Notre Dame Football: Brian Kelly - QB Guru or Inflated Rep from Weak Conference?

When Brian Kelly first arrived in South Bend before the 2010 season, he was built up to be the savior of the program, the type of offensive savant who would have the Irish piling up yards, lighting up scoreboards and breaking records with great regularity.

The only problem?

Kelly didn’t have a quarterback to run his vaunted spread offense, the one which made him a star coaching candidate at Cincinnati.

Jimmy Clausen had decided to enter the NFL a year early and all Kelly was left with was Dayne Crist, an inexperienced yet highly touted former 4-Star recruit who was expected to be Notre Dame’s future signal-caller for the next three seasons.

Surely though, if Kelly could mold an unheralded no-name like Tony Pike into the type of quarterback who could lead a team to an undefeated regular season, he should have been able to do wonders with Crist, right?

During spring practices and training camp, Crist had his expected ups and downs and Kelly expressed concerns about how fast he was picking up his offense, but by the time the start of the 2010 season rolled around, the optimistic tone was present in Kelly’s voice.

That is until Crist started the year 1-3, forcing everyone to question Kelly’s true offensive genius.

Crist rebounded to win three straight but he was then lost for the season with an injury.

His backup, Tommy Rees, entered the fold and flourished, guiding the 4-5 Irish to four straight victories to end the season.

Still, even with Rees’ success, something inside of Kelly made him think he could mold Crist into a big-time player, so he handed the junior his starting job back only to see his decision blow up right in his face one half into the 2011 season.

Now here Kelly is, sitting at 2-2, stuck for better or worse with Tommy Rees, with an offensive attack that ranks 11th in the country in pass attempts but only 37th in actual passing offense.

After such a rough start, Kelly’s reputation and credibility have taken a hit and some are questioning if he’s really the coach he was built up to be.

Developing great passing attacks at Grand Valley State, Central Michigan and Cincinnati is one thing; doing it at Notre Dame is another.

Kelly had better hope that Rees turns into a passing prodigy, or else his reputation as a quarterback guru will disappear for good.