Endangered Bearcat: Brian Kelly on Verge of Ruining Legacy at Cincinnati

There is a right way and a wrong way to make transitions, and Brian Kelly is dangerously close to the latter.

For a man that has seemingly done everything right at the University of Cincinnati, including heading the effort to build new, multi-million dollar practice facilities after taking the Bearcats from unknown Big East school to national title contender in three seasons, Kelly is inching closer and closer to tarnishing it all.

On Monday, ESPN reported Kelly planned to meet with Notre Dame officials Tuesday in New York City, the site of the National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame annual awards dinner.

Kelly informed his players Monday afternoon that he will discuss the head coaching vacancy at Notre Dame the following day.

“Just informed our team that Notre Dame has contacted me and I will listen to what they have to say,” tweeted Kelly.

No problems there. Kelly is free to negotiate with any program in the country about a coaching job if he so chooses. After all, that’s the natural progression for a coach that experiences success as he climbs up the national ranks. He becomes a hot commodity.

Where Kelly is misguided is the timing of these negotiations and his failed attempts to sound unbiased during his potential pursuit of a higher paying, and more nationally acclaimed, coaching gig.

In the past weeks, Kelly has played the role of Bearcat lifer. By the sound of things, you would have never guessed Kelly would even think about leaving Cincinnati for another job. He made multiple references to the debut of Cincinnati’s new practice facilities next season, and came off like a father preparing to welcome his newborn baby boy.

“Pitt is tough enough to prepare for, but it will be nice given the current weather that we will have an indoor bubble this time next year,” tweeted Kelly prior to the Big East Championship.

According to safety Aaron Webster, Kelly assured the team last week that he wasn’t going to accept the Notre Dame job.

“He said it’s not an issue and he’s not going [to Notre Dame],” said Webster. “He said, ‘I love Cincinnati, and I’m staying here.’”

Great. But if that’s truly the case, Coach Kelly, then why the sudden waffling? If you have no intentions of accepting Notre Dame’s job, then, um, why are you wasting your time, and the school's, by accepting a meeting?

Kelly joined Dan Patrick on his radio show Monday to discuss his future with Cincinnati and the possibility of leading the Irish come next autumn. Kelly told Patrick that he is working on an extension with Cincinnati, but that he hasn’t “had a chance to evaluate what it is that’s in the future.”

“I may come out in 48 hours and say I’m staying here at Cincinnati even if the New England Patriots call,” said Kelly. “But there’s a chance I could look at another job…I haven’t made that decision yet.”

When Patrick asked Kelly, straight up, if he will definitely be coaching the Bearcats in the Allstate Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day, the coach continued to hedge his bets.

“No, there’s no guarantees in anything that you do,” Kelly told Patrick. “I’ve never given a guarantee that I was going to make it home at the end of the day.”

If we ditch the psychological hoopla and the “nothing is guaranteed in life” statements, Kelly sounds like a trapped burglar trying to back his way out of the chimney. Kelly said that he intends on making a decision about his future by Saturday.

But if I’m a Bearcat player, that simply isn’t good enough. Here we are, 12-0 after a remarkable season that included a Big East title, a top-five national ranking, and a BCS bowl date with Tim Tebow’s Gators, and our head coach doesn’t even know if he is going to be on the sideline for that one? He’s led us to 12 victories, but a baker’s dozen is suddenly one too many?

If I’m a Bearcat player, I’m standing up in that team meeting and saying, “Hey, Coach, you realize we have the defending national champs in a little more than three weeks, right? You know, the team coached by Urban Meyer and quarterbacked by a Heisman winner?”

Don’t get it twisted. Kelly is a great coach, a coach deserving of the national praise and certainly qualified for a job like Notre Dame. And by all accounts, he is a good man. We a haven’t heard anything or seen anything to suddenly think differently.

But he owes it to the kids that put on the Cincinnati uniform week after to week to stand by them as they take on Florida. He owes it to the program that has given him a boost to national recognition to at least give a valiant effort in an attempt to bring a Sugar Bowl victory back to Cincinnati, if it is indeed his last season there.

And he owes it to the fans and boosters that made those new practice facilities possible to finish out what has already been the best season in school history and a foundation for future national prominence.

But if Kelly decides to bolt to Notre Dame by this weekend, it wouldn’t be the first time he did such a thing.

Kelly accepted the Cincinnati job in December 2006 while he was preparing Central Michigan for the Motor City Bowl. He took off to coach the Bearcats in that year’s International Bowl while his assistants remained behind to finish the season at CMU. The majority of Kelly’s assistants joined him at Cincinnati the following season.

It’s perfectly all right if Kelly is undecided about his future and wants to listen to the Irish brass. He has that right, and we can’t knock him for that.

“I’m quickly becoming the story, and I don’t want that to be the case,” Kelly told Patrick.

That’s only because of the way you are handling it, Coach.

Kelly isn’t stupid, or else he wouldn’t have admitted that he is slowly but surely becoming a distraction during the most important time of the year for the Bearcats. If Kelly wants to give Cincinnati the best chance to beat Florida, he needs to tell Notre Dame that the negotiations are halted until after the Sugar Bowl.

Notre Dame may want to find a coach before then, but at least it will be out of Kelly’s hands and he will have handled it with class.

And, besides, if Kelly is genuinely interested in going to Notre Dame, do you think there is any way the Irish won’t wait until after the Sugar Bowl to decide on their future coach? Didn’t think so.

A fresh multi-million dollar deal signed on Irish paper may satisfy Kelly, but if he isn’t on the sidelines against Florida, he can forget everything he ever did as a Bearcat.

Kelly may win by negotiating now, but his players, who have played the biggest role in his opportunity to even speak to Notre Dame, will inevitably lose.

You can reach Teddy Mitrosilis at [e-mail].