Ask Lou, Part II: Notre Dame’s Present & Past

Irishsportsfan: Brian Kelly discussed a smaller playbook for this season as opposed to the normal year with more practices to install. Do you anticipate it to be a significant drop in variety? Maybe something like Oregon did on their title run — 1-to-3 formations with tons of play calls from it?

Do you see it as a positive or negative? Or is Brian just throwing a quote out there and really will try to install everything?

When you have 14 of the scheduled 15 spring practices cancelled, that puts you well behind in the install phase. With a lot of catching up to do, it necessitates shrinking the playbook when practice resumes, or at least it does in the short term.

“Many times you talk about football teams not looking prepared in the opener,” Kelly said during his June 9 Zoom call with media. “This is going to be making sure the playbook is very, very small and the execution is good because you're going to have to spend a lot of time on the fundamentals.”

However, there will be a two-week period from July 23 until the start of training camp Aug. 7 to do some installation in a relatively informal setting.

“There won’t be an opportunity to see the [players’] skills on display,” he said. “You’re going to have to get into football-related activities and movement. We’ll be a few weeks into camp before we’re really able to make those football-impact kind of decisions.”

The first week of training camp from Aug. 7-14 is expected to be highly rudimentary.

“I want everybody to be prepared that there will be more to come after week one,” he said.

I have no problems with a more condensed playbook, mainly because that’s often when Kelly has had his best success.

• After a 4-5 start in 2010 and when starting quarterback Dayne Crist was injured and had to be replaced by freshman Tommy Rees, the playbook was cut back significantly — and included a double-tight-end formation for the first time and more emphasis on the run. The Irish finished 4-0.

• In 2012, sophomore Everett Golson received the starting nod after redshirting the previous season, and he was “on the bus, not driving the bus, ” per Kelly, with a shrunken down playbook that saw the Irish average more than 200 rushing yards during a 12-0 regular season.

• In 2015, another inexperienced sophomore quarterback suddenly had to be thrust into action in game two, DeShone Kizer. The Irish started 10-1 and leaned more on the run, finishing with its highest rushing total in nearly 20 years.

When I asked Kelly what he attributes to having so much success with first-time starting quarterbacks, he candidly admitted it makes the staff go back to “the basic tenets of offense.”

In other words, sometimes less can be more, and when you try to do too much, you don’t always establish an identity or excellence in any specific area.

There also was a lot of early success with first-time starters Brandon Wimbush and Ian Book. Then, the more that was put on their plate, there seemed to be overall regression (as with Kizer and Golson, although far more goes into it than one player or playbook expansion).

Thus, I don’t view paring back as necessarily a negative.

RR1: Wouldn’t it make sense for Notre Dame to join The Big 10 now, given all the financial loses outside the football program? Notre Dame could save major dollars busing non-revenue teams.

Speaking of busing, it’s the football program that drives the bus for everything in the Notre Dame athletics department.

The Big Ten has told Notre Dame either you’re all in with football as a conference member, or it’s no go for the rest of the athletic programs.

That was/is the deal-breaker. (Hockey is an exception because the Big Ten had only six members there.)

The ACC was willing to acquiesce to Notre Dame remaining only a partial member in football while maintaining its independent status to schedule nationally the other six to eight games on the regular season slate. It’s as simple as that.

Football independence remains sacred territory to the athletic department — although I too no longer view that as “untouchable” territory down the road.

Also, I don’t know if trips to Rutgers, Maryland, Nebraska, Minnesota or even Iowa would be easy bus journeys. A weekday night game might force the student-athletes to miss classes the next day.

Your point makes sense and I've learned to not rule anything out. But what is hoped to be a short-term pandemic is not going to force such an immense long-term decision, especially if it means relinquishing football independence.

Jpjr: Was it the 1976 home opener beatdown by eventual champ Pitt that marked the point of no return for Dan Devine in the hearts of fans?

Maybe to some, but I don’t think it was the peak of vitriol.

You are referring to the start of Devine’s second season in which eventual national champ Pitt defeated Notre Dame 31-10, the first opening game loss by the Fighting Irish in 13 years, or before Ara Parseghian became the head coach in 1964.

That absolutely added fuel to the fire, but it really began in Devine’s first season in 1975. It was mainly a rebuilding year with 10 of the 11 starters on offense having graduated and the defense also losing some major figures.

His first loss was 10-3 at home in game four versus Michigan State in sophomore quarterback Joe Montana’s first start. Then the next two weeks Notre Dame trailed 14-0 in the fourth quarter at North Carolina and 30-10 in the fourth quarter at Air Force. Both times Montana led dramatic rallies, but doubts about Devine had crept in.

Devine had alienated some of Parseghian’s recruits, and star sophomore tight end Ken MacAfee even met with school vice president Rev. Ned Joyce (who had hired Devine on his own) the night before the Air Force game that “it was not going to work” with Devine.

The week after the Air Force game, one of the the many hot rumors on campus was Devine was going to be fired, Parseghian would coach out the remainder of the season, and then “fantasy coach” Don Shula of the Miami Dolphins (sort of like Urban Meyer now or Bill Walsh in the 1990s or Jon Gruden in 2001) was going to be hired in 1976.

That week Notre Dame lost at home to USC, Montana’s second start before getting injured the next week versus Navy. And then the 34-20 loss at Pitt in which Tony Dorsett rambled for 303 rushing yards (plus 71 receiving) is when anger began to boil over. (Even a Notre Dame sophomore student named Charlie Weis had an audience with school president Rev. Theodore Hesburgh about how Devine had to go, and he was promptly informed that “you don’t have a vote.”)

That team then voted not to go to the Cotton Bowl, which infuriated Devine, and he vowed never again to let the players determine that. But it showed how fractured the program had become. The season ended 8-3 and unranked — and critics pointed to how Parseghian never lost three games in a regular season (although in 10 of the 11 years only 10 contests were played) and never finished lower than No. 14.

So to start off the next season with that beatdown by Pitt led to tremendous outcries against Devine.

I thought it became even worse when after winning six straight, Notre Dame lost 23-14 at Georgia Tech — with the Yellow Jackets not even completing a single pass. However, some salve was applied the next week when the Irish defeated Bear Bryant’s Alabama team at home, 21-18.

The season ended 9-3, but with all 11 starters returning on an excellent defense — led by Ross Browner, Bob Golic and Luther Bradley — and a veteran offense with a new quarterback in future pro Rusty Lisch — Notre Dame was the overwhelming pick to win the 1977 national title.

The worst I ever saw it was after the 20-13 loss to Ole Miss in game two. I honestly thought Devine was not going to survive the season — especially trailing 24-14 at Purdue in the fourth quarter in week three.

Then third-team QB Montana was inserted … and he was phenomenal in the 31-24 rally to victory. That only infuriated the fan base even more on why the heck Montana had been third team. (Montana was sidelined all of 1976 with a separated shoulder.)

The next week in the home game versus Michigan State, “Dump Devine” stickers were sold outside Notre Dame Stadium for $1. The running joke was that when athletics director Ed “Moose” Krause heard about it, he was livid — and claimed the price should be at least $2. (Krause had no love lost for Devine either. It was Father Joyce’s hire.)

What really served as a significant buffer was keeping Notre Dame graduates Joe Yonto, George Kelly and the late Brian Boulac from Ara’s staff. That was crucial to help create some unity within the infrastructure.

Going on to win the national title that year saved everything, although most of the fan reaction was “they are winning in spite of him.”

Starting 0-2 the next year brought back some of the vitriol, as did a 7-4 outcome in 1979, and Devine eventually submitted his resignation in August of 1980, effective at the end of the season.

Ultimately, the ensuing Gerry Faust era helped enhance appreciation for Devine’s achievements that resulted in a 53-16-1 record against very difficult schedules, a national title and three top-10 finishes (1977, 1978 and 1980) in six years (plus No. 12 in 1976).

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