Brian Kelly is the new head coach at Notre Dame, and by nearly every objective, reasonable standard, it's a fantastic hire.  Notre Dame went out and got the single best coach available, a guy that has one losing season in nearly two decades of coaching (his first year at an awful Central Michigan program) and who has gone 34-6 in three years at Cincinnati.  I'm not sure how many teams have gone to a BCS bowl, let alone undefeated, after losing ten starters on one side of the ball, but that's what Kelly did with an entirely new defense this season.  He puts his offense together with popsicle sticks, duct tape and back-up quarterbacks and it doesn't miss a beat.  He's a great college football coach who wins college football games, which seems so simple yet isn't something Notre Dame has had lately.  A Brian Kelly failure would be odd and unexpected, as it would mean he suddenly was no longer good at a craft he'd been perfecting for twenty years.

Even before Brian Kelly was hired, there were elements of the Irish fan base who somehow thought this was a terrible choice, someone unworthy of coming to coach in South Bend.  This is a fringe element of the Notre Dame family and wouldn't be worth addressing save for the fact they populate (and run) perhaps the best known Irish gathering place online.  They've taken the last two weeks to spout conspiracy theories, gnash teeth and wail about the failure of the program and school they once loved.  It was a weird echo chamber of pathos and loathing that was akin to visiting a freak show at the circus.  Because their histrionics are an embarrassing mark for every other sensible Irish fan and they have a loud enough voice that it's worth listening, let's take a look at some of their arguments.

This coaching search and "process" was a failure because it didn't get Stoops, Meyer, Saban or Gruden.

You can eliminate Saban right away because he has zero ties to Notre Dame and is getting paid very well to have autonomous control over a football fiefdom in Tuscaloosa.  Gruden is more interesting, but he's a pro coach and this time around, Swarbrick and company wanted someone established from the college ranks.  Part of me thinks that caveat was added after Gruden had already signed the extension at ESPN and turned them down, but if not, I'm fine with that.  I think Gruden would have been a great choice, but I think he was a riskier pick than Kelly, just because he hadn't worked with kids that young in a long, long while.  Also, if you really wanted to make the case against Gruden, you could say "He won a Super Bowl with Tony Dungy's team in 2002, never won another playoff game after and collapsed so badly at the end of the 2008 season that the Tampa Bay management thought ‘You know what?  I think we're better off with Raheem Morris.'"  Lot of upside for Gruden and he was near the top of my wishlist, but I can understand avoiding another pro-to-college transition.

Stoops was the One That Got Away This Time this time, and depending on who you believe, it was everything from money to admission standards to ResLife that drove him away.  I also have a working theory on another reason he didn't come, and it revolves around being paid four million dollars a year to continue coaching at a place where you've been for a decade, where your family is happy, where you have a natural recruiting base to work from and where you don't ever have to worry about the temperature high being in single digits in early December.  Meyer has considerably stronger ties to Notre Dame, but it's a matter of record his wife really does not want to leave Gainesville for South Bend and he has a pretty great thing going down there as well.

You also might consider that those gentlemen coached against each other in the BCS title game last year, and in the history of college football, coaches simply don't do that.  They don't leave a top ten program and go to another elite school just because they're offered more money or this great challenge.  They just don't do it.

But we're Notre Dame!  Plus there's a first for everything!

There is, and you'll also hear people talking about they went out and got Lou in 1985, and that was a slam dunk/home run hire.  That the program needed a savior and the Notre Dame of the Good Old Days went out and got him.  Here's an excerpt from the December 1985 Sports Illustrated story on Lou coming to Notre Dame:

But why was Lou Holtz chosen for the most storied and prestigious coaching job in America? After all, according to an SI source there were four other top candidates: former UCLA and Eagles coach Dick Vermeil, current UCLA coach Terry Donahue, Virginia's George Welsh and Maryland's Bobby Ross. But Holtz was the only one that Notre Dame talked to. And while the Irish head coach's salary is only about $75,000, radio and TV deals and other perks can run the pay up to almost $200,000 a year. However, the money really may not be that important; the football coaching job at Notre Dame isn't something to be bargained over-it's a prize, if tendered, to be accepted.

A strong case can be made for the notion that Holtz is simply the best coach working-and available. A handful of elite coaches probably wouldn't be tempted to change jobs at any price-Paterno, Shula, Schembechler.

Best coach working and available!  Isn't that interesting, just like Brian Kelly most likely is (we'll talk about this in a bit).  So the standards set up before the search were "If this process does not yield Stoops or Meyer, we are a weak-willed institution that does not value football anymore."  People were adamantly anti-Kelly for a couple reasons.  One is patently absurd, and goes a little something like:

Since Notre Dame could have hired Kelly last year, this past year is a waste and hiring him now confirms that.

This argument falls apart on so many levels.  Since we don't have a time machine, the decision made in December of 2008 is sort of irrelevant because there's no way to change it.  Just because I didn't try that delicious new Christmas ham recipe last holiday season and made something terribly disgusting instead doesn't mean that I shouldn't then make the delicious Christmas ham this year.  How exactly is it Kelly's fault we didn't hire him then?  If anything, we gave him another year to audition while giving a hard-working alum another year to prove himself.  In that span, Brian Kelly went undefeated and Charlie Weis proved he wasn't a great college football head coach, making the decision this time around very, very easy.  I obviously wish we had made the move last year to see Golden Tate go for two thousand yards receiving in Kelly's offense, but we didn't, and that shouldn't have any effect on this decision. 

So 2008 was a wasted year?  It was, and that's sad, but that doesn't change how we look ahead, nor is it any sort of black mark on Kelly.

Swarbrick should have been doing whatever it took to get Stoops or Meyer over the last year.

This is also crazy talk.  Why would Bob Stoops or Urban Meyer talk to another school's athletic director when A) that school currently had a coach and B) they had jobs that required their full attention.  Can you imagine if that leaked in the offseason, or better yet, before the Red River Shootout or Cocktail Party?  I'm sure Stoops was really interested in helping to craft ResLife reform, but was just a little busy attempting to replace his All-American tight end and Heisman-winning quarterback.

Well, what you don't understand is that over the years, we could have had Stoops, and Meyer, and Gruden, and Saban, and the administration always screwed it up.  Just trust me, I know.

This is where things get hazy, as you're attempting to argue against innuendo, rumors, ghosts and conspiracy theories.  When every reply involves "I've got a source that really knows, I'm not sure if they're comfortable with me saying what I know, but just trust me, we could have had Bill Belichick this time around," how are you supposed to argue?  You attempt to use reason, such as "Your baseline for calling it a failure is not achieving something that's never been done before," and they counter with "Well, it was so close to being done, but Notre Dame couldn't close the deal again." 

At this point, you just have to let the crazies believe that they've won.  There's nothing else to do.  They so badly want to prove to the rest of their fringe friends that they love Notre Dame more than anyone else that they'll spout off garbage you can't possibly argue against, and you just have to accept that. 

I don't know what The Process was, but if it was unable to get a top ten coach to leave their current situation and ended up getting the best coach available, then I'm more than happy with The Process.  Maybe that means I'm a weak-willed fan who doesn't understand what Notre Dame used to be, but you know what?  I'm okay with that.  Considering I can't go back in a time machine and attend the school three decades earlier when men were men and people cared, I'll just accept that the Notre Dame I know is pretty great, regardless of how evil Monk, Jenkins, Swarbrick, the board of trustees and mysterious Powers That Be are.  For being evil guys, they just hired a really good football coach, starting renovating the JACC, began building a beautiful new hockey arena, put up new science, law and engineering buildings and got a sitting United States president to deliver a commencement address.  All schools should be so lucky to be as colossally giant failures as Notre Dame is under its current leadership.

ResLife is a giant problem that's hindering the future of Notre Dame.

This is true, but not just because of football.  ResLife is a horrible entity for all Notre Dame students, and needs to be addressed.  Weis said in his exit interview that it was his biggest problem, but ResLife didn't stop him from bringing in great recruiting class after great recruiting class, nor did it put an awful defensive scheme on the field every game.  ResLife is one factor in the failings of Notre Dame football, but not the sole reason.

Considering how poorly the last coaching searches have gone, I refuse to believe Notre Dame exhausted every option to get a "Tier  1" guy.  I refuse to give this administration the benefit of the doubt.

This is where we must move onto talking about Kelly, as there's no way you can argue with the detractors at this point.  Swarbrick is not going to come out and say "You know what, we offered Stoops this, this and this and he still said no."  Coaching searches don't work like that, especially when you've already hired your guy.  Until some time has passed and those involved write their memoirs, we're just not going to know how close it was.  If your secret sources tell you Notre Dame is broken forever, then by all means, stop following the team.  However, don't attempt to rally people around your cause when you can only offer them rumor, innuendo and fact-less promises of failure.

Brian Kelly is the low-hanging fruit and anyone could have made that hire.

First off, who is to say that low-hanging fruit is not delicious and tasty?  Kelly being hired was relatively simple to pull off- and we're just guessing that, perhaps they were considerably more difficult than imagined - because he was at a place with no football history, horrible facilities and a tiny stadium, and we were asking him to come on up north to one of the most storied programs in the land.  The upgrade in everything, from the Gug to the players on his roster, will probably be enough to make Kelly shed a tear when he sees them.  How much longer do you think Kelly was going to stay at Cincy, no matter who swooped in to hire him?  Spend five minutes on a Michigan site and you'll quickly find a "Crap, I thought we could hire him to replace RichRod after next season."  Kelly's situation was awful, while Meyer's and Stoops' were fantastic, which is why Notre Dame was able to get him and not one of the "Tier 1" guys.

Brian Kelly was clearly not the best coach available after all of the "Tier 1" guys and is a huge risk.

I will agree that there is risk to hiring Brian Kelly.  There was a risk to hiring everyone not named Urban, Bob or Nick.  But when you look at where all the current best coaches in the nation came from, save for Saban, there was risk involved.

(Saban to Alabama is a giant case of right place, right time and beautiful luck.  If Saban signs Drew Brees instead of Culpepper, his pro experience is a lot more fun and he probably doesn't leave after two years.  If Rich Rodriguez signs in mid-December instead of getting cold feet, then they don't wait around to get Saban.  All the credit in the world to Alabama for snagging him, but there were a lot of pieces that had to fall for them to get him.  If you want to blame the Irish Powers That Be for something, you should blame them for not realizing that Charlie was on the downward trend in 2006 - right before his team was headed to their second straight BCS bowl in as many seasons under him - and going after Saban before the Sugar Bowl.)

(That was a joke, but I think it would not be taken as such in certain areas.)

Pete Carroll was a NFL washout.  Bob Stoops a coordinator.  Jim Tressel was at Youngstown State.  Urban Meyer had only been a head guy at the football Meccas of Bowling Green and Utah.  The parallels between Meyer and Kelly are interesting, because while Meyer had more big program experience as an assistant, they both took over two programs not known for their success and won like crazy there before moving onto top-tier jobs.  Kelly and Meyer and Mack Brown are as close to a sure thing as you get - long-time college coaches who won a lot of games before making the step up.

There are a few names out there that would have been on the same level of Kelly as Irish coach - Patterson, Peterson, Ferentz, Leach, even Richt - but none were clearly better, and to a lot of fans, some were clearly worse.  Some of the names tossed out are laughable.  Tedford?  Huge preseason hype every year, gets absolutely smoked three times a season, no questions asked.  Davis?  Older, health issues and in his third season at North Carolina wasn't able to beat Virginia or NC State.  A lot of these guys have relatively high floors but have established ceilings below a national championship.  I'll take my chances with Kelly.

Look at the last two coaches to win big in the Big East and then move on.  Petrino and Rodriguez are failures and they had gaudy conference records like Kelly did.

This is an amazingly dumb argument.  First off, the Big East is not discernibly worse than the other BCS conferences.  It's behind the PAC-10 and SEC, yes, but there is nothing - not bowl record, not non-conference record, not the quality of play when I watch them with my eyes compared to other conferences - that leads me to believe they're some watered down dwarf conference.  They are clearly not the best conference, but if the only true proving grounds for Irish coaches are either the SEC or PAC-10, we are picking from a slim pool of candidates. 

Now, onto the specific situations of the former Louisville and West Virginia coaches.  I don't know a lot of Arkansas fans, but in his second year with the Razorbacks, Bobby P had them at 7-5 and was a whisker away from wins at Florida and LSU.  This is in the aftermath of the Mustain and Williams transfers and the giant mess Houston Nutt left in his wake.  Perhaps they are really upset with Petrino's work and I just need to visit Fayetteville more often, but playing in a competitive league, I thought Petrino did a really nice job this year and has the program on the upswing.

Rodriguez is a much more interesting case because while I enjoy all of his failures, I am very wary of his ability to turn it around.  You'll notice that under RichRod, an offensive guy, the Michigan offense was actually okay this season, although it started to sputter as their 175-pound signal caller was beaten down as the year went on.  Due to severe attrition in the wake of Lloyd Carr's retirement - some of it Rodriguez's fault - there were an odd amount of walk-ons getting significant time for a program the caliber of Michigan.  I still think Rodriguez will turn it around once he gets his guys in place.  Even if he does not and continues to be awful (let's pray, right?), Rodriguez's best success at West Virginia came with two other-worldly talents in Pat White and Steve Slaton.  Kelly's quarterback position at Cincinnati is almost like a starting pitching rotation the way he was forced to go through them because of injuries.  They are not the same coach, just because they both won a few Big East championships before making the jump.

Kelly has never had a "championship mentor" or spent time at a big-time program

It is a shame that Brian Kelly never went "As much fun as I'm having running my own program and scoring 60 points a game at Grand Valley State, I wonder if Joe Paterno or Bobby Bowden need a new linebackers coach.  I really need to fill that gaping hole in my resume."  Also, as far as "championship mentors" go, this is what you need to win college football championships in the 2010s:

a)      Win as many games as you can.  Preferably all of them , you might be okay with losing one, and if it's the football apocalypse, Les Miles will make the title game with two losses.  Your schedule can be super diluted, like Texas 2009, and no one will care as long as you have the media behind you, which you get by:

b)      Being a big-name program with a storied history.

That's basically it.  Considering Brian Kelly is really good at winning football games, he should handle qualification A pretty well.  And he now coaches at the University of Notre Dame, so that takes care of B.   It looks like he is now qualified to play for and potentially win a national championship.

There is a very slim chance that Kelly pulls a Billy Gillispie and is just eaten alive by this situation.   Anything is possible, but I would bet heavily against it.  I'm also not concerned that he's never recruited at a level like this before.  Charlie Weis had never recruited at all and he was awesome at it.  Hard work + winning + pitching Notre Dame = big-time recruits.  Half the time Weis was only doing two of those three things and he still was bringing in five-star guys.  Kelly had already started to improve the recruiting at Cincinnati (slowly, but surely) and when you factor in his political background and what every profile says about his personality and salesmanship, I think the Irish are going to be okay in the recruiting business.

This was a fantastic hire, and whatever the means were, I'm very happy with the end.  I think Notre Dame fans should be very happy with this hire, and if they're not, I'd love to see any sort of concrete reasoning against it that doesn't involve whispers and subterfuge.

Welcome, Coach Kelly.  We're very glad to have you.