Muller: Your Act Is Getting Really Old, Brian Kelly
By Shawn Muller-
(CBS) Notre Dame is 0-2.
Ohio State is 2-0.
Notre Dame has played South Florida and Michigan.
Ohio State has played Akron and Toledo.
The 2011 football season hasn't started quite the way Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly may have planned, but seriously, coach, you are grasping at straws trying to deflect the negative media attention away from yourself and the abysmal play of your team.
Does Kelly really want to use the, "we have had a harder schedule than a team like Ohio State" excuse to try and validate the 0-2 start?
Come on Coach Kelly; you have to come up with something better than that!
After Notre Dame's ridiculous loss to the Michigan Wolverines this past Saturday at Michigan Stadium, the leader of the Irish—who had already looked and sounded like a buffoon on the sidelines in his team's loss to the South Florida Bulls in Week 1 — made himself look and sound like an even bigger idiot in Ann Arbor.
No one -- and I mean NO ONE -- who is serious about sports (especially a head coach) should make excuses for the way his team has under-performed after two weeks of the season. Excuses are a lame attempt to deflect the real problem. But excuses are exactly what Brian Kelly has given in trying to explain the performance of his Irish thus far.
"We've made so many mistakes against two pretty tough teams coming out," Kelly said. "Again, as you see the schedule, Ohio State is playing Toledo. I mean, teams are playing easy games early on in the schedule. We don't get that luxury. We have to go play in front of 115,000. These mistakes are more glaring against opponents that are physically pretty good."
Really, Coach Kelly?
Notre Dame has had to play teams like South Florida and Michigan to start the season while other schools got to play teams like Toledo? That is your excuse for the lack-luster performance by the Irish to start the 2011 season?
Your team was favored in both games over two "inferior" opponents.
South Florida? Are we talking about that juggernaut South Florida team that finished last season with a sub-.500 record (3-5) in the pitiful Big East? Yes, they did finish the season at 8-5 overall, but let's not act like the Bulls are some force cut from the mold of a USC, Alabama, or Oklahoma. Your team was the favorite, playing at home in Notre Dame Stadium, and you lost. Not because South Florida was better. It was because your team couldn't execute.
Michigan? Are we talking about the same Michigan Wolverines program that is 15-22 overall in the past three years? Isn't this the same Michigan program that has gone 6-18 in Big Ten play during that same time and was shellacked in the Gator Bowl to the tune of 52-14 at the hands of the Mississippi State Bulldogs last year? I would be embarrassed to if my team lost to a Wolverines team that is in another transition period with a new head coach, new offensive scheme, new defensive scheme, everything.
If you want to "blame" your losses on anything, blame it on your player's inability to hold on to the football. In both losses, the Irish have turned the ball over a combined ten times. I don't care if you are the New England Patriots. If you are averaging five turnovers per game, you are not going to win many games.
Period. End of discussion.
Don't blame Ohio State—or any other school that plays in a conference—for your teams' woes. You lost to an average South Florida team AT HOME and you lost to a mediocre (at best) Michigan team on the road.
Notre Dame is an independent.
Your school picks its own schedule.
You don't want to get beat by teams like South Florida or Michigan? Don't schedule them. Ohio State has to play a conference schedule, you know, teams like those same Michigan Wolverines, Wisconsin, Penn State, Nebraska, and Michigan State. Their season doesn't hinge on EVERY single game like it does for an independent. They can play "cupcakes" during the non-conference schedule, lose a game, and still win a conference championship and make it to a BCS bowl game.
Notre Dame doesn't have that luxury, but that is not the fault of a team like Ohio State. It is Notre Dame's fault for being too stubborn about joining a conference.
If the Irish played in a conference, I can guarantee you that Irish fans would see a lot more Toledo's, Akron's, UNLV's, and New Mexico State's on the schedule instead of a South Florida or a Michigan in Weeks 1 and 2.
If that were the case, I can assure you that this "woe is Notre Dame" attitude displayed by Brian Kelly would cease to exist.
I don't know if the pressure of being the head coach at Notre Dame is already getting to you or what, but your act is getting really old, really fast. If something doesn't change soon, Notre Dame will fall to 0-3 on the season after Michigan State visits South Bend this weekend.
If that does happen, Mr. Kelly, what will your excuse be then?
Shawn Muller has lived in the great city of Chicago for 7 years. He is a 2002 graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and, in October of 2010, Shawn received his certificate in radio broadcasting. In his free time, Shawn enjoys spending time with his wife Melissa and 3 year old daughter Ava, catching any live sporting event, and traveling. Check out his radio show, Grab Some Bench with Muller and Bangser" every Thursday night at 8:30 P.M., at www.blogtalkradio.com/spmuller24. Read more of his blogs here.
