Why Brian Kelly and Jim Harbaugh Should Avoid Notre Dame

Here are the reasons why the top 2 coaches rumored to be heading to Notre Dame should stay at their schools-

Kelly-

1. Jimmy Clausen and Golden Tate just left. The two best players on the team are heading to the NFL. They will not be easy to replace. Couple that with OT Sam Young graduating and the team still having an bad defense, and I don't think you would want to come to the team.

2. Dayne Crist is injured and may not play at all next year. That leave the Irish without a QB.

3. You have Zach Collaros coming back. He played great in Tony Pike's absence. He could be an early Heisman favorite for next season.

4. You are the darling of the Big East, a strong conference (stronger than the ACC, and this year stronger than the Big Ten) with an automatic bid to a BCS game. Notre Dame doesn't have that.

5. At Cincinnati you were a missed Texas field goal away from the National Championship game. You don't have to worry as much about the academic standards and bloodthirsty alumni at Notre Dame, and you can still go to the title game.

6. Call it crazy, but the students, faculty and alumni might actually protest your hiring because you are a Catholic that is openly pro-choice. Cincy doesn't care about your religious views.

Jim Harbaugh

1. See #s 1 and 2 for Kelly. They apply to you too.

2. South Bend is not a nice town. Stanford is California. Why move?

3. You went to Michigan and Rich Rodriguez could be another bad season away from getting fired. Why not wait for that job to open up.

4. You have gotten into Pete Carrol's head. You own him right now. That is invaluable.

5. You have a great recruiting class coming in.

6. At Stanford, a school with amazingly high academic standards, you can graduate all your kids and win 8 games a year and be a hero. At Notre Dame, if you graduate all your players and win 8 games a year, you get fired. They are delusional. You don't want to be a part of that.

7. Toby Gerhart is graduating, but Andrew Luck is only a freshman. Stay at Stanford.


The correct person for the job is probably someone like Jon Gruden. It is someone with nothing to prove. Bob Stoops or Urban Meyer could be huge gets. But Kelly and Harbaugh are young and talented, and it is too soon for them to throw it all away on rebuilding Notre Dame.