Oh No, Notre Dame Might Be Cool
Me reaping me sowing, etc.
Before I talk about how Brian Kelly is a bad guy, I actually have a planned schedule for what is usually the chaotic Hoopla of the week. Here is how the rest of 2021 should look for the Thursday posts:
12/9 – Something about the final CFP rankings. Good or bad, I know I will have something to say.
12/16 – My top songs of the year. I love making these lists every year, and Hoopla will be the home for it this time.
12/23 – My top albums of the year. Same deal with the albums, which I usually have more words for than the songs.
12/30 – Probably nothing. I have that week between Christmas and New Years Eve off from my actual job, so I will likely be taking that week off from writing this as well. I’m not sorry!
Now, let’s get into the good stuff.
Notre Dame Replaced a Scumbag with One of the Coolest Coaches in the Country
I feel like I won’t have much more to say than that, but let’s try. Brian Kelly was a good coach at Notre Dame, taking over a program that was super mediocre under Charlie Weis and turned the Fighting Irish back into a perennial winner, making the playoff twice.
He’s also a piece of shit. Just everything about him screams bad dude, from making graduate assistants shovel snow and park cars at a Christmas party to, well, murdering a Notre Dame student.
Those are the reasons that I have a strong dislike for Kelly. I will tell you what isn’t the reason, and that’s being short with his former team in a morning meeting before he departed for LSU. If I was a player up at 7 a.m. listening to this guy spew some crap he feels obligated to say, I would want that over as soon as possible, I don’t know why some seem to think he should have went on for an hour.
Anyway, Kelly is a bad guy which means that he picked the perfect school to go to. But Notre Dame was now left with a decision to make. The Fighting Irish have the weight to pull names like Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell or Cincinnati head coach Luke Fickell, and I think that the latter especially would have been a great hire for them.
But Fickell was not the top pick for seemingly any Notre Dame fan, or player, that I saw posting on Twitter. Fickell wasn’t even the primary pick for most college football analysts I saw discussing the decision, which is saying something considering Fickell’s impressive record with a Bearcats team that was previously down in the dumps. That was also something remarkably similar to Kelly’s experience prior to taking the ND job.
Instead, most of everyone I saw was rolling with a different former Bearcat, one that has never been a head coach and one who is just 35 years old. That guy, who reportedly is the guy Notre Dame has chosen as its new head coach, is Marcus Freeman. Freeman was ND’s defensive coordinator this year and Cincy’s defensive coordinator for four seasons before that, and he is undoubtedly one of the smartest defensive minds working in college football today.
He also seems to display everything you’d want in a head coach just from listening to his interviews and how he speaks about his players, development and recruiting. That last one is especially substantial considering just how good Freeman is as a recruiter.
Notre Dame’s 2021 class was solid, ranking ninth in the country. Currently, The Irish have the No. 5 and No. 2 overall classes for 2022 and 2023, and those four- and seven-spot jumps are substantial when you get that high up the rankings. Three of the top five players in 2022 are linebackers, including the lone five-star, Jaylen Sneed. In 2023, the top four commits are all on the defensive side of the ball.
In 247Sports’ recruiter rankings, Freeman is third in the country among assistants for 2022 behind guys at Georgia and Alabama. In 2023, he is second behind only defensive line coach Mike Elston, who works under Freeman at Notre Dame.
Hey speaking of Elston, he is reportedly staying with the Irish and will be promoted to defensive coordinator. On the offensive side of the ball, there is 29-year-old offensive coordinator Tommy Rees, who was offered by Kelly to join him in Baton Rouge as his OC. Rees is staying with Freeman at Notre Dame.
Kelly is making so much money, so it’s hard to say he is losing in any sort of capacity with this move to LSU. But with that being said, it’s nice to see all of his major assistants seemingly give him the finger and stay put.
When Lincoln Riley left Oklahoma for USC, major pieces of his coaching staff left the Sooners to join him, as did a large portion of players and former OU commits. At the time of writing this, there has been a whopping one (1!) decommit. There have been zero (0!) new players in the transfer portal. That certainly says something, both about Kelly and Freeman.
What does this all mean? Notre Dame now has a young, exciting OC and a first-year HC that seems to have every attribute you would want in a coach, and he gets to start with a strong foundation around him.
The one thing Kelly couldn’t do at Notre Dame was get the Irish over the hump once they reached the playoff. I like Freeman enough to say that, if anyone can get over that hump, it’s going to be him. Damn it, I will kind of be rooting for the damn Fighting Irish in the near future.
Hey, what’s his first game of 2022 going to look like?
Hmmmmmmm.
Top 25
Last one before the final CFP rankings on Sunday. Here’s where I stand:
1.) Georgia (-)
2.) Cincinnati (-)
3.) Michigan (+2)
4.) Alabama (-)
5.) Notre Dame (+1)
6.) Oklahoma State (+1)
7.) Ohio State (-4)
8.) Baylor (-)
9.) Ole Miss (+2)
10.) Houston (+2)
11.) Michigan State (+2)
12.) Utah (+2)
13.) Oklahoma (-3)
14.) Oregon (+2)
15.) San Diego State (+3)
16.) Louisiana (-1)
17.) BYU (-)
18.) Pittsburgh (+3)
19.) Wake Forest (+3)
20.) UTSA (-11)
21.) Appalachian State (-1)
22.) Iowa (+3)
23.) NC State (NEW)
24.) Coastal Carolina (-)
25.) Clemson (NEW)
Some thoughts:
Cincinnati should be above Alabama in the real CFP rankings but it is not, and that makes me scared going into this final weekend. My eyes say Alabama loses pretty big to Georgia considering what I have seen of those teams this year, but my gut is less convinced. Oklahoma State-Baylor is at noon, while Georgia-Bama and Cincy-Houston are both at 4. We will know before the Bearcats kick off how much it is a “Win and In” scenario or not.
The scenario that I fear is:
12-1 Oklahoma State (Big 12 Champion)
13-0 Cincinnati (AAC Champion)
11-2 Alabama (lost close to Georgia)
This should be easy. If Michigan wins: Georgia, Michigan, Cincinnati, Oklahoma State. Flip the last two if you must. But I am worried that a close loss to Georgia will be equivalent to a win because of how highly the Bulldogs are praised. I will just say this again: ALABAMA HAS DONE NOTHING TO MERIT BEING PUT IN WITH A SECOND LOSS. Thanks.
I don’t think Ohio State has a route back in. Even in chaos, two-loss conference champs and Notre Dame should beat out the Buckeyes. I would simply not get my ass handed to me by Michigan if I wanted to make the CFP.
Houston is a terrific team and I think should be ranked accordingly. This is not a locked in 13-0 record for Cincinnati, this is probably going to be quite the battle. I can’t wait to watch.
If it’s Ohio State-Utah in the Rose Bowl, assuming some opt outs in Columbus, take the Utes ML. That’s all I will say.
Shoutout San Diego State man. That team did not make it easy most weeks, but here it is at 11-1. What a turnaround for Brady Hoke.
I’m hoping Pitt-Wake Forest is a blast. This game could break 100 points on paper.
What also should be a blast is UTSA-Western Kentucky. Yes, the Roadrunners died a dishonorable death to North Texas of all teams, but the journey to 11-1 was worth it. These two played a total heater early in the season, and the Hilltoppers have not lost since. Let’s hope round two is more of the same.
I have Coastal Carolina over Clemson out of spite.
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