Sure, because playing for themselves is clearly not an option. They really don't want to make it to a perfect season so they can claim they did it themselves. They don't want to come back against a conference rival for the sake of their own pride. No, it was all about someone else. College football players can be so altruistic. Again, how the Hell do you know that they would quit? His coaching style is enough to convince them to keep going regardless. From one of his former players at GVSU: The guy uses fear as his motivational tool, which has done him well. The game against Pittsburgh was the biggest game of the players' careers up until that point. They don't go to the BCS if they don not beat the Panthers so anything beyond that is a moot point. Gone or still there the next day, Kelly still has the ability to make the biggest game of their careers a complete Hell. Added to that the fact that the seniors still have the NFL to worry about and since Kelly does not officially take control of ND until January 2, he still would have had plenty of time to ruin these players with the scouts. Pro scouts talk to college coaches and the phrase "Completely gave up when faced with adversity" wouldn't really be a help to Pike or Gilyard, now would it? Just so I'm clear, you think it is OK for Kelly lie to his players, players who committed to Cincinnati based on the idea that they could trust him as a mentor and role model? Gotta chase that paper, I guess. GET IT HOW YOU LIVE! What? He wasn't "making the big bucks to coach Notre Dame" when he started lying to his players. In fact, he isn't officially "making the big bucks" until January 2. Respect he showed by lying to his players for a week, leading them to believe that he was going to be coaching them in their bowl game until yesterday when he finally broke the news to the team, after letting everyone else know. This type of display juxtaposed to his success on the field leads me to believe that he is just functionally autistic. This is how he handles the pressure of an awkward conversation with his players? What happens when he gets to Notre Dame where the expectations are through the roof and his team starts to struggle? What would have been wrong with him telling his players he was going to ND after the win against Pittsburgh? He was interested in ND, and ND was interested in him. How would have telling his players have hurt him at that point? And as a general note, how in the Hell do you think that someone can have the right to act like this? Where the fuck do you work where this type of behavior is deemed as normal?
Told my players after Pittsburgh and didn't lead them along to thinking that I would be coaching them in the Sugar Bowl until yesterday.
...I know this game. I'm not trying to be a dick, but Brian Kelly's decision makes plenty of fucking sense. I don't see how you can't see that. Players don't want to play for a coach that is going to leave them. Plain and simple, they feel as if he quit on them, and to a certain extent, he did. He would lose that team if he told them he was leaving - I know he would. I don't give a rat's ass if you feel he's a shitty guy for leaving before the bowl game. He's still one of the best coaches in the country. You don't have to be a good person to be a good coach. I don't get what you're trying to say with the whole Brian Kelly will ruin these players rant. You do realize that he made players like Marshawn Gilyard and Tony Pike household names, right? I bet everything I have that Brian Kelly has nothing but good things to say about either of the two when he's asked about them by NFL scouts. That quote from the former Grand Valley State player is such a joke, man. Way to bold the only negative part about it. What do expect from a college coach? I want to know. So the hell what if he yells at him...did you play any type of sport? If you fuck up, you get yelled at - it's part of the game...it's part of any sport. Kelly puts fear into the hearts of his players, but it makes them better. It's a great coaching technique. I think it's funny how you can continuously bash a coach that's done so much for that program. I think he's something like 34-6 as the head coach at Cincy. The fact is this: Brian Kelly is a hell of a coach, and you can't take that away from him... EDIT: Playing for yourself at the college level is NOT an option. They didn't go undefeated by themselves. They did it all together, as a team and the leader of that team left. If Kelly admitted that he was going to Notre Dame early, everything crumbles. It's how football works.
I never said that Brian Kelly was not a good head coach. I can tell he is a great head coach just by looking at what he did for Cincinnati. POS team before he got there, two time Conference champs while he was there. I do not need you to tell me that he is an amazing coach. I get it. I also never admonished him for the fact that he went to a program that is going to pay him better. Kelly has no connection to Cincinnati aside from coaching there, I completely understand the reasoning behind taking the Notre Dame job. My problem, in response to the OP, was the way he treated his players. They got him the job, he could have shown them the respect. The bolded portion of Micah Staley's quote was not meant to cast Kelly in a negative light, but to highlight his coaching techniques. If I really wanted to use that quote to spite him, I wouldn't have included the beginning of that quote where Staley says, "He's a great coach and I really liked him," and there were other quotes in that article that I could have used to make that point. I did not use them because that was not my intention with this one. My point was that he uses fear as a motivational technique, which is always effective, and still maintains the respect of his players. His players are afraid of him, which motivates them. They still respect him, and they want to live up to his expectations. He is not Mark Mangino, where fear was his only technique, aside from being a complete who seemed to have little regard to their health. Even if Kelly made himself a lame duck to his players, he would have had to have completely emasculated himself and proven to be completely incompetent to lose that locker room. Plus, his seniors and juniors still need his help to prepare for the draft. Even now, he has the ability to sink each and every one of those guys. Can you at least tell me what the point was for withholding the fact that he was leaving for Notre Dame from the team even after the game against Pittsburgh? They won what he knew to be the last game that he would be coaching them. Even if his players were going to tank on him the second they found out he was leaving, it is a moot point. He is not going to coach them in the Sugar Bowl. Why not tell them once it did not matter? EDIT: Where did you play? Where did you coach? How are you so sure of this? Where is it written that college players do not have egos until after they leave for the pros? How can you tell that the captains on this team wouldn't have enough pride in themselves and their team to realize that they are playing the biggest game of their college careers, and the only game that can trump this game against Pittsburgh is only going to be reached by beating Pittsburgh? "Coach is gone, I don't want to play in a BCS bowl game!" Is that really how it works? You realize that there are guys on this team at every grade level looking to turn pro, right? Do you think they are completely incapable of realizing that their performance in college and in games like this is going to come under scrutiny by the people who will determine whether they have a job at the next level and how much money their first contract is going to be worth? Every play for the players looking to go pro is, if not a difference of millions of dollars, the difference between getting a contract and the UFL.
I think you are right about this... Mr E certainly has tremendous knowledge of the game but unless he actually competed at a high level it's impossible to forcast the way the players would respond. I didn't play D1 football but I was a D1 athlete and I did play for football for a high level high school team and I never competed for the coach. It was all about pride and for the team and for the school and my friends not for him. Obviously the coach can motivate and come up with strategies but at the end of the day it's the players who make the plays not the coaches. I didn't hear an outcry when Kelly left Central Michigan to go to Cinci but the way he went about taking the job was that of a scumbag. The guy was tweeting the day before that he wasn't leaving Cinci. He very easily could have told his players after the Pitt game but instead hid it from them until he took the job. Would it have hurt them after the game to tell them and thank them instead of them finding out on espn? I saw a comment about Urban Meyer... everybody knew he was leaving Utah. It wasn't even an issue. Oh and in case you forgot Meyer coached his team in the biggest game in the school's history. He didn't quit on his players. If Kelly was ND's guy they would have waited. It's impossible to know if they would have moved on if he waited but Kelly wouldn't have been the 1st guy to coach his team in a bolw game before moving to a higher paying job.
