On the day he walked away from his dream job, Lou Holtz was at a loss to explain it.
Why leave Notre Dame in the midst of another strong season? The Irish were 7-2 and ranked 10th on Nov. 19, 1996.
"It's the right thing to do," he said repeatedly.
For whom? For Holtz? The university?
"You know when you're playing golf and your caddie tells you to hit a 7-iron and you think, I'm not Greg Norman, I should hit a 4-iron," he said.
The point Holtz would later make is that every Notre Dame coach has a shelf life. The best and brightest (Frank Leahy, Ara Parseghian and Holtz) depart before being pushed.
Where does that leave Brian Kelly, coach of the nation's most underperforming team? It's doubtful the school would fire him a year after a 10-win season and nine months after he signed an extension through 2021.
But perhaps Kelly will realize that it's just ... time.
Time for both parties to move on.
He has lost the fan base, much of which was aghast that he declined to suspend four of the five players involved in the August incident in which marijuana and a handgun were recovered from a car speeding 35 miles south of South Bend.
And there's word from sources who know several players that, citing Kelly's uneven leadership style, he has lost the team.
What transpired during and after Notre Dame's 10-3 "Mud Bowl" loss Saturday at North Carolina State was mystifying. Kelly's staff called 31 pass plays, netting 37 yards factoring in sacks. When DeShone Kizer threw into a crowd on third-and-goal from the 19, the ball wobbled from his hand and got picked off.
This occurred midway through the second quarter. The staff had plenty of time to adjust.
Notre Dame took over at the N.C. State 22 after a third-quarter fumble. First down: coverage sack. Second down: failed attempt at a screen pass. Third down: incompletion. Justin Yoon had just nailed a 40-yard field goal, but Kelly passed up a 41-yard try on fourth-and-12. Result: pass broken up.
Perhaps that series inspired Kelly to apologize to his players in the locker room. As aired on the "Inside Notre Dame Football" show, Kelly calmly told them: "You were ready to play. You were excited to play. You were energized to play. And I couldn't find a way to win that game for you. I apologize. I've got to look hard at how I'm doing it to figure out a way to get a win for you guys because you deserve it. You deserved to win."
Kelly alluded to that in his postgame comments to the media, saying he "let the team down" and would "second-guess" his decision to protect punter Tyler Newsome with only two players. The Wolfpack scored the game's only touchdown on a fourth-quarter blocked punt.
Kelly also said, "The lack of our ability to manage the snapping was atrocious."
ESPN's Paul Finebaum blasted Kelly for that line, saying: "He blamed everyone on his team a couple weeks ago. He said that he would be re-evaluating, he blamed his defensive coordinator and fired him. He blamed his quarterback, who has had a really nice year. And (Saturday), he called out the center, saying he had been snapping atrociously in the middle of a hurricane. You know, I'm beginning to wonder, who's next for Brian Kelly to blame: Donald Trump?"
Finebaum piled on, calling Kelly a "miserable human being."
That's off base, but this season has been miserable, and Kelly deserves the blame. Despite being ranked 10th in the preseason and bringing in four straight top-15 recruiting classes, Kelly's crew is 2-4 — against six currently unranked teams.
Given the remaining slate of Stanford, Miami, Navy, Army, Virginia Tech and USC, the Irish will be fortunate to finish 5-7.
Will that mark the end of Kelly's time in South Bend? His departure could be the "right thing" for the program, but he's not thinking that way.
"I'm doing everything to build the winning identity for this team for right now and for '17, '18 and '19," he said. "We want to stop the slide. That means start winning again."
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