Onus is on Notre Dame brass to finally luck out in coaching search

Now it's on the Notre Dame administration.

It's their responsibility. They can't fumble this one. Well, they can, because they have in the past. The merry-go-round of coaches since Lou Holtz now numbers four with Charlie Weis headed out the door.

The new guy will inherit a program that wants to win, but will answer to an administration that has shown it doesn't know how. From the hiring of George O'Leary without fully vetting his background, to the knee-capping of Tyrone Willingham after only three seasons to falling in love way too early with Weis, you wonder about the front office's judgment.

The players are: athletic director Jack Swarbrick, president Rev. John Jenkins and a board of trustees who can make their voices heard whether you like it or not.

In that sense Notre Dame is like a lot of schools in the middle of a coaching search. Except that this might be the highest-profile football job in the world. Swarbrick, a lawyer and consultant by trade, has been on the job for 1½ years. Jenkins is a cleric whose religious responsibilities may or may not affect his football decisions.

Specifically, if Brian Kelly is truly the No. 1 candidate to replace Weis, will the Cincinnati coach be able to get past comments he made to the Detroit Free Press four years ago?

At the time, five of his players had been charged with second-degree murder in the beating death of a man outside a Mount Pleasant, Mich. Bar in June 2004. Although he inherited the players, the crime occurred on Kelly's watch at Central Michigan. He had been hired as the Chippewas' coach before the 2004 season.

These are Kelly's comments after perjury charges were made against the players.

"A number of them were African Americans that had been in that culture of violence, and they're taught to look away," Kelly was quoted in the Free Press as saying. "You don't want anything to do with it. Get out of there. You don't say anything to anybody."

Kelly was admonished for the remarks by then-Central Michigan president Michael Rao and later apologized.

"I am appalled and offended at the obvious lack of forethought and sensitivity these remarks ... connote," Rao said in a statement at the time. "Coach Kelly expressed his deep regret to me ..."

Reached by CBSSports.com on Monday, Rao said Kelly, "was one of the best hires I ever made." Rao, now the president at Virginia Commonwealth, called the comments "obvious insensitivity" but that the coach, "like all of us, was capable of making mistakes."

"I brought him in to turn around a program that needed to be turned around," Rao said.

Kelly went 19-16 in three seasons at Central Michigan, winning a MAC title. He has Cincinnati in contention this year for its second consecutive Big East title.

Two of the Central Michigan players went to prison. Three eventually entered into plea agreements on lesser charges.

"Brian did what he could," said Doraid Butler, a Dearborn, Mich. attorney told CBSSports.com on Monday. Butler represented one of those charged, former Chip Jerry Seymour.

"You can't keep an eye on 80-something players. Brian Kelly, I'd have to say, at the end handled it the way any other coach would handle it."

Now the question is, how does Notre Dame handle it? It either didn't check deep enough into O'Leary's background in 2001 or didn't want to. What eventually surfaced was that O'Leary had padded his resume. That minor indiscretion would have passed without incident at other schools. At Notre Dame, the university was trapped by its own ethics.

Will Kelly be able to pass that scrutiny at Notre Dame? Obviously, it didn't matter to Cincinnati. Will anyone at Notre Dame care about the murder charges or Kelly's comments? Will the administration's vetting be affected by its blind pursuit of the guy?

O'Leary and Kelly made mistakes, indiscretions that could be forgiven. One paid for it with his career, missing out on the job of a lifetime. The other could be hired despite that mistake.

No matter what happens, Notre Dame has left itself vulnerable. If Kelly passes scrutiny, then he and his representatives should sock Notre Dame for $15 million over five years. Minimum. Kelly is hot enough and Notre Dame has screwed up enough in the past that he can walk away from anything less.

What leverage does Notre Dame have? The last time it went all in on a Cincinnati-based coach it hired Gerry Faust. It showed so little faith in Willingham that it broke its traditional promise and fired him after three years. It showed too much faith in Weis and is stuck with a reported $18 million buyout.

Someone is going to get rich at some point because that's what Notre Dame does and because it can't quite get this hiring thing right. Davie was hired as Holtz' successor having never been a head coach. O'Leary was damaged goods, at least in Notre Dame's eyes. Willingham actually was the "it" coach of the moment, but failed.

Weis' bluster didn't match the results. Is it still possible to contend for a national championship at Notre Dame? With the right coach, yes, but certainly not every year. Maybe once every five years. Maybe once a decade.

With that definition, Notre Dame can be Texas. Currently, its record more resembles Texas Tech.

The fact that Notre Dame isn't in a conference hurts it with the BCS. There was speculation this year that even 10-2 wouldn't be good enough for a major bowl. That's what happens when you soften your schedule.

It is not luring enough speed, especially on defense. The right coach can change all that, too.

Either way, Notre Dame is going to pay for its hiring sins of the past while deciding if Kelly is its coach of the future. The school fancies itself on a higher moral plane. But when it comes to hiring coaches you wonder which planet the administration is on.