In Kelly, Notre Dame got the right man to revive program

Let's see now, Cincinnati football players say Brian Kelly lied to them.

Oh my.

Kelly abandoned the Bearcats before their bowl game to begin working at Notre Dame.

Really.

The Fighting Irish's new head coach reportedly made inappropriate remarks while coaching at Central Michigan.

Hmmm.

My only response to all that is -- Viva Notre Dame!

Judging by Kelly's past and his introductory news conference in South Bend, this sounds like a solid hire that could evolve into terrific.

Enough of fooling around with former NFL coordinators, career college assistants, high-school coaches and guys too honest to be deceptive.

Notre Dame might have now what every college program needs to win big -- a professional college head coach with tricks ranging between polished and slick.

To be successful today a college coach has to be able to con players into sweating, fans into forgiving, administrators into admissions concessions, recruits into believing in the football fairy, boosters into paying big bucks for banquet chicken and the NCAA into looking the other way.

Perhaps politics is the only occupation more reliant on misdirection, so maybe Kelly being the son of a Boston politician is no coincidence.

Sorry, but to me it's just so difficult to survive in this sport without a healthy dose of unhealthy foolery and flim-flammery.

Lou Holtz, the King of Con, was the last Notre Dame head coach capable of waking up the echoes. Now, in all seriousness, would any of you have trusted him with your wallet or for that matter with Tiger Woods' secrets?

Kelly allegedly left Cincinnati after telling players he was staying. Sure seems like something Holtz would have done while job climbing.

Few cared back in the 1980s because Holtz won Notre Dame a national championship. He could have said the Vatican was relocating to Mishawaka and the faithful would have started buying up property there.

Maybe Kelly is the next Holtz that ND needs to rejoin college football's elite.

This is not to say that Holtz' method was wrong or that Kelly's was when he did whatever he did at and to Cincinnati last week.

It pretty much is what's required to advance in college football these days. For Kelly, the Bearcats merely were on the way to his dream job, and then in the way, and the ambitious in this sport often must step on and over people.

What was Kelly supposed to do, anyway?

If he told the Bearcats the truth before last week's game against Pitt for the Big East title, they might have been too distracted to win.

If Kelly told Notre Dame he couldn't arrive until after Cincinnati's bowl game, the Irish might have moved on to a more available candidate.

So Kelly did what was best for him rather than for the Bearcats, which is customary in the college football's coach/player equation.

This is a ruthless business in a ruthless world. The best that Cincinnati's players can do is use the episode as a life lesson.

Meanwhile, Brian Kelly sure looks like the right guy to make the Irish play like champions again in this sport.