The final straw for Notre Dame’s Brian Kelly

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How many free passes does a coach get before it is time to say goodbye?

Usually fans ask this question because of consecutive poor seasons and a team’s lack of progress.

That’s not the case for Brian Kelly, Notre Dame’s head football coach.

The academic scandal of four football players is the latest mistake that the university’s football program has made under his leadership in the past few years. These mistakes have come off the field, costing not only a famed image, but also lives.

Examining the mistakes that have been made under one man’s helm should end with only one result: the firing of Brian Kelly.

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Since his arrival at Notre Dame in 2010, Kelly has a record of 37-15 with the Fighting Irish, including a 12-1 record that led the program to a championship game in 2012. He was the savior the program needed after the disaster that was the Charlie Weis era. However, as the football team was winning games, mistakes were being made.

The first incident occurred in the early days of Kelly’s reign. On Aug. 31, 2010, Elizabeth Seeberg, who was a 19-year old freshman at St. Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana, said a Notre Dame football player sexually assaulted her. She turned in a handwritten note to campus police the next day. Nine days later, she committed suicide.

The university refused to talk about the situation in the following months, never disciplining the accused player. Police never questioned him. A friend of the player allegedly told Seeberg: “Don’t do anything you would regret. Messing with Notre Dame football is a bad idea.” This all happened, but was kept under wraps.

The next incident occurred just a few months later. On Oct. 27, 2010, Declan Sullivan died during a practice when the portable lift used for filming practices collapsed due to dangerously high winds. Sullivan was on the lift recording even though the area was under a wind advisory and gusts at the time of the accident reached 51 mph. 

Although it was not solely Kelly’s decision, it was the wrong decision to send someone up on a lift with the wind blowing so fast. 

Kelly faced his next challenge in the spring of 2013. That May, the university announced quarterback Everett Golson would be suspended for the fall of 2014 due to “poor academic judgment.” It was later revealed that Golson cheated on a test. 

Kelly was forced to plan for a season without his starting quarterback because of a poor decision by a student-athlete.

Now we reach our latest scandal. This past Friday, it was reported that four football players would be suspended for academic dishonesty. 

The university announced that the four would be held out of all football activities until the matter was resolved.

It’s hard to say how responsible Kelly is for all of these mistakes. We don’t know how involved Kelly was in the Seeberg situation, or the decision to hold practice during dangerous conditions. 

It’s hard to expect the head football coach to know how each player is doing with his studies and be there when a bad academic decision is made.

The academic scandal at Notre Dame is not unique to South Bend. Many universities experience these situations, but how many program-hurting mistakes does it take for a coach to be fired?

Maybe it’s one more mistake. Maybe the decision is being made right now. 

Or maybe a winning season will push all this to the side and Kelly’s transgression will be forgotten.

If Notre Dame wants to continue its historic image of performing at a high level academically and athletically, then it’s important for the university to make the decision to part ways with Kelly.

Michal is a sophomore in Media. He can be reached at [email protected] and @bennythebull94.