Think it’s odd that a safeties coach in 2011 is an offensive guru in 2012? Yeah, me too.

He did run the Grand Valley State offense from 2004-09, but that really doesn’t impress me. His task is to sift through the four QBs on the roster (Rees, Andrew Hendrix, Everett Golson, Gunner Kiel) and figure out if he should stick with one of the upper classmen or go all-in with the freshman Kiel.

It’s the No. 1 task Martin has to figure out and he has already admitted to having no idea who’ll be the starter come spring practice.

The tall task ahead of the coaching staff is the same it was the previous two years. They can’t find a reliable QB to take a talented offense over the top. Now Michael Floyd is gone. The expectations are high. The seat of Kelly is getting hotter.

There are some major decisions to be made in the next few months and a rookie offensive coordinator in Division I is going to have plenty of sleepless nights between now and April.  

My suggestion? Go with the Kiel and live with his mistakes. This kid is going to be a star, and all of the other player’s may be more polished, but they have a ceiling that will never get Notre Dame over the top.

This offseason is going to have a huge impact on the future of the program. Hopefully Kelly knows what he's doing by putting all of his trust in Martin.