Frank Commentary
With age comes experience, and experience brings knowledge. Knowledge and experience can breed success. Success and great success can lead to glory. Huge success and glory usually brings complacency. Complacency and lack of focus will usually bring failure. Multiple failures usually lead to doubt. Failure and doubt can bring change. And when change is done right, it can often lead back to success again.
I think that is the path Irish head coach Brian Kelly has been on as a coach, and now we wait to see if continued great success and glory will soon follow. This season has already been a great success. There are not many who would’ve predicted a 12-0 season for this Irish team this season. I don’t know about you but those victories over Michigan, Stanford, Virginia Tech, Northwestern, Syracuse, and USC sure felt glorious to me. This turnaround has to be Brian Kelly’s best coaching job in his career, and and my guess is it’s the one he’s most proud of.
Winning championships is everyone’s main goal, but ultimately, as a coach, I think the most rewarding thing is taking a group of players who have succumbed to doubt and failure, saying you have a plan, follow me, and they buy in and find success again. Those are the true rewards of coaching.
It’s been a fun and interesting ride following Brian Kelly and the Irish these past two seasons. As I said last week in my commentary, I didn’t think he could get it done, and here he sits, “last man standing.”
My favorite part of the game is actually watching Brian Kelly. He has such an expressive face, and and you can just sense what’s going through his mind throughout the game.
I also love the headset game he plays. It’s off when he feels comfortable, it’s on when he doesn’t, and I truly believe that’s the biggest lesson he’s learned in all of this: “Let your coaches coach until you need to step in.”
He has some talented assistant coaches. They wouldn’t be 12-0 if he didn’t, and credit to him for hiring them, and then coaching them into building the type of program he/we all wanted.
The season is far from over, and the best thing I can say about it is I’m really exited to see how this team matches up with the very best. I think once this team gets some rest, heals and gets reenergized, they’re going to surprise people again. Who will they play? Will they win? I haven’t a clue, but for the first time in a long time, I’m not really concerned they will get blown out or embarrassed as many Irish teams in the past have done in a similar situation. This one feels different this time. Those old teams would’ve lost to USC yesterday, and probably a few of the previous games as well. This team didn’t.
As for the game, I don’t know about you, but I saw a tired team yesterday. An emotionally and physically tired team, but I think it was obvious strength coach, Matt Balis, was the game ball winner in this game. Sure grit and determination won this game. That is built in the winter and the summer.
There’s no doubt that all the travel has had an impact, but as I keep saying, it’s very hard to finish the regular season undefeated. It’s remarkable and very rare two teams finish undefeated, and even more rare when three teams do, and now four if you count UCF, so just the fact that they accomplished that means this season is a great success.
A lot of my commentary the past few weeks has been about Kelly, and rightfully so, but I wanted to save the last bit here for those who actually did the most work, and actually played in the games.
This is one of the finest group of warriors to ever proudly wear the blue and gold, and it’s been a pleasure to both watch and cover this team. So many great stories have been written about their personalities, their road to Notre Dame, their families who made them the men they are, their sacrifices, overcoming adversity, and now the fruits of their labor.
There have been “better” Notre Dame teams, for sure. There have been more talented and more complete teams as well, but that’s what makes watching this group so much fun. So much of their success has come from hard work, focus and belief in oneself.
They don’t win just because they’re talented, and they’re clearly not the most talented team in the country, but you can’t tell them that, and that’s what is going to make them a tough out in the playoff.
And now that the drama of “will someone jump Notre Dame” is over, I just have one thing to say to all the naysayers, especially those up north.
Michigan faced their rival today. So did ND.
One team answered the bell, as they did the first game of the year. The other, well they failed the first game of the year, and when it really mattered yesterday.
“The Revenge Tour?” Heh!
“Settled All Family Business.” “Last Man Standing.”
Thank you Irish. Thank you Brian Kelly. You’ve made Irish Nation very proud!