Notre Dame’s Kelly faces uncertain future

Yahoo Sports’ Pat Forde says Kelly, whose Fighting Irish had their worst season since he took over as head coach, has reached out through his representatives to test other options.

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Adoree Jackson returned a punt and a kickoff for touchdowns and caught a scoring pass to propel No. 12 Southern California to its eighth consecutive victory, 45-27 over Notre Dame on Saturday in the 88th edition of their famed intersectional rivalry.

Kelly’s situation differs from Weis’s in that this marked Notre Dame’s first substantial step backward in game-day performance under the Kelly regime.

In three dramatic snapshots, Jackson took USC past Notre Dame Saturday and into a 9-3 regular season that would have seemed a hallucination in late September. It dates back to the 28-21 loss to Pitt in November 2013. The Irish defense had brief moments of success in this category, yet watched him break off a 51-yard scamper midway through the opening period to give USC their first touchdown.

However, Notre Dame went 4-8 this season and suffered some embarrassing losses, such as to Duke and NC State. In Week 12, Notre Dame had ACC Coastal champion Virginia Tech seemingly beaten, but squandered a 10-point lead entering the fourth quarter.

Buffalo (5-5) hosts Jacksonville (2-8) on Sunday. In a year where yet again teams with losing records will be called to bowl games and the Irish will even be left out of those considerations, the only way to look is forward. The lone exception was at North Carolina State on October 8, where the Wolfpack took a 3-0 lead en route to a 10-3 victory.

Kizer finished 17 of 32 for 220 yards with two touchdowns and an interception for the Irish. We’ve shown a propensity for self-inflicted wounds, be it special teams or offense or defense. “We just sit on the sideline and have a good time, grab some popcorn and play”. Notre Dame announced in January that it had offered a six-year contract extension to Kelly that would run through the end of the 2021 season. It’s a hard job, mostly because as Kelly himself has shown, it’s tough to achieve sustained success at Notre Dame. And without top talent, it’s hard to compete on the level most people associate with “Notre Dame”, even though they haven’t really been that program for decades. Let’s not forget Nick Saban’s assertion he was not going to be the next head coach at Alabama, then that being precisely what happened. Josh Adams’ 74-yard run set up the Fighting Irish’s first touchdown, a 1-yard plunge by quarterback DeShone Kizer for a 7-3 lead early in the first quarter.

Jackson then turned a short pass from Darnold into a 52-yard TD with his world-class sprinting speed in the third quarter. Before the first game, six players were arrested in two separate incidents the same night.

Should Kelly stick to his word and should Notre Dame stick with Kelly, there is plenty of work to be done to fix what’s broken. USC ran for more yards than it gained through the air, just the third time it has done so all season.