Intervening On Notre Dame’s Defense: Brian Kelly’s Dilemma

The word of the day during head coach Brian Kelly’s weekly press conference on Tuesday was “urgency.”

With a highly disappointing 1-2 record in a year where Notre Dame was projected as a preseason top-12 team, and a College Football Playoff dark horse, the heat is on both the coaching staff and players to take ownership of their plight and to rectify it, pronto.

One of the popular suggestions from the outside is for Kelly — whose coaching career began on defense — to apply his teaching concentration on the defense, where embattled third-year coordinator Brian VanGorder has become eviscerated by at least the fan base for the Irish losing four of their last five games.

It actually began in VanGorder’s first season in 2014 when the Irish finished the month of November 1-4 by yielding an average of 43.4 points per game (in fairness, a couple of them were interception returns for touchdowns). But he had somewhat of a pass that year because it was his first season and an inordinate amount of injuries, particularly on the line, ravaged the team.

Patience began to dissipate in 2015 when on the biggest stages the defense yielded touchdowns on its first two series in defeats to Clemson, Stanford and Ohio State. Leading 36-35 against the Cardinal, it had Stanford backed up near its 25 with 25 seconds left, but couldn’t make the stop in the 38-36 loss. The veteran-laden unit was “inconsistent” by VanGorder’s own admission.

This year, surrendering 37 regulation points (and 50 overall) to a Texas offense that was among the worst in the country last year and had a true freshman quarterback, and then allowing 36 points and 501 yards total offense to a rebuilding Michigan State offense has VanGorder perceived as the albatross in Kelly’s seven-year Notre Dame tenure.

While Notre Dame has lost four of its last five games, it did average 34.7 points per game scoring. The Irish offense also has longtime assistant Mike Denbrock overseeing the operation and a rising young figure in Mike Sanford, who has the offensive coordinator title, augmenting it.

Two of the legendary Notre Dame coaches from the past, Ara Parseghian and Lou Holtz, both took over the defense when they felt it was necessary. A popular question is whether Kelly should do the same.

Former Notre Dame backfield coach Tom Pagna relayed a story to me years ago that after the 37-22 loss to Purdue in 1968 in which Boilermakers quarterback Mike Phipps and running back Leroy Keyes (both Heisman runners-up in their careers) carved up the Notre Dame defense, Parseghian told the staff that he would be handling the defense in the upcoming week and beyond until things could get stabilized. The esteemed John Ray, the linebackers coach who would become head coach at Kentucky in 1969, didn’t necessarily like it, but it had to be accepted. The defense still had its setbacks, but by the end of the year it held USC Heisman winner O.J. Simpson to 55 rushing yards in a tie game.

On occasions in both 1990-91, Lou Holtz took the reins from defensive coordinator Gary Darnell when he felt intervention was needed. In 1990, after giving up four touchdown drives from 70 to 80 yards to Air Force and getting upset 36-31 at home by three-touchdown underdog Stanford, Holtz took over and called the defense in a 29-20 win over No. 2 Miami.

The next year after surrendering 35 points in consecutive losses to Tennessee and Penn State, and eking out a 48-42 victory at Hawai’i in the regular-season finale, Holtz took over the defense again in the 39-28 upset win over No. 3 Florida in the Sugar Bowl, playing a bend-but-don’t break style that helped limit the explosive Gators to five field goals and two touchdowns.

Kelly indicated that is not necessarily who he is as a head coach.

“I have to be able to know that everything in the program is being taught, being effectively communicated on a day-to-day basis,” he said. “So physically, does that mean on the practice field I have to stand on the defensive practice field to get that done? No, it doesn't mean that.

“What it means is that I have to be in defensive meetings. It means that I have to be aware of what the game plan is. It means that I have to know how we’re teaching things and communicating them, which I do.

“So I don’t need a headset. I don’t need to be on the defensive side of the ball coaching tackling. I’m very confident that I’ve got good coaches to do that, but I’m the head coach, and I’d better be certain that I know exactly what’s going on in all facets of my program — offense, defense, special teams, recruiting, all of those things. But from an optics standpoint, I don’t need to be standing on the defensive end of the field to make sure that gets done.”

There might be something to be said for that. When Holtz lost, especially later in his tenure, he too often was castigated as too much of a meddler or micromanager. However, more often than not he got results, especially when he took over on defense.

On the flip side, there could be an argument that if the defensive players actually see the head coach involved and highly engaged in practices of implementing and teaching the defense, then the “urgency” on that side of the ball will be lifted, and the attention to detail might subconsciously become greater. Coaches always say you achieve what you emphasize. To better appreciate an emphasis on defense, Kelly’s presence and voice there might be able to help.

From the outside looking in, it appears Kelly does not want to come across as the micromanager who doesn’t allow his coaches to coach. However, he does maintain that he is far more involved with the defense than the public might perceive.

“The players know that, from the head coach's perspective, I’m aware of everything that goes on because I can speak to them about what their techniques are, what they’re doing, how they’re doing them on a day-to-day basis,” Kelly said. “So I can pull Nyles [Morgan] aside, and I can pull the DB aside and our defensive linemen, and I can talk to them intelligently about their defensive techniques. So they know that I'm in tune to what they’re doing, not, ‘Hey, what did you do on that play?’

“I think that’s the most important thing, and that I’m aware of what’s going on on a day-to-day basis. If I didn’t, then you’re right — then I’d have to be more active in terms of what we’re doing defensively on a day-to-day basis.”

Once again, only time will tell, even as urgent as everything is supposed to be now.

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