Brian Kelly explains Notre Dame turnaround after 2016 season, compares to Cincinnati, LSU
A closer look at former Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly’s time in South Bend reveals an unofficial split in his tenure, a division which occurred in 2016 with a 4-8 football season.
Kelly’s first full year at Notre Dame was 2010, and his team made the BCS Championship Game just three years later. Notre Dame went 10-3 in 2015, and that team was loaded with talent. The wheels came off in 2016, as Notre Dame won just four games. But a staff overhaul at the end of the season created one of the most stable programs in college football beginning just a year later.
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That near-immediate revival was made possible by Irish players with the right mentality, per Kelly.
“I think the 4-8 season was more on the coaches,” Kelly said recently on the Varsity House Podcast, which is hosted by former Irish defensive back Shaun Crawford. “It was more on me and poor leadership than it was on the players. I think if the players are led the right way, it’s a quicker turnaround…The players were in a pretty good position, I just needed to lead them better.
“When you take over programs (without that player buy-in), it takes longer for you to turn the players into having the right habits and doing things the right way.”
Since 2017, Notre Dame has gone 54-10 with five straight 10-win seasons and two College Football Playoff berths. Now, Kelly will try to replicate that consistent success in Baton Rouge as the head coach at LSU.
Kelly cites differences between Cincinnati, LSU
The aforementioned conversation topic originally came up because of Crawford’s curiosity about whether Kelly has a “formula” for turning a program around after nearly two decades as an FBS head coach. Kelly provided an answer, elaborating on taking over the Cincinnati program in 2006 and now the LSU program ahead of the 2022 season.
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“I think with each one of them, they were not successful for different reasons,” Kelly said. “If you look at Cincinnati, they were being overshadowed by basketball. Basketball was taking the life out of the football program, so we had to become relevant.
“We were risky and took moves to heighten the football program. Maybe we did some things that we wouldn’t have done at Notre Dame, which was already an established brand.”
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Kelly was immensely successful in his efforts, orchestrating a complete turnaround almost instantly. In 2007, his first full year as the head of the program, the Bearcats went 10-3. By the conclusion of his tenure in Cincinnati, Kelly had a 34-6 record. In 2009, the team was ranked as high as No. 4 in the AP Poll. He departed at the end of that season for Notre Dame.
LSU is a different situation from Cincinnati for somewhat obvious reasons. It’s more similar to the program Kelly inherited at Notre Dame — they are both iconic football brands — but there is still a major difference. LSU won a national championship just three years ago. Now Kelly has to replicate that, as the past three LSU head football coaches have.
“It has that national relevance,” Kelly said.
Kelly begins his campaign to return LSU to 2019 status with a Sept. 4 matchup against Florida State at the Caesars Superdome, home of the New Orleans Saints.
