Brian Kelly might be overrated, but get a load of this guy Lawrence Dockery from the Stingray and Tuck Show. Mr. Dockery has a bio stating he is a soccer referee and writes for TWO soccer websites, yet he is calling the head coach at Notre Dame the most overrated head coach in college football.

Let’s take a quick look at why he thinks Brian Kelly wins this award in his mind.

Dockery mocks the Notre Dame fan base and the athletic department stating they love him along with the media.

“Kelly greatest accomplishments at Notre Dame are almost accomplishing things. For some reason the fans love him, the athletic department loves him and the media loves him. This is why he’s the most overrated coach in college football.”

Deep. Informative. Factual. Mind blowing.

All of these come to mind when reading why Dockery believes Kelly is the most overrated coach in college football. I feel dumber reading it.

Later in the article, Dockery states Kelly’ record of 55-23 is “decent, but could be so much better.” I do agree it could be better, but there are some circumstances missing here. But, it’s not surprising Dockery doesn’t understand football, as the next sentence states “Kelly is not only the head coach, but also the play caller.”

Brian Kelly has publicly said he has given up calling duties in favor of associate head coach and offense coordinator Mike Denbrock. So to refresh, Kelly is overrated to Dockery because he calls plays, when in fact Kelly doesn’t call the plays.

Got. It.

The next statement states “He’s had a slew of good quarterbacks, but he can’t seem to get any of them to stick around or stop throwing interceptions.”

1. I wouldn’t necessarily agree with the statement Brian Kelly has had good quarterbacks. I would agree they have turned it over, as Dockery states Notre Dame quarterbacks have thrown 78 interceptions since 2010.

If you have followed the Kelly tenure, the quarterback position has been an interesting one, but somewhat out of his control. I wouldn’t blame Dayne Crist not living up to his potential or being injury prone totally on Kelly. Kelly can’t go inside the mind of a player and change his mentality or decide to not have Crist have a knee injury.

I would also argue that Kelly got the most out of Tommy Rees. The kid had a mentality that everyone wished Crist had. It just the lack of elite talent hurt, as Rees would have confidence in himself to make throws he couldn’t make. But apparently to Dockery, Brian Kelly was forcing Rees to throw it down seam on a consistent basis.

Also, Brian Kelly was responsible for Everett Golson getting caught cheating, dismissed from the program and university. Then Kelly decided that he wanted Golson to fumble and throw picks for 12 games. Makes sense.

Then last year, I am sure Brian Kelly approved the idea of Malik Zaire breaking his ankle in favor of a redshirt freshman named DeShone Kizer. Kizer’s interceptions had nothing to do with being a first-year player with no experience and literally learning everything on the fly against some of the best teams in the country, as that would make too much sense. I would side with Dockery is in the boat of Kelly should have prepared Kizer his freshman season and got him game reps over Golson and Zaire. Shame on you Brian Kelly.

2. If Kelly has had a “slew of good quarterbacks” but they have thrown 78 interceptions since 2010, wouldn’t that be bad quarterbacking in the first place? Seems somewhat like a contradiction, but Brian Kelly is overrated.

The next point Dockery gets to is Brian Kelly hasn’t had success in big games, which I agree with, but under a different rational. (What a shocker!)

Arizona State 2014 was brought up. Yes, that is a black mark on Kelly’s tenure. Then Dockery brings up the 49-14 loss to USC in 2014. This game was a black mark, but I am not sure what you expected heading into the game. Sure, Notre Dame could have been more competitive, but there wasn’t a head coach or team in America that would have been able to compete with what the Irish were working with on defense. I mean walk-on Austin Larking was getting playing time at linebacker, then you had Justin Utupo and Jay Hayes playing starters minutes on the defensive line. As a refresher, Utupo had not gotten minutes prior to his fifth-year of any significance and Jay Hayes was a true freshman, who was asked to burn his redshirt the last 2 games of the 2014 season.

Dockery brings up 2015. I agree that Irish could have got off to a better start, but as someone in Death Valley that night, I would highly doubt too many teams in the country starting a quarterback in his 3rd start/game would have success early. That place is all of the hype and then some when it comes to an atmosphere. The two-point conversions, sure debatable depending on what side of the “Brian Kelly fence” you’re on, but Corey Robinson should have caught the first and the second, Clemson just won the play. As a Notre Dame fan, I definitely wanted to see Notre Dame win, but I wouldn’t chalk that up as one of the road games in the Kelly era that is a black mark. Same goes for Stanford. Brian Kelly made Isaac Rochell grab the facemask of the Stanford quarterback and made the referee’s blow Kizer’s touchdown run, where Notre Dame could have ran out more time.

Dockery then gets into Kelly’s record versus other elite college coaches. I would be willing to bet most coaches are 0-1 against Nick Saban after one game. Dockery states Urban Meyer holds a 2-0 advantage over Kelly, which seems odd, as Meyer and Kelly have faced off once in their careers, which was the Fiesta Bowl in January. That’s pretty much where I stopped reading, as Dockery is making a case with inaccurate facts, as he simply doesn’t like Kelly.

No credit to Kelly for taking his team to play anyone in the country or the fact Notre Dame is one of the few programs to have road games that aren’t in their local geographic area, which has an impact on players over the course of the season. He casually mentioned the Oklahoma 2012 game in Norman, but I am sure Dockery felt the Irish should have shut the Sooners out.

However, I did catch the paragraph which states “He’s built up a cult following by almost beating good teams and pulling out miracles against bad teams (see 2015 Virginia). Well Dockery, the UVA game was somewhat of a miracle, but I would love to see how other coaches would have adapted with Zaire going down in the 2nd half and getting a kid that saw mop up snaps the week before run a two-minute drill to perfection.

Anyways, if you want to read the entire informative piece from Dockery you can read it here: College Football’s Most Overrated Coach? It’s Notre Dame’s Brian Kelly.

You might agree with him, but you might also agree with me and hope Dockery’s soccer knowledge is better than his college football knowledge.

Under Armour ND 3/4 Zip