Coaches Who Badly Need a Bowl Win: Kelly, Fisher and Brown Top the List

Outside of the BCS National Championship, very little rides on the outcome of the college bowl games.  Sure, pride is on the line, but the significance of the games is tied more to what happens during the preparation than during the game itself. 

That’s not the case for three coaches who desperately need victories to catapult their teams into spring practice. 

Brian Kelly

Another season and another year without a BCS bowl appearance.  With 17 returning starters and two full offseasons working in Coach Kelly’s system, 2011 was supposed to be a season of progression for the Fighting Irish. 

It wasn’t. 

Notre Dame might get one additional win by beating Florida State in the Champs Bowl, but the year has been memorable for the wrong reasons in South Bend.

On the surface, one might point to sloppy turnovers and inept special teams as the primary reasons for the disappointing season.  Dig a little deeper and there are more fundamental problems.

The slight advances made on the football field were overshadowed by Coach Kelly’s sideline tirades, his penchant for publicly throwing players under the bus and his inability to commit to a starting quarterback.  These issues revealed the stains that still plague the once-powerful program. 

The Irish faithful, who were hoping Coach Kelly’s second season would have similar endings as the ones Bob Stoops, Jim Tressel and Urban Meyer recently experienced, will have to wait painfully for another year to find out if the Notre Dame program has been resurrected. 

Beating Florida State is exactly what this team needs heading into spring practice.  If Coach Kelly can correct his own behavior while improving the play of his team, the Irish might finish the 2012 season ranked. 

That would be a huge improvement. 

Jimbo Fisher

Fresh off their first 10-win season since 2003 and a convincing 26-17 win over South Carolina in the Chick-Fil-A Bowl, the Seminoles entered the 2011 season with enormous expectations. 

The coaches bought into the hype, ranking FSU fifth in their preseason poll—which is just one more reason to question the integrity of preseason polls.

The home loss to Oklahoma in early September supposedly validated the opinion that the Seminoles were back in the mix among the elite programs.  To quote the famous FSU alum, “Not so fast, my friend.”

The Seminoles have not been nationally relevant in a decade, and the program is dangerously approaching second-tier status in the ACC.  It does not matter how many injuries the team sustained—losing to Wake Forest and Virginia was deplorable.  

The apologists will be quick to point out that the team is headed in the right direction. 

They’ve been saying that for years. 

The bottom line is that the performance on the field no longer supports the hype off of it.  Their new motto should be, “Win or shut up!”

Fisher’s job security is safe, but the pressure on him will grow exponentially if the Seminoles lose to Notre Dame. 

Mack Brown

Without question, Coach Brown’s place in college football history is permanently secure, but the shine on his resume has lost some luster over the last two seasons. 

The dip in 2010 was expected while the program recovered from the post-Colt McCoy era.  Laboring through a 7-5 campaign this year was not.  The inconsistency was hardly the strong rebound the team was seeking. 

Most Longhorn fans will argue that the team is young this year, and this season represented just a brief aberration on the road back to elite status. 

That might be true, but the competitive resources Texas enjoys create too much of an advantage for them to lose to Missouri, Kansas State and Baylor.  Elite programs find a way to win while overcoming the obstacles of rebuilding. 

Right now, Texas is failing that test. 

The Longhorns still have a considerable amount of work left to be done before they regain the swagger they had during the Young/McCoy years.  Most notably, settling on one quarterback and sticking with him.

Flip-flopping quarterbacks is never a good recipe for success on the gridiron.  It disrupts the efficiency of the offense and negatively impacts the confidence of both quarterbacks.  Coach Brown is too smart to let this issue linger into another season. 

Texas has beaten teams with a combined record of 38-47, and none are ranked. 

Cal is not an elite program, but they do have a winning record.  Beating the Bears won’t be a huge win for the Longhorns, but it will be a much needed one to springboard the team into next season.