In college football there is a certain mentality that you have to have to consistently be among the best in the country. There are a few teams, that regardless of returning experience, they’ll always have high level of play. Take Alabama for instance, they consistently lose players to the NFL early, but just keep churning out teams that compete for National Championships every year.
How about Oklahoma? Four straight years, including this one, with different starting quarterbacks, same result. Each year they’ve won the Big XII, after one game they’re viewed as the favorite again this year.
It isn’t a coincidence that these programs are almost always in the CFP. It’s in their programs DNA, it’s just what they do.
After seeing this from Irish coach Brian Kelly, I feel like they are trending towards having the culture that the elite, of the elite schools do.
IM TIRED OF BEING THE NICE GUY pic.twitter.com/NbWakd9EU1
— Jessica Smetana (@jessica_smetana) September 19, 2020
“We’re scoring every time we got the football. We’re not letting them score any points. We want a shutout. We’re playing for a shutout. This thing is too damn hard. I’m tired of being the nice guy.” If this didn’t pump you up, somethings wrong with you.
Back to the message, it’s about a mentality, a focus, one that might have been missing during the early years of Kelly’s tenure. The killer instinct, a change in culture, in urgency, in everything.
Back in 2019, Kelly spoke of coaching for five more years, with his newly signed extension, that brings him to exactly that time frame. You think that Kelly wants to get a championship before the extension is up? You bet your ass he does. This change in mentality is a step in that direction.