Brian Kelly 2017 Vs. Brian Kelly 2012
When you’ve been in the business of covering a particular team over many years, you often find that quotes from coaches and players tend to run together or get recycled.
For example, Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly has made it a point to be more accessible to and personal with his players in the new year rather than be an aloof figurehead.
“It started back in January when I was committed to being a better head coach in the sense that I needed to spend more time with my players,” Kelly said. “This job has a tendency to distract you a little bit. I took it because I wanted to coach and I wanted to be around the guys.”
With his attention often directed elsewhere in the bigger framework of the school, Kelly felt like he was neglecting his most precious commodity — his student-athletes.
“I’ve never been that kind of coach, and I felt myself sliding towards that … I don’t think it’s anything on their part; I think it’s probably more on my part, being more accessible and being around the guys a lot more,” he elaborated.
“When there’s not the kind of results that you’re looking for, you have to look at yourself first. That’s where I looked. Back in January, we started every Monday with our A-club, our A-team, and I would meet with our players. I just think my emphasis on spending more time with the players and letting them get to know me better than just sitting up in an office and, ‘That’s where the head coach at Notre Dame sits.’
“You’ve got to push the distraction away and focus on why you’re here, and that is I want to coach my guys.”
You’ve heard most of these quotes already this year, correct?
Well, not really.
They were taken after the first day of practice five years ago, or prior to Kelly’s start of his third season with the Fighting Irish in 2012.
That was also the year the Irish head coach did some major shuffling of his staff, including hiring three new assistants (Harry Hiestand, Scott Booker and the late Bob Elliott) and shifting several others to new roles, including defensive backs coach Chuck Martin to offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach.
It was a time of much upheaval and even some volatility after disappointing back-to-back 8-5 seasons in Kelly’s first two years, putting him in the company of Joe Kuharich (1959-60) as the lone Notre Dame coaches to open with five losses each of their first two seasons.
His tenure reached a boil in year 2 (2011) after falling to 4-3 with a 31-17 home loss to USC. Kelly demarcated his first full recruiting class in 2011 as “my guys,” and had bought in better than predecessor Charlie Weis’ recruits.
Understandably, that did not go over well with veteran players. It prompted a players-only meeting in which captain Harrison Smith helped allay some bitterness, and then they openly shared the thoughts with the staff. Both sides agreed that face time was critical to better communication and understanding each other.
The season still ended on a down note with two more defeats, but the changes within the infrastructure plus Kelly’s own personality makeover with the players became a talking point during the 2012 preseason.
“He’s not yelling as much,” noted senior running back Theo Riddick. “He comes to us first and we do all the yelling. I think that’s a great transition. He’s here more often, he’s more open and we get to joke and laugh with him.
“It’s more of a comfort thing, and everyone seems very comfortable with him right now.”
“He’s a lot more relaxed,” echoed fifth-year senior wideout John Goodman. “He came in here and just told us, ‘It’s your team and I’m going to lead you, but it’s your team.’"
Another fifth-year senior, center Braxston Cave, shared similar sentiments.
“Any time you have the head guy around and you feel like you have easy access to him and you can go to him with anything you’ve got …just to sit down with and have a conversation, it makes guys feel a lot more comfortable,” he said.
Voila! For the second time in four seasons, Kelly led his team to a remarkable 12-0 regular season, earning national coach of the year honors again, before his No. 1-ranked Irish were crushed in the BCS Championship by Alabama. Nevertheless, the evidence indicated he was on the cusp of making Notre Dame a bona fide elite program, and even appeared ahead of schedule.
Yet in the four years hence (2013-16), Notre Dame is 31-20 (a pedestrian .608 winning percentage) — going back to the five-loss average his first two seasons — including a sobering 20-19 versus Power 5 Conference teams.
That resulted this winter in far more house cleaning than in 2012, including the hiring of six new on-the-field assistants, plus a completely revamped strength and conditioning staff, after a 4-8 fiasco.
From the sounds of it this spring, and throughout the off-season before fall-camp commences this Tuesday (Aug. 1), Kelly went back to his personal-touch roots — again.
“My day is consumed differently,” Kelly said prior to the start of spring drills this year. “I haven’t spent much time in the staff room going over the offense. I’ve spent much more time with the players. I’ve been down in study hall. I’ve been down in meeting rooms with players.
“It’s been much more of a different association, which has been great to do it on that end. It’s been a lot more like when I was a Division II head coach and I had to spend all my time with the players. It’s been extremely enjoyable.
“It’s pretty clear that my players want me to be more involved with the entire football team. They like it when I’m there in the morning. They like when I’m around. They like when I’m having breakfast with them. They like when I’m available to them. So I want to be able to do the things that help our football team win in any way that I can.
“…I love it. You can’t get up at 4:30 in the morning if you don’t like it. If you don’t love getting up and spending time with your players and are not energized to do that, you can’t do this job.”
Sound familiar? But, but, but … what happened to the new approach from 2012?
“There weren’t enough hours in the day,” he said this spring. “It became a situation where I was involved in the offense. I was worried about raising money for our new facility. I was not focused on the traits that I needed to build in this football team. And I’m not worried about that anymore. I’m going to let other people take care of that.”
As historians will often tell you, the more things change, the more they likewise remain the same.
Another 12-win season — or more — and overall regular-season long buzz from 2012 would be heartily embraced again in 2017.
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