A history of BK at ND

I'm a UT grad and a lifelong ND fan (dad went there), grew up in Houston with a lot of LSU fans in my orbit. I'm not sad to see ND get a fresh start. Kelly built a great program in many ways, but I think it's going to take a different type of coach (i.e., a dynamic recruiter) to get ND over the top. Kelly is a CEO coach and a CEO recruiter, and that may work fine at LSU, but at ND when you're trying to get kids to go 1000 miles from home, you need a HC better at establishing personal relationships.

Anyway, the history of BK at ND is really best told as a history of the staffs he assembled. The first staff that he built in 2010 was the epitome of small timey. It was littered with his cronies from GVSU and CMU. His Cincinnati WR coach was his first OC at ND (the Cincy OC Jeff Quinn became HC at Buffalo). He brought over his Cincy DC (only 1 year of coordinator experience) to be DC. Neither had any P5 (or NFL) coaching experience, let alone P5 coordinating experience.

For his original staff, BK brought in Chuck Martin, the GVSU (DII school) head coach, to be DB coach at ND. Chuck Martin had never been part of a P5 program in any capacity, not as a player, a GA, an assistant. That may not be that terrible of a move for a DB coach, but following the 2011 season, he promoted Chuck Martin to OC. You read that right, he promoted a DB coach with no OC experience and only 2 years of P5 football experience to be OC, not at a mid-level high school program but at Notre Dame. Kelly 1.0 bottomed out in 2016 at 4-8 with Brian Van Gorder (a GVSU crony) coordinating one of the worst defenses in ND history. Many believed Kelly should have been fired after 2016, but he was allowed to do a reboot on the condition that he overhauled his staff.

Move to 2017 and Kelly 2.0, he finally started recruiting assistants outside his comfort zone and landed DC Mike Elko from Wake Forest. Elko brought with him Clark Lea. ND fans were pissed as hell when Elko left after only 1 year, but in many ways, Elko was the savior of the ND program and definitely the savior of BK's career. From 2017-2020, with Elko/Lea as DC, ND has played great defense. For most of Kelly 2.0, he has brought in dramatically better coaches. As on example, he hired John McNulty as TE coach. McNulty had both significant NFL coaching experience and major college experience. BK 1.0's staff simply didn't have resumes like this.

BK came to ND with the reputation of being an offensive guru and great QB developer. The irony is that at ND, all of his best teams have been completely carried by defense and OL. His QB recruiting and development at ND have generally been atrocious, but maybe a bit better of late with Rees on staff. With the exception of Book, practically all of his QBs (Golson, Wimbush, Kizer) got worse, not better, over time.

Anyway, I feel like I'll be able to tell you quickly, once I see BK's staff, whether or not he'll be successful at LSU. If you start seeing a bunch of guys who coached with him prior to 2017 pop on his staff, then I would be very afraid. If he hires an A-list OC/QB coach and stays out of their way, then I think you have reason to be ecstatic. If you start getting the sense that he's going to be heavily involved in the offense, then you should probably be nervous. You want BK to be a coach who coaches the coaches, not a coach who coaches the players.