5 jobs Tom Herman definitely isn’t taking
By John Buhler
2. Notre Dame Fighting Irish
If people in South Bend want Notre Dame Fighting Irish head coach Brian Kelly run out of town, they don’t have a clue how good of a coach he is. Notre Dame is about an eight to nine-win program, all things equal.
The Irish can’t schedule cupcakes to try to make the College Football Playoff. It’s hard to get kids to come play in frigid South Bend. Indiana is a basketball crazy state that just doesn’t have the football talent in its borders to sustain a national power.
Kelly has made Notre Dame a 10-win program since leaving the Cincinnati Bearcats in 2009. He’s not the problem. That would be his defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder. VanGorder had success coaching the Georgia Bulldogs and the Atlanta Falcons defense, but has lost his effectiveness in 2016.
Herman could make it work with the Fighting Irish, but would he want to go to a school that didn’t have head coaching stability in the years before Kelly arrived? He could be a great coach in South Bend for the Irish, but are we sure he’d be able to elevate the Notre Dame football program like Kelly has since 2009? This doesn’t seem like a win-win situation for Herman to thrust himself into.