Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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54 SEPT. 26, 2020 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED T he Notre Dame head coach po- sition in football has never had any official term limit. It just seemed to feel that way. That changed this month. The start of Brian Kelly's 11th sea- son at Notre Dame on Sept. 12 coin- cided with the news that his contract, set to elapse following the 2021 sea- son, had been extended three years through the 2024 campaign. Kelly is now in a four-way tie for second place with national cham- pions and College Football Hall of Fame inductees Frank Leahy (1941-43, 1946-53), Ara Parseghian (1964-74) and Lou Holtz (1986-96). Only the legendary Knute Rockne's 13-year reign from 1918-30 is longer before it was tragically ended at age 43 from a fatal plane crash. If all goes as planned, Kelly's 15 years with the Irish will surpass Rockne's then 94-year reign for the longest tenure at the program. Plans, however, often do get al- tered. Bob Davie was "supposed" to coach at least through 2005 after a five-year extension in 2000, but was deposed in 2001. Tyrone Willingham was "sup- posed" to receive five years like most of his predecessors — although Hunk Anderson also was axed in 1933 after three seasons — but was jettisoned at the conclusion of 2004 following three. Charlie Weis was "supposed" to last at least through 2015 with the mind-numbing 10-year extension af- ter a 5-2 start in 2005, but ended up six years short of reaching that mark (but not from reaping the significant buyout). In Kelly's case, he has built enough coaching equity, especially the past three years, to earn such trust. Still, 15 years is a feat Kelly didn't quite envision, either, earlier in his career. When it was announced in Septem- ber 2014 that Notre Dame had sched- uled Texas A&M in 2024-25 (not Ohio State in 2022-23, as I wrote last week), Kelly joked, "I'll be sipping a Mai Tai on the beach." What always is stunning to real- ize is Leahy was only 45 when he stepped down in 1953 with four na- tional titles, while Parseghian was 51 when he retired in 1974 with two consensus championships and a shared one. Neither ever coached again, yet how much more could they have achieved? Holtz, who won the most recent national title in 1988 and narrowly missed on two others in 1989 and 1993, was the oldest Fighting Irish head coach to hold the position, 59 years and nearly 11 months, when he resigned in 1996. Kelly will turn 59 on Oct. 25, the day after the Pitt game on the road. Prior to Holtz, the previous oldest coach to lead Notre Dame was Dan Devine, who won the 1977 national championship but stepped down three years later, just after his 56th birthday. "I feel blessed to have that oppor- tunity, knowing the great history and tradition of Notre Dame football," Kelly said of the extension. "To be entrusted with that, I take that obvi- ously quite seriously." With Leahy and Parseghian espe- cially, their seriousness was taken to an extreme when their health became compromised. "Physically exhausted and emotionally drained," as Par- seghian put it. Victories became merely relief, while defeat became too excruciating to bear. When I first heard Willingham state, "I've never had a bad day," failure was inevitable at Notre Dame. There is a sound Christian message in what he stated — but when you don't have a bad day as a Notre Dame head coach, it means you don't care enough. Thus, with Kelly's extension, one of the primary questions is how much fire remains in the belly. Un- der his watch, Notre Dame made it to the BCS Championship Game in 2012 (a 42-14 defeat to Alabama) and the four-team College Football Playoff in 2018 (a 30-3 setback to Clemson) with 12-0 regular seasons. Since 2012, the only other teams that have both played both for a na- tional title one year and were in the CFP in another are Alabama, Clem- son, Florida State and Ohio State. The final frontier remains captur- ing the school's first national title since 1988. Otherwise, Kelly will be categorized with Elmer Layden (1934-40), a Hall of Famer who won 77 percent of his games at Notre Dame (better than both Holtz and Devine), but didn't quite reach the ultimate prize. "When we discussed this, I needed to have the energy, the enthusiasm and the want to, to continue to lead this program, and really feel like there was more to accomplish, which I do," Kelly said. "All those things had to align — and it still doesn't mean I can't have a Mai Tai in July along the beach. We can still do both. "It still needed to be, from my perspective, things I wanted to ac- complish and what I believe our pro- gram could still achieve. … To win a national championship is still the ultimate goal and our mission." At Notre Dame, that always re- mains the benchmark, with no real term limit anymore. ✦ The Final Frontier Through 2024, Give Or Take THE FIFTH QUARTER LOU SOMOGYI Senior Editor Lou Somogyi has been at Blue & Gold Illustrated since July 1985. He can be reached at lsomogyi@blueandgold.com With a contract extension through 2024 in hand, head coach Brian Kelly is focused on capturing Notre Dame's first national title since 1988. PHOTO BY KEN MARTIN