Brian Kelly is trying to reshape his image with Notre Dame fans, and it’s hard to understand why he thinks Irish nation cares at all. Notre Dame is one of the favorites to win this year’s national championship with Marcus Freeman in charge and they have the Heisman frontrunner at quarterback in CJ Carr.
Who needs Brian Kelly standing on stage acting like Stuart Smalley?
With Kelly’s firing at LSU and now the color voice of Mountain West football, he’s probably feeling a little small right now, and with an ego the size of a mountain, he’s going to stroke it himself a bit if no one else is going to do it for him.
The Notre Dame fan hatred, of course, is entirely of his making. While I’d wager more than half of the fans would have had little problem with BK leaving Notre Dame after the 2021 season, it was the manner (and the words — fake cajun or otherwise) that felt more like a betrayal, and betrayals are never taken lightly.
But… Kelly is on the warpath to change all of this. One of his first moves is going on the Independent Podcast with Pete Sampson and Matt Fortuna to essentially plead his case, and sell his image… but it really feels as if the message by Kelly is being met with a lot of resistance by Irish fans.
Brian Kelly is the all-time wins leader at Notre Dame, and that isn’t going to change for a very long time. At some point in the distant future, Notre Dame may even want to honor him during a commercial break — maybe.
Regardless of all of that, he’s toxic in South Bend. Irish fans would sooner welcome Charlie Weis back into the fold than Brian Kelly. So why does he think anyone cares? Honestly, I don’t think he does all that much. Brian Kelly is doing what he thinks needs to be done to polish up his image a bit for something else in the future. He wants to coach again, and he wants to prove himself after two disastrous departures in a row (some might say three in a row).
This, of course, is about Brian Kelly and not about Notre Dame, the football program, or its fans — just like it’s always been.
Moving on…
