The Worst Coaching Position In America

Michael Weinreb writes about the current state of Notre Dame football:

The bigger question, of course, is whether anyone can really get it anymore. This is now the most fallow period in Notre Dame history; the longer it goes on, the more pervasive the sense that Notre Dame football is gone for good, that the Irish may hang around Saturday afternoons on a third-place network desperate for a foothold in the sporting universe, but will never really be relevant to the 21st century. With every Champs Sports Bowl defeat, the notion that a small, independent Midwest Catholic institution with high academic standards can become a national power — and can recruit nationally — in a sport weighted toward the South (and toward superconferences) starts to feel less and less tenable^.
"Davie and Willingham and Weis all led them to nine- or 10-win seasons," says Lou Somogyi, a senior editor at Blue & Gold Illustrated and a longtime chronicler of Notre Dame football. "But can they get to that 11- or 12- or 13-game thing? It's very hard. The world changes, and sometimes you have to be willing to change with it. Just because that's how you've always done it doesn't mean it's right."
This has always been the balancing act for the Fighting Irish — emphasizing tradition while maintaining modern relevance — and this is why the cult of personality at Notre Dame is more vital to its aura than at any other football program in America. Every college coach is a salesman at heart, but at Notre Dame, the pitch goes deeper: It must carry across every region of the country, it must echo through the hallways of Catholic schools from coast to coast, and it must sustain a myth 100 years in the making while also assuring 17-year-old recruits that the past is not all there is. The coach at Notre Dame must be a toastmaster with the alumni and a bullshit artist with the media and a dictatorial presence among his players, and he must be equally good at all three things.

When the Irish canned Charlie Weis, and this area was filled with talk about Kelly going up there, my sister's godfather, the biggest Notre Dame fan I've ever met, asked me after Mass who I thought would get the job.  I told him that I didn't know, but I wouldn't wish that job on my worst enemy.  He didn't find that humorous, but it was an accurate summation of my feelings.  What's interesting is that Weinreb makes the case that Kelly is a good coach who doesn't understand the politics, whereas, my friend the professor, who works on campus, says, Kelly thoroughly understands the politics, in a way that Charlie Weis never did.  And judging from some of the Saturday calls he makes, the coaching may be some of the issue.  Overall, though, I agree with Weinreb, it is probably unlikely the Irish will recapture the glory.