The Sugar Bowl

I don't know how many of you watched the Sugar Bowl, but it was not pretty for the Kelly-less UC Bearcats. They couldn't move the ball while the gave was close and they didn't stop Tebow at any point. The game was a blowout from kickoff to when Tim Tebow thanked his lord and savior for the win.

But as good ND fans in our ND centric universe, we better analyze what this game means to the future of ND football. What should we take away from this terrible performance by Brian Kelly's boys?

Some will say that it means nothing. Lets face it, the cards were stacked against UC big time: (1) Kelly was gone (2) FL was playing with the most winning class of seniors in SEC history (3) Urban Meyer's health crisis sparked the FL team (4) 2 time Heisman winner playing in his final game (5) FL is a more talented team at nearly every position on the field.

But some may say that we can take some things away about Kelly ball.

First, Brian Kelly was really important to the functionality and success of Cincy's offense. Some thought that offensive coordinator Jeff Quinn had as much to do with UC's offensive success as Kelly. However, after the FL blowout and lack of offensive putout, it is obvious that Kelly's play calling was critical all season. Quinn looked like a deer in the headlights as he was smashed by the Urban Meyer game plan. Good luck at Buffalo Jeff.

What about the D? I'm not sure Kelly's presence would have made any difference. UC had been giving up a ton of points to much worse teams than FL. The UC defense was not talented enough and not coached well enough to have any chance against the Tebow Train.

Now on to the most important thing to take away:

ND may improve substantially under Kelly. ND may win 10-12 games every year with Kelly. However, this success may not even put ND on the radar to contend for a national championship against the powers that be in the SEC. Alabama tore FL to pieces, who in turn tore UC to pieces, a team who likely would have won at least 10 with this years ND schedule.

We have a long way to be competitive with the best of the Big East and Big 10, the large portion of our schedule. Kelly proved he could do that with a fairly untalented team. The point though is that even Kelly will have to take it up a notch to expect to contend for National titles.

I pray (even I can pray sometimes) that Kelly didn't just find an opportune time to be a coach in the midwest and east when the competition was down so as to make him look better than he really is. We need to remember that beating Big East teams, as Kelly has done, will not come close to meeting the expectation of the Notre Dame fans.

But lets hope I just over-analyzed this whole situation, because after all, Kelly didn't coach in a loss this whole season.

-CJI