“Since I’ve been here, if you look at the average [recruiting] rankings, we’re anywhere from 5 to 15. We’re going to fall somewhere in that range because there’s a line there we can’t get over based upon what are distinctions are here.
“That line is going to keep up between 5 and 15. We know where we’re going to fall. We’re going to continue to recruit the right kind of kids here.”
—Brian Kelly, on 2017 National Signing Day
Of all the hundreds of meetings Kelly has had with the media through his 10 years as Notre Dame’s head coach, few comments struck the chord — and ire — of Fighting Irish faithful more than that one.
Psychologists probably would refer to the defeatist tone as “learned helplessness.”
Given that Notre Dame was coming off a 4-8 season just two months earlier when Kelly made the statement, it poured fuel on the raging inferno that had become the football office.
If you are what you think you are, then Notre Dame’s recruiting became a self-fulfilling prophecy over the past seven cycles from 2014-20.
