This happened much faster than I thought, but the now-former Cincinnati Bearcats Head Coach Brian Kelly was introduced today at a press conference as the University of Notre Dame's 29th head football coach. Kelly coached the Cincinnati Bearcats to an amazing run, going undefeated in 2009 and earning a Sugar Bowl game against Florida.
I think the Fighting Irish made the right choice; they found someone who's passing approach is light-years ahead of that of Charlie Weis.
Yep. I wrote that. Light years.
Coach Kelly's innovative use of formations and motion and creative short passing methods are worthy of intense study. Of particular note is his employment of formations with four wide receivers on one side of the ball. In those sets, Kelly will use short-man-in-motion to cause one receiver to "rub" another, then run what is called a "stick" pattern off that action.
Coach Kelly uses four-and-five wide receiver formations most of the time. He employs the quarterback draw from these sets. And Coach Kelly rolls out the quarterback to vary the passing launch point.
Coach Kelly also regularly uses a high-middle-low receiver pattern combination that's lethal. I'm not taking anything away from Weis, who had a great approach to the passing game, but Kelly's is just more varied. This video from this year's game against Fresno's a great example of how the Brian Kelly passing game works, and why Golden Domers should be excited:
Under Brian Kelly, Notre Dame will be able to move the ball against anyone. I'm just concerned that the defense will not have the talent needed to take the Fighting Irish to national championship level.
Stay tuned.
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