Advertisement

Brian Kelly's latest reason for Notre Dame's 4-8 season? Fundraising

Brian Kelly is sticking to his guns. Or at least he says he is.

Even after his Notre Dame team went 4-8 — which you may have heard about — in 2016, Kelly insisted in an interview with Bleacher Report that he didn’t all of a sudden forget how to build a winning team. Just because of one disastrous season, he is not going to abandon what got him to Notre Dame — and Notre Dame to the verge of two national titles — in the first place.

[Now’s the time to sign up for Fantasy Football! Join for free]

So what does he attribute the down season to? Um, having to do too much fundraising, apparently …

From B/R:

After its coach had to spend too much time, he now reveals to Bleacher Report, fundraising for a football-only facility and not enough making sure he had a firm grasp of his team’s physical and mental focus. Think about that: The head coach at Notre Dame—which at one point was paying two coaches to not coach (Tyrone Willingham, Charlie Weis) while paying Kelly—was fundraising for a facility during the season.

When asked how that impacted 2016, Kelly says bluntly, “It f–ked up last year’s team.”

“I was the absent professor,” Kelly says. “I wasn’t paying attention to the details that we needed. There were internal issues that—if a guy is on it, and he’s doing his job as the head coach, he would’ve seen those things early. My flawed philosophy was, We’re going to score points early while we’re figuring it out on the other side with a young defense. Well, that didn’t happen. We gave up way too many points early, we lost three games, and now we’re in trouble.”

Huh, alright.

There’s no way Kelly is attributing too much time spent fundraising as the main culprit for last year’s disaster, right? After all, he did hire seven new assistant coaches, including offensive and defensive coordinators, to his staff. So he clearly saw some things had to change.

Brian Kelly is 59-31 in seven seasons at Notre Dame. (AP)
Brian Kelly is 59-31 in seven seasons at Notre Dame. (AP)

Still, Kelly told B/R, in his usual forthright fashion, that he knows what he’s doing. One bad season amid a myriad of winning won’t cause him to overreact.

“I know what it looks like. I know what a team needs,” Kelly said. “I know what has to happen. There’s no panic here.”

It’s a weird dynamic. These quotes are not out of character by any means for Kelly, who has been brash and defensive to criticism throughout his time in South Bend. He’s still the guy who blasted his center for bad shotgun snaps last year while playing in a hurricane. He’s still the guy who called out his players and said coaching had “nothing to do with” Notre Dame’s loss to Duke. He’s still the guy who has frequent sideline outbursts. He’s still the guy who wasn’t exactly complimentary of quarterback DeShone Kizer on his way to the NFL. He’s still the guy who griped about receiving a vote of confidence from his AD (he did it again in the B/R article, too).

[Dr. Saturday’s 2017 Top 25 countdown: No. 22 Notre Dame]

But his actions tell a bit of a different story. The seven new coaches are one thing, but he is going to completely turn over the play-calling duties to Chip Long. He is going to let Mike Elko run the defense with a fresh set of eyes. And he has already said Brandon Wimbush will be his starting quarterback after waffling between Kizer and Malik Zaire (now at Florida) at the beginning of 2016.

So, despite the talk, maybe we’ll see a Kelly who’s a *bit* more hands-off in 2017. Whatever his approach is, he needs to win more, or he could be looking for new work in 2018.

More college football from Yahoo Sports:

– – – – – – –

Sam Cooper is a writer for the Yahoo Sports blogs. Have a tip? Email him or follow him on Twitter!

PODCAST: Pete Thamel on the Year of the QB