Notre Dame Officially Announces Brian Kelly As New Head Coach

Now that Cincinnati head coach Brian Kelly is officially ex-Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly, scorn is spilling into the Ohio River like lava. Our Notre Dame blog, Rakes of Mallow, listened into Cincinnati radio host Bill Cunningham’s show, and he has reported back with amazing findings. Among the highlights:

• Cunningham has called for the crucifixion of Brian Kelly. Literally.
• He’s renounced Notre Dame’s standing as a Catholic university.
• He compared Kelly’s actions to those of the Japanese during Pearl Harbor.
• He has, in part, “lost his faith in Christ”.
• He’s taken a call from a lawyer named “Bulldog” who is currently racing around a Cincinnati courthouse trying to find a judge to sign an injunction that would (1) prevent the presser from happening, and (2) prevent Kelly from coaching at Notre Dame by claiming breach of contract.
  

Read the rest of the post for even more insanity. Also, be sure to check out Rakes of Mallow’s impassioned defense of Kelly’s hiring.

Brian Kelly's press conference Friday afternoon did give up a few points of interest:

One: He's Not Saying Anything About Coaches Yet. That includes keeping anyone from the current staff or taking anyone with him from Cincinnati. Another person of interest has been his defensive coordinator at Grand Valley State, Chuck Martin, who is the current head coach at GVSU and has told several sources he'd take the DC position if offered. No news from Kelly on this front today, though. 

Two: He's Never Been To A Game In The Fall There: If this is an authenticity test for you, he fails on this count. He does have a very good excuse, though, since he's been a head football coach for 19 years, and has been sort of busy the whole time.

Three: He Didn't Want To Talk About Cincy. Not at all, dismissing any questions about the matter with "Transition is very difficult, and those situations are extremely emotional." Kelly handled the whole thing as well as he could, i think, and that's fighting my natural inclination to hurl piles of invective before thinking. Leaving a job is awkward no matter how it happens, especially when you're dealing with something as touchy as contract negotiations for million dollars. 

Four: His Daughter's Name Is Grace. Grace Kelly. As in the movie star.

Five: He Did Guarantee One Win. The spring game, which Kelly gamely promised a victory in for the reporters. Everything else, he said, is TBD. Overall, he was enthusiastic, seemed happy to be there, looked eager, and was in a short span of time everything Charlie Weis was not. Oh, and he's been a head coach before, which gives him a two stroke lead over his predecessor already. And it's just day one!

If you'll check your calendar, it is December 11th, 2009, a date coming before January 10, 2010. The sequence is important because Kelly, by leaving the Cincy job before 1/10, now by contract owes Cincy a million dollars for taking the ND job. It's going to have to be a Kia Rondo with a bow on it in the driveway for Christmas this year, honey*

Drew Magary says Kelly has one particularly intimidating factor awaiting him in South Bend:

JESUS WATCHING OVER YOU

There he is: Right over the end zone. He’s staring at you. Always. He’ll be watching you. Keeping tabs on you. Searching for imperfections. The son of Our Lord is a micromanager like that.

No pressure, Coach Kelly. Nope.

*We kid! Even minus a mil the $3 million or so in ND's contract allows Kelly to purchase something really ritzy for Mrs. Kelly. Like, a Ford Escape or something <---is broke and has no idea what a really nice car is.

Brian Kelly, the current ninth-winningest active coach in the FBS in terms of victories, has signed a five-year contract as Notre Dame's new head coach. He will be officially introduced at a 1:30 p.m. press conference on Friday (it will be streamed live on UND.com). Kelly will begin his duties at the coach of the Irish on Monday.

In a press release just sent out Notre Dame students Thursday night, athletics director Jack Swarbick and the school's president offered their official comments on the hire of Brian Kelly as the football team's new head coach.

"I am very pleased that a thorough and extensive search has led us to a new head coach in Brian Kelly, who I am confident will help us accomplish our goal of competing for national championships," said Notre Dame athletics director Jack Swarbrick.

"I am absolutely delighted to welcome Brian and his family to the Notre Dame family," said Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., Notre Dame's president. "He brings to us a long and successful career as a head coach, and I am confident that he will have even greater success here. I'm also very pleased that he has put considerable emphasis on excellence in the classroom and that his student-athletes graduate at a rate well above the norm."

Cincinnati has confirmed what we have all known for hours: Brian Kelly is indeed headed to South Bend to be the new head coach at Notre Dame. The school also added that Kelly will not coach in the Sugar Bowl, when the Bearcats play Florida. Receiver Mardy Gilyard expressed some more bitterness over the news. 

"I heard everything I needed to know: 'I accepted the Notre Dame job,'" Gilyard said. "He went for the money. I'm fairly disgusted with the situation, that they let it last this long."

According to a press release from Notre Dame, Kelly will be officially introduced in a press conference Friday at 1:30 p.m. 

The Cincinnati Enquirer has confirmation from a University trustee that yes, finally, officially, for real this time, Brian Kelly is a goner. No contract details available just yet, but Notre Dame athletic department employees are already being groomed for their new daddy’s arrival, like the kids in The Sound of Music prepping to sing for the Baroness. This might end up being the best turn of events for all involved — to hear star speedster Mardy Gilyard tell it, there’s consternation in the Bearcat ranks concerning how this all went down:

“I feel like there was a little lying in this thing, I feel like he’s known the whole time. I kind of had a gut feeling that he was going to stay because he told me he was going to be here. But it is what it is. He made a business decision,” Gilyard said.

Gilyard said that Kelly told the players before the Pittsburgh game that he wasn’t going anywhere.

As weirdly aboveboard as Kelly’s been about this whole affair, remember that he’s a football coach and not a normal human being, and that what’s forthright for him is still a mite shady for the rest of us. It’s understandable that telling your players you’re in it for the long haul might cause some confusion when you blow town. (Hey, at least Cincy already sold out their Sugar Bowl ticket allotment.)