As an ND grad who has many LSU friends, I have had numerous discussions about BK, and warned my friends when he was hired not to be overly optimistic. Why? While Brian Kelly is a great program builder who understands the landscape of college football and knows what it takes to win, he is not always the best at execution and a lot of his game-day coaching is questionable at best. Here are a few observations from the commentary in this thread as well as from last night's games.

1. For those worried about recruiting, relax. Yes, Kelly is a bit of lazy recruiter, but he is competent enough to select assistants who are tireless recruiters. You will get talent.

2. What BK does with that talent that is recruited is a bigger question. While at ND, BK and his staff had difficulty developing the talent that they recruited at most positions other than OL, and particularly, at QB. Some would say that almost all QBs at ND regressed...I think otherwise. I don't think the coaching staff challenged them to run new stuff, so that there was a lot of film on ND's playbook for each QB, allowing opposing defenses to be better prepared with each game.

3. Halftime and in-game adjustments are a problem, halftime because there typically are not significant adjustments and in-game because the staff reacts too slowly. Against most great coaches, BK will lose the halftime adjustment battle. I'm not saying that Norvell is a great coach, but he and his staff schooled the BK staff last night. If it was not obvious to you, you probably should be watching Netflix instead of football.

4. Special teams are not special. From sources inside the ND program, there were reports that special teams was given little to no practice time during both the pre-season the season.

5. BK does not seem to understand momentum, and his stubbornness often works against him in critical game decisions. Sometimes it's better to take the points. That said, I agreed with the decision to go for it both times last night, but the play calls were less than ideal. If you're gonna go for it, you should have some idea of how to get it.

A lot of ND fans were jaded by Kelly's departure. He did really great things for our program, but he was not beloved by many while he was there. As I have said to my LSU friends, you may get lucky and have a great season, but for the most part, you should expect his teams to lay a few eggs. Unfortunately, last night was an egg. Hopefully, that's the last one of the season.

This post was edited on 9/4/23 at 12:43 pm