Kelly closes one chapter of life, kick-starts a new one

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Kyle Rudolph and Craig Carey, former teammates at Elder High School in Cincinnati and good friends to this day, spoke on the phone late Thursday and then again early Friday.

Rudolph, a tight end at Notre Dame who has two years left in his collegiate career and two years to work inside new coach Brian Kelly's spread, no-huddle offense that sets quarterbacks aquiver with joy, asked Carey what it was like to play for Kelly.

Carey, a senior Bearcats linebacker who spent the final three seasons of his career playing for Kelly and then watched him leave the team banquet in downtown Cincinnati on Thursday night never to return, said it had been a pleasure to work with him.

Rudolph, whose teammates were awed by Kelly's passion during their Friday morning players meeting with their new leader, asked more questions, poked a little deeper. Carey, whose Bearcats teammates are heartbroken without their coach as they begin preparing for the Sugar Bowl, described how exciting Kelly made practices.

Rudolph felt badly for Carey, his buddy since grade school. Carey felt happy for Rudolph. The two find themselves at opposite ends of the emotion spectrum.

Kyle Rudolph and Craig Carey: one benefits from the college coaching hiring system in place. The other loses his mentor for the final game of his college career.

Brian Kelly, introduced to the Notre Dame fan base and the nation Friday afternoon, dominated the news conference. He told some jokes -- some funny, some not so much. He described a touching story about his young daughter, Gracie, who will have to leave her friends but hugged him anyway when he got the job and said, "Dad, I'm so happy for you. I know this has been your dream. I'm sad for me, but just for a little bit.'"

He proselytized. He preached. He made a great stump speech.

He's already sold many of his Fighting Irish players that the new coach is the one who will turn around a program that hasn't been great in two decades. But he also hurt deeply the players from Cincinnati who believed in him as he led them to back-to-back Big East championships and who believed in their hearts that he would stay with them.

It's not necessarily Kelly's fault (though, what other individual could you blame?), because the timeframe for coaches leaving their jobs for the other side of the pasture is inconvenient. In fact, it's almost criminal.

But the answer of "Hey, what else can I do?" and "It's the system, not me" leaves us all unsatisfied.

"I try to do everything with professionalism and integrity," Kelly said. "I told them when I made a decision to talk to Notre Dame. They were the first to know. When I made the decision, I was the first to tell them. I was the only one to tell them. Certainly they were disappointed. In an ideal situation, you want to finish what you started. But you just can't do it. I'm here at Notre Dame now."

Cincinnati receiver Mardy Gilyard didn't want to hear it. After the team banquet held at a swanky downtown Cincinnati hotel Thursday night and before he walked out the door for the final time, Kelly shepherded his players -- well, his former players -- into a meeting room to confirm to them the news that he was leaving for South Bend.

Gilyard stormed out before Kelly had a chance to finish. Defensive end Alex Daniels followed suit. Both were madder than mad.

Kelly: 'In an ideal situation, you want to finish what you started. But you just can't do it. I'm here at Notre Dame now.' (US Presswire)

"He's a business man, he's always been a business man," Gilyard told the reporters camped outside the door. "His rap sheet shows that. The game of college football is starting to shy away from the football part and is becoming big coaching contracts. That shouldn't be the way the game is played. It should be about football, but now it's about being paid."

To be fair, it's always about being paid, whether it was Sid Gillman leaving Cincinnati for the Los Angeles Rams in 1954 or Brian Kelly leaving for Notre Dame in 2009.

Yet, Notre Dame will never know how the UC players feel. The Bearcats went undefeated and missed out on a spot in the national title game by one second. They've had three of the best seasons in the 125-year history of the program, only to be discarded by the coach who made it possible. Notre Dame can't relate to that type of abandonment.

When Kelly walked into the meeting room to face his old Cincinnati squad, there must have been a sense of dread. They knew they were headed for a car crash, and they knew their brake line had been severed. Twelve hours later, when Kelly walked into the meeting room to face his new Notre Dame squad, the players barely could contain their glee. They knew they had a chance to be reborn.

"In the story, you wish he could have stayed and finished what he started there and put a cap on the great season they had," Rudolph said. "It's just not fathomable for him to stay there and do the things he needs to do here."

The other school's needs. The one whose coach left them out of necessity for the job of his dreams? For now, those needs don't matter.

Kyle Rudolph and Craig Carey: one is giddy, one is crestfallen. And there's nothing Brian Kelly can do about it.