Should Notre Dame fire Brian Kelly and hire Urban Meyer?

It’s easy to overreact to a bad loss, but should Notre Dame really consider firing Brian Kelly and hiring Urban Meyer.

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish had a bad showing last Saturday night, as they went home with a 45-14 loss to Michigan. They now have two losses on the season, so the chances for Brian Kelly’s team to reach the College Football Playoff were washed away by the rain in Ann Arbor.

After Notre Dame reached a low point with a 4-8 record in 2016 and with the heat turning up under his seat, Kelly led the Fighting Irish to back-to-back double-digit win seasons and a spot in the playoff last year. But just as they were dominated by Alabama in the national title game in 2012, Clemson easily dismissed Notre Dame 30-3 in a playoff semifinal.

It’s pretty clear Notre Dame can’t quite compete on the level with college football’s best teams, due in part to academic standards most other schools don’t have. It’s easy to overreact to one bad loss, and ESPN’s Paul Finebaum went all-in on what Notre Dame should do with Kelly.

"He’s good, not great and he’s never going to win a national championship … The wise move for Notre Dame is to buy Brian Kelly out and bring in Urban Meyer. Urban Meyer is the best available coach in the country and he wanted to go to Notre Dame 13 years ago. Florida got him instead and there’s a lot of reasons why that may have happened."

Urban Meyer retired as head coach at Ohio State after last season amid some health issues, and he’s currently working as an analyst for FOX. He’s a top rumored candidate at USC if Clay Helton is fired, but Meyer added further fuel to the speculation about his future when recently talked openly about the Dallas Cowboys’ head coaching job.

Meyer did spend time as an assistant at Notre Dame, which makes it convenient to tie him to the job if it were open. Meyer’s wife, for one, was not happy about Finebaum’s comments.

https://twitter.com/spinnershells/status/1189260918229737472?s=20

The primary object of Finebaum’s ire tends to be Jim Harbaugh, who of course just happened to be on the opposite sideline of Kelly last Saturday night. So perhaps that’s where the root of the criticism of Kelly is rooted, with a “Harbaugh’s team dominated Kelly’s” undercurrent. To say nothing of how realistic buying Kelly out would even be, and shy of getting Meyer, whether any other replacement would really be an upgrade.