(Notre Dame Football News ) – I’m not sure where Old Man’s guide to surviving the off-season ( which details the normal ebb and flow of Irish emotion during the off-season) resides right now, but it appears that four straight bumbled hires have at least temporarily caused flow interruptus.  Pre-season hopes, especially in a coaching change situation, are generally high as reports of X player “making a move,” “a new attitude” and “personnel adjustments” replace memories of past failure.  Bruno95 reconstructed many of those for us all on Rock’s House lest anyone forget.

Notre Dame fans have become worn down by failure and forced by years of mediocrity to adjust their sites and adopt what has become known as the Missouri stance on NDNation with regard to Notre Dame football.  Vannie’s take in Patience and Measuring Success is reminiscent of what Notre Dame experienced in Holtz’s first year:  “The barometer for this year’s team, if I may steal a cliché, will not be whether it wins or loses but how it plays the game. That’s admittedly an unacceptable concept to Notre Dame and Kelly would never publicly settle for fewer than 12 wins, but it’s more important that this group of players shows steady progress throughout the season and does not fall victim to the mindset that has crept into the program during the last three years: losing is no big deal.”

We weren’t winning at a high level in Holtz’s first year, but Notre Dame started to play like a team that was learning how to win and, most importantly, hated losing. After following four straight bad hires, Kelly is going to be under considerably more pressure to deliver on his goal of a 5-minute rebuilding process.

While I’ve detailed all the reasons I believe Kelly will likely have a good floor (very much in-line with Vannie’s thinking), the ceiling is another issue.  When Kelly was hired, in addition to the positives that I thought were  true regardless of the size of the school he came from, I also listed out  key questions and concerns about Kelly that couldn’t be answered by analyzing his time at smaller schools.

• Will he emphasize controlling the line of scrimmage?
• Will his pass first offense fly against a higher level of competition?
• Can he handle the pressure cooker of Notre Dame without turning defensive?
• Will his assistants be up to the task?
• Can he recruit?
• Will he be able to motivate Prima donnas?

Will he emphasize controlling the line of scrimmage?

When Notre Dame has been successful in modern football, it has controlled the line of scrimmage.  Holtz used to always say that you knew how good his teams would be by how good the offensive line looked.   It’s not of little note that the last three BCS champions physically out-manned the opposition at key moments late in the game.  Three years ago, LSU dominated the line of scrimmage against Florida in the SEC title game and went on to win the National Title with a running back and quarterback who weren’t on anyone’s elite list out of high school.  Florida did the same to Alabama and Oklahoma one year later and Alabama, in-turn, physically beat Florida and Texas at the line of scrimmage.  Neither quarterback Greg McElroy nor Heisman winner Mark Ingram were highly recruited, but they played behind a tough offensive line that dominated in the third and the fourth quarters.  All of those teams also played great defense and stuffed the run. In contrast, Kelly’s approach is to spread you out and run you into the ground with pace and execution.  Which brings me to to the next question.

Will his pass-first offense fly against a higher level of competition?

It has worked spectacularly at his last three stops.  Kelly’s approach is to disregard time of possession in favor of a fast-pace in an attempt overwhelm teams, which has resulted in many blowout wins.    Kelly has stated that he doesn’t care about time of possession, only points and he hopes to keep the pressure on the opposition for quarters until they break (the Viagra play harder-longer theory.)  It worked well last year with an impressive, if sloppy come from behind win over Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh (15th ranked) in the snow, but the only times Kelly’s teams faced top level competition (Oklahoma, Florida, Penn State, Michigan and Virginia Tech) his teams stalled and lost by double digits.  While I’m not a spread fan, Texas and Oklahoma have made it work.  That written, Texas has been moving their offense more under center and Oklahoma will switch to an I-formation much of the time.   Kelly has talked about the need to run the ball and offensive coordinator Charlie Molnar said, “I would be disappointed if we go through this season without a 1,000-yard rusher at the running back position.”  In the past Kelly has had several 200- yard rushing teams and Coach Warriner has coached three teams to the NCAA rushing title, but those were all at Grand Valley and Army (to be fair, Warriner had very good success at Illinois in the Big 10.)

Can he handle the pressure cooker of Notre Dame without turning defensive?

So far, Kelly has adopted the right “high expectation,” “win now,”  “show me” mentality and said mostly the right things, but none of that matters much if you start losing.  He’s built up some short-term political capital by working with the faculty and hitting the alumni circuit, but that’s a thin layer of insulation.  As great as Lou Holtz was, he endured endless criticism about his play calling (ironic given how productive his teams were) and turned defensive many times, though more so at the end.   Davie and Willingham were abominable in this regard, alternately lowering expectations, blaming institutional shortcomings and throwing players under the bus. Kelly has enjoyed both low expectations and high success at his last three stops, that won’t be the cases at Notre Dame.   It’s hard not to be impressed by his off-season handling of the media, but that’s nothing compared to the day-in day-out examine every word scrutiny he’ll be under in South Bend during the season and especially so during hard times.

Will his assistants be up to the task?

This has become one of the most interesting questions around Kelly and I see two competing issues.  At first blush, a first time offensive coordinator and a second year defensive coordinator at Notre Dame looks a bit Weisesque.  And it does at second blush as well.  Neither has been proven.  Diaco’s defense last year had a remarkable eight game run and was a top ten defense in the country with ten new starters in 2009.   That same defense was pummeled in the final games of the regular season and by Florida in their bowl game.  Charlie Molnar is a first year offensive coordinator.  Kelly’s philosophy is an interesting choice here, because he has a roadmap for how to turn a team around and he places a priority around coaching cohesiveness over accomplishment and experience.  Some thought I was lauding this approach in my series of articles about his coaching philosophies, but in truth, I’m more fascinated by the approaches and nervously interested to see how they play out on a big stage.  I’ve been critical of the Diaco hire, but only because he’s unproven.  Kelly is the de-facto offensive coordinator.  Balancing out the lack of experience he has Warriner who was an offensive coordinator at Kansas and Chuck Martin who was his defensive coordinator at Grand Valley State, but when you compare that to a Monte Kiffin, you just wonder how it will play out.  Kelly, for the reason Vannie mentioned above, needs his kind of coaches to execute on his winning every day approach because it involves constant communication of the same message, but there is a big trade-off in experience compared Texas with Muschamp and USC with Kiffin.

Can he recruit?

This is another valid criticism of Kelly because he hasn’t done it and has a staff that is mostly regional.  There are two parts to this questions.  1.  Does he value the top recruits over “RKGs” or is RKG a euphemism for “guys I can get or coach”?  2. Can he land them at the level Notre Dame needs to win a championship?  Both are very open questions right now.  On the discouraging front, it appears Kelly did go after some low hanging fruit early on (eager to be proven wrong) and outside of Tony Alford, there doesn’t appear to be stud recruiter on the staff.  While his first class is solid, it will likely not measure up to the first classes of Saban and Meyer. On the positive side, he has beaten out Meyer, Saban and Tressell for coveted recruits and has also shown a knack for identifying talent.    Men don’t reach their physical peaks (in general) until after college, so there is a bit of a science to this as well and he and Paul Longo have well developed theories on what to look for.  It just hasn’t been tested.  Overall, there does appear to be a decent base here, we won’t regress to the Willingham years, but the early returns are mixed.

Will he be able to motivate Prima donnas?

And by Prima Donna’s I really mean top players with multiple distractions. Kelly’s focus on execution as well as his ability to develop and motivate players (combined with winning) to play above their potential were and are key key reasons I think Kelly has a strong floor, but how will that change when he has to motivate the non-RKGs who have incredible talent?  While some may argue that he proved himself managing Mardy Gilyard, that’s a bit naive.  BCS title teams often have several first and second rounders with myriad distractions around them.  While Kelly has shown a knack for finding a way to motivate his kids, he hasn’t done so at this level with the mentality in the numbers he’ll encounter at Notre Dame.  Kelly’s immediate actions to address “the entitlement issue” and his planning around team cohesion and his ability to call out top players like Manti Teo and Michael Floyd are encouraging, but he’s in stage one of a new game.  The story about his high school girls basketball team shows that he isn’t delusional about what makes kids tick (great coaches tale,) but he’s going to be challenged in new and different ways.  Holtz, Rockne and Ara were all challenged in constantly motivating their teams.

Will he have as much success when he’s the target every week?

Things change when you move from being the hunter to the hunted.  Notre Dame, even in down years, is traditionally in every team’s top two must win games on their schedules.  Every week teams are looking to make a name off of beating Notre Dame.  While Notre Dame hasn’t had a Heisman winner since Tim Brown, recent Irish teams have helped make Carson Palmer, Matt Leinhart and Troy Smith Heisman winners and propelled  JaMarcus Russell into a first round overall pick.  Teams want to beat Notre Dame and have every possible incentive to do so once they’re on a national stage.   While at Cincinnati, Kelly was only really  the hunted in his final games against decent schools in the 2009 season, which were all very close.  He won’t be sneaking up on anyone and being the hunted at Notre Dame will be a different than he’s experienced at any of his previous stops.

Kelly has a promising start and a solid track record of getting his teams to over-perform which position him well, but when you start looking at the specific challenges he’ll face at Notre Dame, he’ll be in new territory and learning some things on the job.

by Scott Engler