When the news first broke this evening that Brian Kelly had agreed to become Notre Dame’s head coach, it should’ve come as a surprise to exactly no one.
However, that foreknowledge did nothing to assuage the anger of the people most affected by this move — the Bearcat football players. The very same players who were told by Kelly — presumably as he looked them square in the eye and kept a straight face throughout, even as he was hiding the Irish job in his hip pocket as he spoke — before their de facto Big East title game this past weekend against Pittsburgh that he was staying, to not listen to the Irish rumors swirling in every nook of the Internet and mainstream media.
Those very players spoke out this evening, and it goes without saying that they were not exactly happy with being lied to by the man who led them to three straight 10-plus win seasons.
First and foremost was wide receiver Mardy Gilyard, who was among those preaching the coach’s “I’m staying” message less than a week ago before being hit this afternoon with the reality that his coach had lied to his team. The dishonesty was too much for the All-American to endure as he lasted roughly a minute into the meeting in which Kelly informed the team he was leaving them high and dry before walking out the door himself.
“I didn’t want to hear it,” he said. “I’m fairly disgusted with the situation — him letting it last this long. … Everybody and their mamma knew what was going on. I feel like he did our team an injustice. Hopefully he’ll pack his things up and get to South Bend in a hurry.”
Gilyard wasn’t alone in his contempt for how this situation was handled.
“We don’t really care what he has to say anymore,” tight end Ben Guidugli said after a post-banquet team meeting. “He can go talk to his Notre Dame team. We’re ready to move forward with whoever wants to move forward with us. He’s not on the boat anymore, so we’ve got to continue on.”
Kelly was in an almost untenable situation, but he could’ve — should’ve — handled it better. Especially when it came to his football players.
He did not need to be so strident when addressing his team about the rumors. He could’ve — should’ve — left the door slightly ajar when addressing his football players. Instead, he slammed the door shut as far as his players were concerned.
Then kicked that same slammed door in and lobbed a grenade into his players’ midst.
Kelly has every right to pursue other opportunities; his players also have the right to feel betrayed, lied to and pissed off over what that pursuit wrought on them.
there is no easy way for a coach to take a new job anymore. with the timing of the season and the importance of recruiting, there is no other way to do it. if he tells them before the pitt game it is a horrible distraction, and there is no way the fans, media, recruits, etc will allow a school to wait until after bowls
agreed. There is never a good time to leave any job.
there IS a better way to leave, but with all the media these days and how quickly things are released it’s got to be hard.
i understand it would be really hard for him to leave after the bowl game, it would put him behind the 8 ball as far as recruiting.
what he should have done is gave the go ahead to ND, told his players that the focus needs to be on the game (against pitt), not make any comments on ND whats-so-ever. the probelm is not so much that he took the job, its that he lied about ala nick saban.
Thanks for copying the Enquirer story in your post word-for-word, Taylor.
Grow up you insipid little bearcat bitches. That is life! When you want to jump over the bar and realize that you never told a white lie, then take Jesus’ mission. Until then, shut you big fat yappers and get with the program. This is how it is done for better or for worse.
Gilyard is a spoiled immature and unrealistic bitch! You should be lucky to be in the game next year!
You whiny bearcat bitches! Such is life in the CFB world that Kelly did not create. I hope you get your asses kicked next year in the Big Least!
There was a simple way to handle all this: prior to bowl season, the correct answer should have been “no comment”. Once the Sugar Bowl was over, then all involved could break radio silence. The way this was handled was just awful, and I can’t imagine that the Bearcats are going to be able to focus on their bowl game now.
mrqtt = Can you even afford a football team?
So glad ND is an armpit and I will be able to sit back and watch BK fail…scumbag needs a serious ego check….you would think someone whose wife has battled so hard with cancer would be a little more humble….nah he’s just a slimey scumbag….My kid would never play for that guy.
I agree that there is no good way to do this, in the curent environment. people who suggest that Kelly should ahve just put ND off til after the bowl game are simply naive. It was never going to happen. Recruiting is too critical to ND’s and by extension Kelly’s future. They couldn’t fail to address that ASAP.
Frankly, I don’t care if kelly wants to mislead the media about his intentions. But I do have an issue with lying to players. They deserved to have him level with them sooner — or at least not deny emphatically what you subsequently turn otu to have been doing.
This just goes to show you that money and fame over loyalty has permeated the college level and is no longer exclusive to pro sports. Kelly took his team to an undefeated, top 5, BCS finish…then leaves them high and dry in their final, very important game. I feel bad for the kids he recruited and feel bad for the kids who went to battle for him every day. At the very least, with ND not going to a bowl this year, they could have waited, but no, $$ talks. I hope he enjoys his $$, as N.D. sucks and will suck for years to come. They deserve each other. Go Bearcats.
mrqtte, your wit and humor are astounding. The Irish have lived on past glory for too many years now. Clausen and Tate were smart to bail on this loser program. Kelly and the Irish belong together.
maybe robertg should launch a class-action lawsuit against him for being dishonest.
Yeah he won’t do squat at ND. He’ll go there and fail just like the last coaches did. ND will never be an elite school. They’re a bunch of really rich assholes trying to buy a championship. Man I hope we get to play them sometime soon so our Bearcats and beat the $hit out of Kelly’s beloved Irish and show him he made a bad decision. Good riddance a$$hole! This town gave you everything. You walk in anywhere and not pay a dime for anything. UC started building all the facilities you wanted even though they had to go begging to get money to do it. Then you leave us high and dry. I used to be a closet ND fan. Not anymore. Have fun watching us in our bowl game while you’re trying to REBUILD ND.
The thing I find most laughable about this article and the responses to it is that any of you think it is even possible to handle such a situation beyond any reproach. There isn’t. Be honest, the ONLY thing Kelly could have done that would have made everyone happy (well, maybe not ND) is to tell the Irish that he was going to stay at Cincy because he didn’t want anyone getting mad at him. And even then, many in the media would have blasted him for being a gutless moron in not taking the ND job because he didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.
Tell your players before the defacto Big East title game (Pitt) that you’re leaving or are at least considering it, and you risk them quitting on you in arguably the biggest game of your career to that point. Tell the media that you are considering going to ND and they will start calling you a turncoat/liar/traitor/contract-breaker or whatever before you even get a chance to finish the sentence. Worst of all, say “no comment” and you give EVERYONE room to read into the situation whatever they want…and that will pretty much always be exactly whatever it is you are trying to get them NOT to think.
The only real way to handle the situation is just to weather the storm that is inevitably going to break once you make your decision. The players and fans of your old team are going to feel and act like they were jilted (and they are certainly entitled to do so) and there will always be more than a few talking heads who are going to mount their self-righteous soapboxes about you walking out on a contract (nevermind they’d do the same in a heartbeat if they got offered lots more money to move to a much bigger soapbox). In the end, you must be the one who tells your players and fans of your decision; slinking off and letting someone else do the job puts you in the absolutely worst light. Kelly did do the right thing in that respect.
The Bearcats are whiners? The coach shows NO FREAKING LOYALTY to his team, yet got it from the players all year every year he was there. And then he’s leaving before the end of the season? BK has NO class. He couldn’t even stay to win the Sugar Bowl? He wanted that job so bad that he just dropped his team…no loyalty. He couldn’t have told ND, if you want me, you can wait until after the Bowl game. Is a few weeks REALLY going to hurt recruiting that much? Really? That is bullshit and I hope ND loses every damn game next year. Brian Kelly is a jackass.
Cincinnati = stepping stone
ND = Destination
Fact.
Cincy fans should be happy BK made them relevant for a couple years….Look on the bright side, if your next coach is successful, he’ll be gone 3 years from now to somewhere better also.
Anyone in this room that wouldn’t leave their job right now to make $3M per year? Anyone? Didn’t think so.
and another thing…this proves that college football and its overly paid coaches are getting too big for their britches and it’s become too much of a business. College football is great because it is college. This move takes the cake…it’s just disgusting. The lack of loyalty to a school and their players and the high level of self-interest. Disgusting.
Reports are that Turner Gill addressed his team in Buffalo to state that he has been contacted by Kansas and that he would be going if they offered the job.
Say what you want, but he was honest with his team and that is all that they can ask. Brian Kelly handled his situation in one of the worst ways, lying to his players. Teams are about trust.
Now I will root against the Irish even more and hope he makes Weiss look like Lombardi in a few years.
A 5 year contract. He’ll get to take one recruiting class from freshmen to senior, then ND can tell him not to listen to the rumours, that he is their coach for a long time to come, just before they pull the rug out from under him. What goes around comes around. His resume is a good one to get the job, but anything less then a national championship will not be good enough. Do you think Cinn. will hire him back after the way he left? Will any recruit truely trust his word? Note, he has to hire a staff, bet he takes the one he has with him….
A 5 year contract. He’ll get to take one recruiting class from freshmen to senior, then ND can tell him not to listen to the rumors, that he is their coach for a long time to come, just before they pull the rug out from under him. What goes around comes around. His resume is a good one to get the job, but anything less then a national championship will not be good enough. Do you think Cinn. will hire him back after the way he left? Will any recruit truely trust his word? Note, he has to hire a staff, bet he takes the one he has with him….
Here’s a thought for the NCAA: Move National Signing Day back until April 1. Then mandate that no school can hire and/or contact coaches from another school until after the BCS Championship Game.
@BakerSucks,
Go figure, a successful big time college football coach with an ego……….
Also, (since you probably know him personally based on your judgement of his character) please tell me how his wife battling breast cancer has anything to do with how he handles his team/the media?
Now that it is out, they need to use it as motivation. It would say something about the character and talent of the team if they won and they did it without the Coach of the Year. I respect everything BK has done, other than handling this, but next man in.
Get a life mrqtte. Better yet, get a football team.
@mrqtte
Gilyard was living in his car before playing for UC. He was homeless, while volunteering to help the homeless. Dude’s not spoiled.
I don’t blame Kelly. It’s the chance of a lifetime.
But I don’t blame the kids for being bitter. Right or wrong, you’d be upset if you were on the team.
mrqtt – You are an idiot. How did your brain work that long to come up with those remarks? I don’t begrudge any man to move on & do better for himself. Yet he could have handled this a lot better than he did. The whole thing lying on the TV awards show last night & pretending to care about his Seniors & the team only. So how does this make the players the bitches as the mrgtt quotes goes? To me it makes the Coach look like the bitch.
Funny, I don’t remember anyone from UC criticizing Kelly for leaving CMU before the Motor City Bowl in 2006.
ND deserves an idiot like Kelly. Hope he drags them further down. What a pathetic athletic program. Hope all those bible banger ass kissers that have contracts locked up to to cover ND sports are squirming. Hear that msnbc.com “notre damn central”! What a freaking joke!
BakerSucks,
Your kid will not be able to play for him because he probably is not that good at football, not smart enough to go to ND, and you can’t afford to send him there. Oh well, there is always community college……
The only thing classless is the players reactions. The coach them what he needed to tell them to get them ready for a big game. Period. And he didn’t have the job offered to him yet, so what was he supposed to tell them? He says he might bolt and they tank the Pitt game? They are dissing the man who is responsible for them having full ride scholarships for a a college education, and for some of them, pro careers to turn to. So he won’t coach them for one game…waaaaaahhh! He had no choice, and would be an idiot to turn down that job. Are those players going to take care of Kelly’s family if he turns down the ND job to coach them in the Sugar bowl? Kelly didn’t create the current schedule, and the difficulties that imposes on job swaps. ND can’t wait till after bowl season to begin rebuilding their program and recruiting. These spoiled douches need to stop whining about themselves and a game that has no actual meaning other than to generate revenue for the school (which has already been accomplished) and congratulate the man who got them there for landing his dream job, a big promotion and a big raise. The funny thing is, if these players were projected to go high in the draft, they would leave Kelly’s program a year early in a heartbeat. Hypocrite asses who just shat on the man most responsible for them having free school and an opportunity to be something. Nice job.
Hey Taylor, one more for you and how stupid your article is. Next time you go job hunting, will you tell all your co-workers and employers you are floating your resume out there before you land that new job, because it’s the honorable thing to do? Of course not, you’ll wait until you have the firm offer in hand like 100% of everyone else does. You are a hypocrite for excepting Kelly to do any different.
Bearcat fans have every right to be bent. Kelly lied right to their faces. He was on a radio show and denied he was going to ND a few weeks ago. Then he lies to his entire football team and they have every right to grab their torch and pitchfork and hunt Kelly down. Or at least roast his sorry ass in the media.
mrqtte is still bitter than Tom Crean left their hoops team to go to Indiana and now their stuck in the same situation as Cincy – success with a new coach using the players the old coach recruited. Except their new coach closely resembles the illegitimate offspring from The Three Stooges. mrqtte – don’t you have traffic to dodge around that interchange while trying to get to class at that pile of dicks you call a university? Loser.
So glad ND is an armpit and I will be able to sit back and watch BK fail…scumbag needs a serious ego check….you would think someone whose wife has battled so hard with cancer would be a little more humble….nah he’s just a slimey scumbag….My kid would never play for that guy.
Ha Ha. Tell us your true feelings. With a father like you, I doubt your kid plays anywhere.
Any idea who they have in mind as a coach after they fire Kelly in a few years?
mrqtte, where’d ya go? Drop a line and dip out, that’s a pussy move. Coming from a person without a college team to root for, it’s pretty funny. So who DO you root for? Minnesota? Wisconsin? BAAAAHAAAHAAA, this program is not about to become irrelevant, it is set up to become a contender year in and year out, so thanks Kelly, but don’t let the door hit ya, we have bigger and better things to do than cry over spilled micks.
If you’ve read any of the stories, the players are not so angry that he’s left. They’re angry with how the final news came to them.
1) Kelly was honest during the process and told his players (and the world) that he was going to meet with ND and listen to what they had to say. This kept the players’ trust. They were focused on winning the Big East and a potential shot to play in the title game.
2) Kelly told his players that he would give them the final news before anyone else. I think he meant this when he said it, but he failed in doing so. THAT’S why the players are pissed.
Look, the average age of college players is what 18-23 years old. Even though they have very mature bodies, their minds are still very immature. Even if they’ve experienced adversity, they’re still young, after all. Kelly earned the trust and admiration of his players via recruiting and the daily work with the team. Unfortunately, that relationship has been tarnished. Rightly or wrongly, the players feel betrayed. It may not be rational. It may not align with the status quo of big time college football. They have the right to their feelings and shouldn’t be called “whiny” or “b i t c h es.” How do you feel when someone you trust does something to make you feel bad?
When Weiss was hired, he was treated like a Messiah. Nothing but good things can happen.
Now when Kelly is hired, it is the best thing to happen to ND since the color gold.
BK will be lucky if he lasts the life of his contract in that boiler room of a job.
And ND would not be playing for a BCS Championship this year if they had went undefeated, they were ranked behind both Texas and Alabama and would not have jumped either. UC wasn’t even ranked to begin the year. Who leaves the #3 team in the country, when the team could possibly be better next year. He could have contended for a National Title every year at UC. This program is built for relevance. Minter started it, Dantonio left it better than he found it, Kelly left it better than he found it, and Huggins got it into the BEast. UC has the potential to be a consistent top ten program. We should kick ND out of the BEast for the rest of the sports and let them join a mid major conference. You should be familiar with irrelevance.
chargerrich- while you are correct that Turner Gill did talk to his team, there is a HUGE difference between the two situations. So much so, that it is a useless comparison. When Gill talked to his team, their season was over. It would be brilliant for a coach to tell his team before the biggest game of the season that he is or probably would leave. You are clearly letting your hatred for ND, fog your thinking. I am from Buffalo and this city will be shattered when Turner Gill leaves, but they have to realize that’s the way it works. The same goes for UC players and fans. You don’t have to like it, but they need to wake up!!!Cincy is a stepping stone for college coaches, not a final spot. And to hold it against Kelly for taking a job he has always dreamed of is nuts…..GO Kelly….GO Notre Dame!!!
Well, courts, I think that the perception of UC as a stepping stone is now outdated, it’s been a program on the rise for seven years, Minter and Dantonio lifted the program up before Kelly got here, adn Kelly obviously did what he did, no credit to be taken from him. But this university can now hire a good coach, period, he doesn’t have to be a program seller and schmoozer like Kelly was, just a good recruiter (please keep building on SW Ohio talent) and good X’s and O’s coach. Have fun with your talent unfriendly academic standards, if BK can overcome that, he is truly something else, I suspect not though. You’ll be blasting some other smaller school in five years to make yourself feel better about your has been team, and I like ND, just honest with myself about them, that wave of notoriety and respectability from twenty years ago is getting pretty small. Don’t be bitter because your team hasn’t been to a BCS game in four years and has made the WORST coaching hires and fires for the past Ten, Willingham’s firing was a joke and Weis rode his recruited talent as far as he could. Keep chigging Kool Aid buddy, eventually it’ll have to come back up.
Madmike, the problem the kids and fans have with BK is that he mislead them, the players more than the fans, (the writing was on the wall for most of us) but he gave a speech before the Pitt game leading the players to believe he was invested in them, not looking for a raise and promotion as you call it. I’m with marty and ben, next man up bitch.
What a bunch of hypocrites the Bearcat fans and players are. He skipped the Motor City Bowl and did the same thing when he moved from CMU to Cincinnati- and I’m sure the Bearcat fans cheered. Now he does the same thing to move to another program, and he’s reviled.
So the actions were justified when it benefited Cincinnati, but it’s not when he goes to ND.
Bunch of self-righteous pricks. Mad Mike has it right
It’s very simple, You tell your team, your school and your fans that I am the Bearcat coach, we have one more game this year. (Sugar Bowl). After that game we will all sit down and I will inform you of my decision. You also tell Notre Dame that you are the Bearcats Coach right now and I will discuss this openning with you once the season is complete, Period!!!!
Some of you; hell, most of you Bearcats fans need to grow up. DCroz is right, there’s just no way that he could have handled it any better than what he did. As badly as the players have handled the news NOW, don’t you think that it would have been just as bad or even worse back then? They could have curled up into a ball and let the Panthers roll over them once they made it 31-10 but they turned it up a notch and fought back to finish the season undefeated.
As for him not coaching the bowl game, they did the same thing when Dantonio took the Michigan State job and Kelly jumped from Central Michigan and coached them in the International Bowl. Yes, it’s a bigger game but at this point right now, who do you think will get the better effort out of those kids and more importantly, which coach will give most of their attention to the players and the school? Notre Dame is going to want him to hit the recruiting trail to try to pick up some that are on the fence and keep the ones who have already committed so his attention is going to be divided between both schools. It’s better to break ties with him now and get the team focused on the game at hand. Who knows, Jeff Quinn could be the guy that they hire and they wouldn’t necessarily being going back to square one.
Oh and when you’ve had as many coaches use your city as a stepping stone to better things like Tulsa has, come back and talk to me about betrayal (Most of ours have been in basketball but John Cooper and Steve Kragthrope both left Tulsa for greener pasters). Really, unless you’re one of the elite programs, you can expect to for a lot guys to see you as a stepping stone to a better job. Let’s face facts, the Bearcats have to upgrade their facilities to even join the discussion and if they want to be a place that a coach will think of as a final destination, they need first class facilities and the willingness to pay “Notre Dame” money to keep their coaches and their staffs. When that happens, you can stop fretting about your coaches but that’s something that’s in the distant future for you.
The idea that the players have a right to be angry is bogus. NCAA football is about big money. If it wasn’t, then coaches wouldn’t get paid in the millions to do their job.
As for Kelly, his job last week was simple – win the game against Pittsburgh and get the team to a top bowl game. Which he did.
He had a choice: tell his players the truth before the game (and they would have subsequently felt like a small program since he was leaving for a “big” one), or tell them that he was staying put, making them feel like a “big” program. As the score proved, they needed every single point of that “big” program feeling to beat Pitt.
My guess is, had he told them prior to the Pitt game, they would’ve lost that game. His first directive was to win the game. Please don’t get high and mighty and say his first job is to be loyal to a bunch of teenagers. That’s just not why he was hired…period.
It’s not about loyalty, it’s about winning. He did what he had to do to win. So did ND. Am I upset that he left? Of course, because he IS a great coach. Do I blame him? No way, he did what he had to do to win, and he did what he had to do for himself and his family.
NO ONE works for the good of everyone else, regardless of the job or what they will tell you. EVERYONE works for a paycheck, to support their families, at whatever level they can earn. UC pays 1.7 million; ND will pay him 5+. It’s a no-brainer.
If you want “loyalty over salary”, go to the HS level. Don’t worry, that will become salary driven soon enough. It’s our fault for paying the prices we do for tickets, clothing, paraphernalia, etc. Don’t blame the man for doing what he had to do to win the game – that’s exactly what UC told him to do, and what YOU as a fan wanted him to do. He did that. No one ever said there wouldn’t be a price for victory.
Brian Kelly=Charlie Weiss No defense All offense look at his record against top tier teams.they give up a ton of points.Doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result=stupid.
Its really not difficult he signed a long term contract to coach in Cincinnati HONOR YOUR CONTRACT!!! Don’t sign a contract you don’t plan to honor. NCAA must step in and put an end to this. Can somebody please tell me which bowl game Notre Dame is playing in this year??
Murph, people aren’t as pissed that he is following his dream and the money trail that you think they are. They are pissed because he did a classless thing in lying to the students. There were better ways of handling it. ND is just doing what the rules allow them to do, but as an institute that is trying to take the moral high road, they did a lousy thing. I didn’t like it when Kelly came here doing what he did to CMU, and now that feeling is justified. Cincinnati needs to be open and fair and try to help whatever coach they try to hire be honest and fair in dealing with what will be their former players.
The whole college football system is cracked, from bowls, to recruiting, to hiring and firing of coaches. There needs to be restrictions on when coaches can be hired (and similar restrictions on signing recruits) and penalties for leaving a job for another one, like kids who transfer. And honestly, I wouldn’t be opposed to letting kids out of a commitment with no penalty if the coach they came for left for another job. People will say they should come for the school, but how many really do? I just think the lack of honesty in the NCAA realm is disheartening.
One of the reasons I prefer the NFL, it doesn’t pretend it is anything but a business. The NCAA pretends to care about the “student-athletes” while making big bucks off of kids who basically do it for an education that most of them won’t even utilize.
His lack of respect for these kids is the problem. They trusted him and took him at his word and maybe that is their fault, cause obviously BK is being true to himself. Enjoy ND, caveat emptor.
cincy_brian, what about the contract that he broke to leave Central Michigan? I guess you’re ok with that, right? Get over it, moveon.org and latch on to the new head coach and hope that he does everything by the book. Oh, that’s right, most of the candidates already have jobs and contracts and would have to break them to go to the Bearcats…..
cincy_brian says:
December 11, 2009 1:53 PM ET
Its really not difficult he signed a long term contract to coach in Cincinnati HONOR YOUR CONTRACT!!! Don’t sign a contract you don’t plan to honor. NCAA must step in and put an end to this. Can somebody please tell me which bowl game Notre Dame is playing in this year??
===================================
Contracts typically have outs or buyouts for coaches to move to other schools. If you want to blame someone, blame Cincinnati and the administration for allowing a contract like that. And if they want to create iron-clad contracts like that, then good luck finding a top-notch coach.
By the same token, players get four-year scholarships when they commit to a school. So I guess they need to honor their commitments to the university and the staff that recruited them and not leave before their senior years for pro $$$.
Then, we’ll have coaches for life, players staying for their full terms, playing on a field strewn with roses under beautiful blue skies interspersed with rainbows.
Oh, and all of the cheerleaders should be naked as well. And clean shaven.
Cincy is the ohio school for white trash. Always has been and always will be! I take delight in the bitterness shared by you bitches! It makes me laugh with glee! Now off to a relaxing massage. Love it
shaunypoo, you’re crazy to say “kids who basically do it for an education that most of them won’t even utilize.” because most of these guys are smart enough to know that they’re NOT going to be doing anything but going to the general work force and they graduate at a higher rate than the general population of their schools. Two classes of players hurt graduation rates: players who leave early to go to the pros and don’t finish their degrees until later in life and players who transfer to other schools and end up getting a degree there and not at the other school. The Bearcats are graduating in the mid-70s in football, can you say that about the general population of the university? Before you go looking it up, the answer is NO, it’s just over 51%.
It does not help that there is a Notre Dame advertisement on this page. Thanks Florio, your Steeler suck and they will be on a downward spiral for at least five years.
These players have absolutely no right to criticize their coach for leaving for Notre Dame. I’m sure Gilyard and all the rest of the players felt really sorry for the Central Michigan players when Kelly left them to come to Cincy. It’s the nature of the game. They were lucky to have his for this long, truth be told.
Anyone who says that Kelly will suffer the same fate as Weis is failing to recognize one thing. Weis had never been a head coach before. He’d orchestrated an offense in New England that was just fine after he left. Kelly has been a head coach and won everywhere he’s been.
People who claim that Kelly should “honor his contract” are at best absurd and at worst hypocrites. Everyone, from the most honest to the lowest scum, take a better situation when they can get one. Kelly probably falls somewhere in between.
Don’t be upset Cincy fan. Before long, you’ll surely be back where you belong, mired in the middle of the sorry ass Big East. Just be happy you had such a good coach for as long as you did.
The unfortunate part in all of thie was the timing of Charlie’s exit. If Notre Dame would have waited until after they played in the Toledo Press Margarine Bowl, there wouldn’t have been a gap in recruit retention waiting for the next savior. I feel for the Cincy kids, but this was purely a business decision on the part of ND and BK. I hope Cincy kicks butt in the bowl game.
@gonzojm — Right on! You said it better than I could. Why are people so upset with a guy taking a better job for more money? Where is a word for people who don’t do that. Stupid.
Hey Sports_fan i realize you have some hate but just becuase your not a godly person doesn’t mean you need to call them Bible Thumpers. That is the ultimate disrespect you can give. I guess you never were brought up with any morals to watch what you say.
Kelly can do what he wants how he wants it. The kids will get over it. Like most started Cincy isn’t a top notch school in the eyes of Amera. Its not USC, ND, Flordia, BAMA…its just not and probably never will be. Coaches come get them selfs creditable and leave. I don’t like either ND or Cincy but coaches do this everyday lets just move on….
So, who do you think is among the top 10 schools for football? Poll: http://www.boards.edgy-sports.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=2403
Well, since Kelly’s reputation went down the drain., who would even want to play for a coach like that? Fools I tell ya.
Bud — I give you Nick Saban, who’s reputation is SOOOOOOOO bad that he’s now gone 25-2 in the last two years and is playing for the — wait for it – National Championship…..
It’s possible to be a complete scumbag/douchebag and still be a successful coach. Saban’s proof of that.
You people don’t listen, it’s not that he is leaving for ND, it’s that he lied and treated these kids like shit in the process. Everyone will move on with life, except mrquit because he is a douchebag. Anyone who is condoning the way BK handled this situation is the kind of person I don’t want to associate with, because you are scum. People want to say these kids are mature enough to handle this stuff, then be up front and honest, even if the truth hurts and it costs you a game. If he knew he wasn’t going to stick around anyway, than the last game was meaningless to him.
And I know I graduated, and so did all of the people I associated with. Graduation rates should be higher for students since they have to stay in good standing to play and most of them take garbage classes to stay in good standing. Anyone who actually went to college knows what most of the athletes take for classes.
Cincinnati is on the road to being a top program. Not every school who is a top program has always been. We need better facilites and a good coach who is willing to stick around. BK would have been walking on water around here and never paid for a drink in his life. Now he will probably be run out of town in a few years. Alot of real good coaches saw their career die at ND.
shaunypoo, you might as well cut off you ties to the human race because not everyone lives in the dream world that you seemed to have built. What good would it have done the kids if he had said “Yes, I’m leaving” right before the most important game of the season. Which is better: him telling them what they want to hear or telling them the truth and then watching their dreams go down the drain when the fall apart instead of rallying to win the game. Given how the Irish have NOT responded to Charlie Weis and fallen short time after time, that last game WAS important to Kelly and him getting the job.
Bucco, players don’t always take the same classes to stay eligible or graduate. Skill players are more often the ones that leave early and they hurt graduation rates the most. Non-skill position players graduate at a higher rate AND they take more meaningful classes. Oh and do you think that the players at Stanford, Notre Dame, Harvard, Yale, etc. are taking the easy classes to stay eligible or graduate? Most players who do graduate get far more meaningful degrees than you give them credit. I did go to college and I had athletes in a few of my classes: chemistry, psychology, algebra. Yeah, the really easy ones. :^
Finally, he’s been with 3 programs and left each one in better shape than when he got there. Because of injuries, he’s had to use 2 QBs to start in 2007, 3 in 2008 and 2 in 2009. He hasn’t begun the season with the same QB as then starter in his 3 seasons and yet, he’s gone 33-6 in those 3 years. I really doubt that he’s going to get run out of town at Notre Shame.
edgy, you are the kind of person I am talking about. Congratulation to Kelly for lying to get himself in a better position. I couldn’t have asked for a better coach, but I can ask for a better person. You are not one of them.
shaunypoo, thank you and the next coach that lies to the players will prove that you live in a world that is probably medicated because those of us in the real world have seen this MORE than your deluded view.
I am clean as a whistle, chief, and you are the kind of person that makes this behavior acceptable. How the world is and how the world should be are two different things, I realize and accept that, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
It just they way it is…sorry Cinci fans. They (FB Program) didn’t want to lose any recruits. Whenever their is a coaching change, administrators have to move fast to get a new coach…reassure recruits. It’s why Urban Meyer changed his mind w/out consulting with his family/wife (so other FB coaches wouldn’t swoop in & steal their recruits). I am a Nebraska fan & that’s exactly what happened with their long quest to get a top notch coach. The AD Steve Peterson took entirely too long to find a good coach & we ended up w/ Bill Callahan (you know the rest of the story).