Inarguably, the most memorable press conference so far during the 11-year career for Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly came not long after the end of his most forgettable season.
A 45-27 drubbing against USC in November of 2016 dropped Kelly to 4-8 for the year — the second-most Irish losses in a season since 1960 — after which, the seventh-year Notre Dame skipper was left to wonder if he’d return for an eighth.
An unwavering vote of confidence from Notre Dame director of athletics Jack Swarbrick brought Kelly back. Some deep introspection from the Irish coach brought a program back.
“A lot of things had to change, including me,” Kelly explained. “We didn’t reinvent the wheel here. Behind the scenes, we made some tweaks.”
Those “tweaks” included bringing in three new coordinators among 17 new football staff members and parting ways with his long-time strength staff. More importantly, Kelly said, improvement required him to talk less and listen more.
To his credit, Kelly took full responsibility during that press gathering for the lapses in mental toughness, physical conditioning and indifference his players demonstrated at times that season.
“Part of the whole culture I let slip up,” Kelly explained.
Even as a veteran coach and a creature of habit, Kelly realized that he needed to fix himself before he could fix his program, and he did so by detaching from old coaching routines and attaching more to his players.
Instead of isolating upstairs inside his corner office to craft and crunch X’s and O’s all day, Kelly went downstairs at 6 a.m. each morning to be with his guys for breakfast and weight training, a gesture the Irish players openly admitted brought a needed climate change.
“We did it because there’s a tradition of excellence that I need to live up to, period,” Kelly shared of his more personable approach. “I didn’t live up to it, and I’m going to make sure that never happens again.”
And now, almost exactly four calendar years later, Kelly’s program and his personal transformation have sparked arguably the best run and improvement stretch for Notre Dame in at least 30 years, maybe longer.
When asked last month by Colin Cowherd during an interview on Fox Sports if this was the best team he has ever coached at Notre Dame, Kelly didn’t flinch.
“I would say it is,” Kelly said, referencing previous teams from 2012, 2015 and 2018 as honorable mentions. “I think we’ve gotten to the point now where it’s about our production and how we play on Saturdays, and the rest takes care of itself.”
And maybe that’s the point.
Even with a loss to Clemson, Dec. 19, in the ACC Championship Game (and assuming a win Saturday over Syracuse), a 10-1 Irish team has clearly demonstrated this season through production and eye test — and program momentum — that it deserves a playoff invite over some undefeated team from another conference that plays only six or seven games.
Since Kelly began his restoration project and started clearing the football offices in December of 2016, his team has recorded a program-record four consecutive seasons with at least 10 wins, it has won 24 straight games at Notre Dame Stadium, its fourth-year seniors went 42-5 during their careers in regular-season games and Kelly’s Irish are on track to reach the College Football Playoffs for the second time in three seasons.
“It’s gone pretty good for us over the last four years,” Kelly celebrated.
With seven of the eight losses in 2016 coming by eight points or fewer, Coach Kelly could have easily dismissed that season as a hiccup or an anomaly and returned to his familiar routine and comfort zone.
But four years later, and with the best team the 30-year head coach has ever fielded now poised to make an ACC and National Championship run, thank goodness he didn’t.
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