re: How highly did you regard BK as coach at ND?

Notre Dame fans are glad he's gone because he was never going to get ND over the hump. He's a disengaged, mediocre recruiter and that just doesn't work at ND. I believe it was Urban Meyer who said that ND's biggest recruiting advantage is its national reach and the fact that pretty much every recruit in the country will take your call. ND's biggest disadvantage in recruiting is that they have a relatively small natural recruiting base, so they enter almost every recruiting battle in 3rd place. It takes a lot of effort and relationship building to convince a recruit to move across the country to ND. Kelly just didn't put in the effort to do that, and when he did, I don't think recruits really warmed up to him.

ND fans are excited because on the recruiting front, Marcus Freeman is everything Kelly wasn't and is exactly what ND needs. It obviously won't matter one iota, however, if Freeman can't maintain the program and culture that Kelly built.

Kelly has other shortcomings as a coach too that hindered him at ND. Contrary to popular belief, he is absolutely not a QB whisperer, and in fact, his development and management of that position was piss poor. This dogged ND on the recruiting trail trying to get elite QBs and WRs. ND fans are very split on whether keeping Rees on as OC was a good move or not.