Doyel: Maybe Brian Kelly just isn't good enough

INDIANAPOLIS – Notre Dame football coach Brian Kelly has had as many teams finish in the top 10 as Charlie Weis. Kelly has had more five-loss seasons than Weis, and as many as Bob Davie.

Charlie Weis and Bob Davie were terrible.

Maybe Brian Kelly just isn’t as good as everyone thinks, know what I mean?

Here could be what is happening at Notre Dame, something significantly more serious than an overmatched defensive coordinator (beleaguered Brian VanGorder was fired on Sunday): Like water will do in nature, a football coach eventually finds his level. Perhaps Brian Kelly is finding his level, now that his 2016 Fighting Irish are 1-3. He is bearing down on his fourth season with at least five losses.

Should that happen, Brian Kelly will have had more five-loss seasons than Tyrone Willingham (two). More than Charlie Weis (three). More than Bob Davie (three). Same as Gerry Faust (four).

In fairness to Kelly, he has had more seasons at Notre Dame (seven) than Willingham (three), Weis (five), Davie (five) and Faust (five). But that’s sort of the point here: Since 1975, Brian Kelly has been at Notre Dame longer than all but one of the other six coaches to follow the great Ara Parseghian. Since then, only Lou Holtz (11 seasons) has stayed in South Bend longer. Lou Holtz won a national title in 1988. So did Dan Devine (six seasons) in 1977.

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Brian Kelly is in his seventh season, and this is trending toward his fifth unacceptable one of the bunch. He has gone 8-5 three times, 9-4 once, and then whatever happens this season. Don’t blame Brian VanGorder. He’d been defensive coordinator only the past two seasons and change.

And to be fair one more time to Kelly, maybe he turns it around this season. Maybe his 1-3 team, which has beaten only Nevada – Purdue beat Nevada on Saturday – gets hot, feasts on ACC teams like Syracuse and N.C. State, beats Army, beats similarly struggling Southern Cal. That would give Notre Dame five wins.

If Notre Dame splits its other four remaining games – against Stanford, Miami, Navy and Virginia Tech – that would give Notre Dame a 7-5 record, with a chance to win its bowl game for another 8-5 season.

But again, let’s be fair to Kelly. Maybe Notre Dame runs the table, finishes 10-3, makes this entire column look silly. We can’t read the future.

But we can read the past, and the present, and we can read Brian Kelly’s comments where he called out every single starter on his team after a 38-35 loss Saturday night at home to Duke. We can see him screaming at VanGorder on the sideline.

Brian VanGorder was not very good at his job, but understand something: Brian Kelly hired him. And gave him an annual contract worth just over $1.1 million.

Brian VanGorder is Brian Kelly’s fault.

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Everything is the head coach’s fault, but for years Kelly has skated with as much good fortune as his one – his only – special team in seven years at Notre Dame. In 2012 the Fighting Irish rode a magic carpet to the BCS title game, led by the game-changing brilliance of linebacker Manti Te’o, who finished second in the Heisman Trophy voting … and who was recruited by Charlie Weis.

That year Notre Dame beat Purdue with a field goal in the final seconds. Purdue went 6-7 and fired Danny Hope.

Notre Dame rallied from 14 points down in the fourth quarter to beat 6-7 Pittsburgh in double overtime. Notre Dame rallied in the fourth quarter to beat 8-5 BYU 17-14. Beat hapless Brady Hoke’s 8-5 Michigan team 13-6. Beat 12-2 Stanford on a goal-line stand in the final seconds, an officiating judgment call that Stanford folks (and replays) still question.

All five of those close calls from 2012 were at South Bend.

Last season, Notre Dame went 10-3, losing to all three top-10 teams it played (Clemson, Stanford and Ohio State). The other 10 teams on its schedule – the teams Notre Dame beat – went a combined 58-68.

But Brian Kelly has been untouchable. Untouchable, even when his program is dogged by the horror of a sexual assault allegation in which the accuser, Lizzy Seeberg, later committed suicide, and by the death of a student, Declan Sullivan, filming a football practice from a 50-foot hydraulic scissor lift; gusts of winds reaching 51 mph blew the tower over.

The point here is not: Brian Kelly is a bad person. It is not: Brian Kelly should be fired immediately.

The point here is this: We have plenty of information on this particular coach. Brian Kelly is in his seventh season at Notre Dame, and it’s easy to imagine him not coming back for an eighth.

Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at@GreggDoyelStar or atwww.facebook.com/gregg.doyel.