. Overblown criticism of Kelly
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I’ve been very vocal about Brian Kelly’s penchant to throw his players under the bus, especially last season before he realized he needed to shift gears and shoulder some of the blame for an underachieving 4-8 season. And I’ve been very vocal on how overrated I feel DeShone Kizer is as an NFL draft prospect as well.
This past week, Kelly got hammered by many for his comments regarding his former quarterback and Kizer's NFL potential. In fact, some went as far as saying that recruits
shouldn’t want to play for a coach who would say such things about a former player.
And my reaction? Relax everyone. All Kelly said was that, “He (Kizer) still should be in college. The circumstances are such that you have to make a business decision and he felt like it was in his best interest. I'm going to support him and his decision."
So what? Kelly is exactly right. Kizer is not close to being ready to be a high NFL draft pick and will likely fall out of round one unless someone decides to reach on his potential. Coming back to school would have clearly benefited him (as well as Mitch Trubisky and Brad Kaaya, among others) and would have likely helped his development.
However, it might not have helped his draft stock with a much stronger quarterback group set for 2018 (Sam Darnold, Josh Rosen, Mason Rudolph, Jake Browning, Lamar Jackson, etc), and there are those that could argue that Kelly and his staff have stunted Kizer’s growth themselves (or at least his confidence).
I certainly don’t blame Kelly for giving his honest opinion when he could have embellished and made everyone happy by comparing his signal caller to Michael Jordan like Dabo Swinney did with DeShaun Watson.
In this case, with Kizer off the team and internal morale not at stake, I don’t blame Kelly for being honest. Now he just has to know that after games during a season he needs to hold his tongue and take the blame upon himself moreso than hand it to his players. Or perhaps, in Kizer’s case, he should have done that here?
But the part about recruits not looking at Notre Dame because of his assessment of Kizer – that’s ridiculous.
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Hey mike, Kelly has a LONG HISTORY of noted comments about his players that are correctly titled:
THROWIN YOUR PLAYERS UNDER THE BUS! so don't change your stripes now.
National sports media figures have called him out over the years, as have ND alumni, their fans and college football fans in general.
This is just another example that you should have agreed with.
USA Today Sports Images
I’ve been very vocal about Brian Kelly’s penchant to throw his players under the bus, especially last season before he realized he needed to shift gears and shoulder some of the blame for an underachieving 4-8 season. And I’ve been very vocal on how overrated I feel DeShone Kizer is as an NFL draft prospect as well.
This past week, Kelly got hammered by many for his comments regarding his former quarterback and Kizer's NFL potential. In fact, some went as far as saying that recruits
shouldn’t want to play for a coach who would say such things about a former player.
And my reaction? Relax everyone. All Kelly said was that, “He (Kizer) still should be in college. The circumstances are such that you have to make a business decision and he felt like it was in his best interest. I'm going to support him and his decision."
So what? Kelly is exactly right. Kizer is not close to being ready to be a high NFL draft pick and will likely fall out of round one unless someone decides to reach on his potential. Coming back to school would have clearly benefited him (as well as Mitch Trubisky and Brad Kaaya, among others) and would have likely helped his development.
However, it might not have helped his draft stock with a much stronger quarterback group set for 2018 (Sam Darnold, Josh Rosen, Mason Rudolph, Jake Browning, Lamar Jackson, etc), and there are those that could argue that Kelly and his staff have stunted Kizer’s growth themselves (or at least his confidence).
I certainly don’t blame Kelly for giving his honest opinion when he could have embellished and made everyone happy by comparing his signal caller to Michael Jordan like Dabo Swinney did with DeShaun Watson.
In this case, with Kizer off the team and internal morale not at stake, I don’t blame Kelly for being honest. Now he just has to know that after games during a season he needs to hold his tongue and take the blame upon himself moreso than hand it to his players. Or perhaps, in Kizer’s case, he should have done that here?
But the part about recruits not looking at Notre Dame because of his assessment of Kizer – that’s ridiculous.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hey mike, Kelly has a LONG HISTORY of noted comments about his players that are correctly titled:
THROWIN YOUR PLAYERS UNDER THE BUS! so don't change your stripes now.
National sports media figures have called him out over the years, as have ND alumni, their fans and college football fans in general.
This is just another example that you should have agreed with.
