ESPN: Brian Kelly One Of The 25 Best College Coaching Hires Since 1995
Notre Dame is in the middle of its best run since Lou Holtz left in the 1990s.
The Irish are 33-6 since 2017 with a College Football Playoff appearance and have posted four 10-win seasons since 2015.
Brian Kelly has overseen it all. With two 12-0 regular seasons, he has come the closest to reaching Notre Dame’s national title goals of any Holtz successor.
For that, he has found a spot on ESPN college football reporter Adam Rittenberg’s 25 best college football coaching hires of the last 25 years. Rittenberg ranks Kelly has the 13th-best coaching hire since 1995. The rankings weighs success at the program combined with the situation the coach inherited.
On the former, here’s what Rittenberg wrote.
“The team's flops in the BCS title game (2012 season) and CFP (2018 season) shouldn't minimize Kelly guiding the Irish to five 10-win seasons, six top-20 finishes and 9.2 wins per season with only one year of less than eight victories. After the one disastrous season (4-8 in 2016), Kelly made important changes to the staff and how he runs the program.
“Since 2017, Notre Dame ranks sixth nationally in winning percentage (.846). A two-time AP national coach of the year, Kelly doesn't dance around Notre Dame’s national championship ambitions and knows there’s work to do there. But he has put the program in position to challenge the nation’s best.”
Kelly took over after Notre Dame went 6-6 in Charlie Weis’ final season, coming over from Cincinnati after leading the Bearcats to a 12-0 regular season in 2009. After two BCS appearances in Weis’ first two years, Notre Dame was 3-9 in 2007 and never topped seven wins in any of the next three seasons.
“The Irish went 16-21 in the final three years of Weis’ tenure and had recorded only two 10-win seasons since 1993, when they finished No. 2 overall,” Rittenberg wrote. “Notre Dame had never made the BCS national title game and had just snapped a nine-year bowl losing streak.”
Weis’ final recruiting class, though, produced several players who starred under Kelly, including Manti Te’o, Zack Martin, Tyler Eifert, Chris Watt, Zeke Motta, Cierre Wood and Theo Riddick.
The 2008 class had a few established stars or players who became starters in Kelly’s first season, including Michael Floyd, Kyle Rudolph, Kapron Lewis-Moore, Darius Fleming and Braxston Cave.
Kelly was the only Notre Dame hire to appear in Rittenberg’s top 25. He is entering his 11th year at Notre Dame, which marked the length of Holtz’s tenure. Thirteen of the other coaches on the list were at their respective programs for at least 11 years.
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