First it was ESPN giving Notre Dame’s hire of Brian Kelly away from Cincinnati as one of the best and now it is Rivals Mike Farrell giving props to the Irish for hiring Kelly. Farrell ranked the top coaching hires since 2008, with Kelly being ranked 6th among his coaching peers.
Farrell ranked Kelly behind Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley and LSU’s Ed Orgeron and a few others who have made a lot of noise since their hires. Farrell said “Kelly is 92-37 at Notre Dame and has been to a national title game. Dealing with academic restrictions, he’s done a great job.” Don’t forget Kelly guided the Irish to a College Football Playoff spot as well.
The most interesting part of Farrell’s article was his proposition of forming a ‘Power Four’ conference alignment. Farrell eliminates the Big XII, giving each conference in his scenario 16 teams with the Irish’s addition to the ACC giving them 17 teams. He propositions that every game would be a conference game except one, saying “we still want to see Notre Dame-USC and others, right?”
Farrell has the ACC adding the Irish along with West Virginia and TCU. Notre Dame would be in a division with newcomer TCU, Clemson, Florida State, Syracuse, NC State, Boston College, Louisville, and Wake Forest. Farrell believes that “Notre Dame in the same division as Clemson would be awesome,” but would it really? Part of the Irish allure is having a national schedule, playing teams from all across the country. This would limit those games, as traditional games against opponents like Stanford would be off the table.
This is just an idea, as Farrell states at the end “I know it’s impossible and won’t happen, but it sure is fun to imagine it. The ACC and the Pac-16 would certainly be much more interesting than they are now.” Yes, more interesting but would it work? Would you like to see the Irish join the ACC and have just one out of conference foe each year? I like it the way it is.