From The Bleachers: What To Expect When ND Fans Are Expecting

From The Bleachers: What To Expect When ND Fans Are Expecting

“He was swimming in a sea of other people’s expectations. Men had drowned in seas like that.” ― Robert Jordan, New Spring

Expectations. A simple word with a simple definition, but one with a broad interpretation. In the Notre Dame fanbase there are, in reality, a diversity of expectations for the football team. But after a loss, or an ugly victory, that wide array of viewpoints seems to pare down to just two: those who expect the Notre Dame of Rockne, Leahy, Parseghian, and Holtz, and those who accept the mediocrity of Davie, Weis, Willingham, and in the view of some, Brian Kelly.

If you are not raging with righteous anger at the lack of football dominance, the first group reasons, you are an obvious member of the second group. Likewise, if you get bent out of shape and complain about a victory, the second group might classify you as a “get off my lawn” malcontent who pays a fortune to sit in the gold seats just so you do not have to scream at the row in front of you to sit down.

This polarization seems to mirror our political climate where everything is a zero sum argument and nuance is dead. The truth, as is almost always the case, lies in the middle. At this point in the discussion, I must confess that I fall somewhere in the second group, though not near the fringe.

One fallacy of the first way of thinking is that those coaches in that rarefied group had very little in common with each other, let alone a coach today. Aside from the fact that the Notre Dame of Rockne competed under vastly different circumstances than the Notre Dame of Leahy, which varied greatly from the Notre Dame of Parseghian, which itself was a world away from the landscape Lou Holtz navigated, the idea that a Notre Dame coach today should dominate in the same fashion of those legends of yesteryear is ridiculous and ignores basic reality.

The reasons have been discussed for decades and to relitigate them here would add little new, but a partial list of factors includes the reduction of scholarships from 95 to 85, the television revenue that the other conferences enjoy and the resultant money which has leveled the playing field and created many more competitive teams, geographical shift of the talent away from the Midwest to the southern states, the willingness of so many schools to pour dollars into their recruiting machines, and the growing gap between the academic and behavioral standards Notre Dame demands and their opponents allow.

When Lou Holtz last roamed the sidelines, he coached a group as talented as any in the country. The recruiting juggernaut he and Vinnie Cerrato built was unmatched both in innovation and resources. Here is the dirty little secret: most of that would not fly today. Corners were cut, some standards were suddenly pliable, and athletes were admitted who would not have gotten in under Ara. That is what historical ineptitude will do for you. 

In the movie the Untouchables, the Canadian Mountie Captain tells Elliot Ness and Jimmy Malone, “I do not approve of your methods.” Likewise, Notre Dame’s administration was no longer willing to do it “the Chicago way”, or in this case, the Cerrato way. What followed was two decades of mostly mediocrity, a couple years of Fool’s Gold, and a couple years unbefitting a school with Notre Dame’s cache and resources.

That brings us to Brian Kelly. A National Coach of the Year at Cincinnati, a magician with a spread offense, and a winner everywhere he had been, Kelly was the “hot name” of the moment. After a swing and a miss at Bob Stoops, Notre Dame snatched him up. The start was a little rocky but at the end of year three Kelly had the Irish playing for a National Championship against another historically great – and this era’s most dominant team – Alabama. 

A notorious stove-toucher, I perused the most perpetually negative Notre Dame internet site and found something unexpected: optimism. Even people who hated the Kelly hire and complained every week prior were suddenly softening. It was like a miracle. And then it wasn’t.

Alabama embarrassed the previously unbeaten Irish in front of God and everyone and suddenly every ounce of goodwill Kelly built up with 12-0 vanished. It was his handling of the Manti Te'o situation. No, it was his flirtation with the NFL! Clearly, it was his decision not to have many full contact practices! Whatever the favorite flavor of the critic, it added up to same ol’ Notre Dame.

Since that beatdown by Alabama, the Irish have been to the College Football Playoff once, missed another one on a late field goal by Stanford, and been a game away one other time. 

They have also won eight games four times and had one of the worst seasons in program history at 4-8. Last year, the team made the Playoff and optimism was high. It was not as high as 2012, likely because of how that season ended, but many allowed themselves to believe. Once again, a crushing Irish loss seemed to make all the great moments of that season moot.

Clemson handled Notre Dame 30-3 in the semifinals in a game that was absolutely more competitive than the score indicated. Notre Dame had not really arrived. That was the narrative of the national media and it was reinforced by a large chunk of the Notre Dame fanbase. Nevermind the fact that Clemson beat mighty Alabama by a slightly larger margin. Nevermind that many Clemson players said Notre Dame was the tougher contest. Nevermind any of that. Brian Kelly had reached his peak. Like Moses, he could lead us to the edge of the Promised Land, but not take us all the way. At least that is the narrative.

Those who believe that need only point to this season where a close loss to Georgia and a decimation at the hands of Michigan demonstrate there is still much work to be done. This last line I agree with completely: there IS still much that needs to be done. Where our opinions diverge is whether Brian Kelly is capable of doing it. I look at his reinvention after 2016. I look at recruiting where our incoming class has more headliners than any class in a long, long time. I look at the fact that the team still has a chance to win ten games on the heals of winning twelve, and how few teams have done that in recent years.

Some people expect Notre Dame to win national championships. I do not. I expect them to compete for national championships. Brian Kelly, love him, hate him, or somewhere in the middle, has them doing exactly that.