Brian Kelly has established himself as one of the best coaches in college football. It’s been that way for a long time. What he’s done for the University of Notre Dame cannot and should not be ignored. He got them to a national championship game in 2012. Now he has a chance to do so again with the Irish having a good chance to be chosen for the college football playoffs.
There’s just one problem. Some of the sites the NCAA are expected to use for the playoff games, specifically the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, is in a “spectator-free” zone. Meaning nobody will be allowed to attend the games. Not regular fans, not friends, and not even family. That last part seems to have riled up Kelly.
The coach made a profound statement on it according to ESPN.
He stated that Notre Dame would seriously consider boycotting their playoff game if selected if the NCAA wouldn’t allow the parents of the football players to attend.
“I’m not sure we’ll play in the playoffs if the parents can’t be there. Why would we play if you can’t have families at the game? If you can’t have families at bowl games, why would you go to a game where your families can’t be part of it? What’s the sense of playing a game in an area of the country where nobody can be part of it?
Maybe they [CFP] need to spend a little less time on who the top four teams are and figure out how to get parents into these games because it is an absolute shame and a sham if parents can’t be watching their kids play.”
Kelly is making this stance in defense of the student-athlete. He thinks it’s quite easy for the league to shift the playoff game to a location that would allow a limited amount of fans in attendance. Are they really so dead set on holding it at a prestigious location just for a ratings bump, costing these young men a chance to play a huge game in front of their loved ones?
Notre Dame needs to actually reach the playoffs first
It’s understandable where Kelly is coming from. He knows how hard his players have worked to get to this point. Not being able to bear the fruits of their labor in front of their biggest supporters would be a massive disappointment. Making a statement like this is not something most head coaches would do. At any level. Shots at a national championship don’t come around often.
That being said, Notre Dame isn’t exactly a lock to make it. They still have the ACC Championship game to play. This against a Clemson team that will be at full strength this time around. The Irish had beaten them earlier in the year. Trevor Lawrence, the likely #1 pick in the 2021 draft, is expected to play. So that presents an entirely new challenge for this team.
Losing this game would make any boycott threat irrelevant.
It’ll be interesting to see if the NCAA takes his threat seriously. The league isn’t exactly known for making rapid adjustments to appease their coaches. Odds are they’ll call his bluff. Kelly is a head-strong guy so he just might follow through on it. That is unless his players were to convince him that competing for a championship is more important than whether parents watch them in the stadium or at home.
