Brian ‘Kelly pulled a Saban’ from Notre Dame



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When Notre Dame lost Clark Lea ahead of the college football playoff game against Alabama, Brian Kelly knew he had to find an equally thoughtful replacement. That’s exactly what Kelly did when he hired Marcus Freeman away from Cincinnati.

It has been universally hailed as a home run rental, which could make a significant change to the entire program. In a good way, actually in a good way. Even before Freeman coached a single game, we saw a spike in recruiting for the Irish, a change in philosophy for the better. It seems the profile has changed, tackling high-end talent has produced some great results.

As longtime college football writer Pat Forde started revisiting what to expect this fall, he looked at how good your new coordinator is. It’s just something that happens every year in major sports and you can add Forde to the huge number of people who think Freeman will be a game-changer.

It’s Kelly pulling a Saban, losing great coaching talent and replacing it with great coaching talent.

It’s a new expression, “shoot a Saban,” but if there’s one program that everyone is trying to emulate across the country, it’s Alabama. You can hate them, but you have to respect what Nick Saban did during his tenure in Tuscaloosa. So if Kelly takes a page from Saban’s book, that’s probably a pretty good thing.



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