Whenever the discussion turns to who will be the next head coach at Notre Dame, more times than not the talk will begin -- and sometimes end -- with Brian Kelly.
As the perceived front runner for the Irish opening, the Cincinnati head coach was asked on today’s Dan Patrick Show if he would be coaching the Bearcats in their Sugar Bowl match-up with Florida.
The coach didn’t say he wouldn’t but, then again, he didn’t say he would either.
“No, there’s no guarantees in anything that you do,” Kelly said. “I’ve never given a guarantee whether I was going to make it home at the end of the day.
“But I have really not sat down and had a chance to evaluate, you know, what it is that’s in the future. I haven’t done that yet. I’m going to do that over the next few days because I have an opportunity to do that. ... The fact of the matter is, I’ll use these next few days to kinda decide where we go from here.”
In other words, he has an interest in the Notre Dame job, the Irish have an interest in him, and he’ll spend the next couple or few days mulling over whether or not he wants to become the next head coach of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
Kelly has been afforded every opportunity to state unequivocally that he will remain in Cincinnati beyond this year; at every turn, however, he’s been the anti-Bob Stoops in tap-dancing around the questions of his intentions when it comes to the Irish.
And why is he doing that? Because, at some point in the very near future -- perhaps as early as tomorrow -- Kelly will sit down with Irish athletic director Jack Swarbrick and discuss the opening, and will then decide where his coaching future will take him.
Until then, Kelly will continue to weave and bob his way around a question whose answer is patently obvious to nearly anyone with a lick of sense.