News / Colin Cowherd

Fox Sports Joel Klatt came on Colin Cowherds "The Herd" show to talk college football and most of the discussion involved Notre Dame football coach Brian Kelly and his place in the hierarchy of college football coaches.

For the record Klatt's top 5 are:

1. Nick Saban

2. Dabo Swinney

3. Lincoln Riley

4. Ryan Day

5. Brian Kelly

Right now it's hard to argue 4 of those top 5.  I'm not sure how you can put Ohio State's Ryan Day up there yet and not include a guy like Georgia's Kirby Smart.  Day has only coached 6 games so far at Ohio State with none of them cracking the top 25.  But yeah Saban, Dabo, Lincoln and even Kelly deserve to be mentioned in the top 5.  All have their programs humming along at either peak level or a step below.

What I don't agree with is the argument that Kelly has reached the peak at Notre Dame.  Cowherd seems to insist the best Notre Dame can do is lose by 6 points to Georgia and I simply don't agree with it.  ND has the talent and the depth to hang with all the big boys in college football.  Right now they don't have the elite playmakers on offense that the other teams do.  Once they get more of those in they can compete for Nattys.  

If you watched the Notre Dame Georgia game you will have noticed the Irish were more physical than the SEC darling Dawgs.  They went toe-to-toe from start to finish and controlled the line of scrimmage from both sides.  They simply don't have the playmakers at RB or WR to move the ball effectively vs a Georgia team that has more 5-stars on their roster than any other team in the country.  But once you get those kind of playmakers in (currently they got a 5-star WR, 5-star RB, and 5-star TE committed for the 2020 class) then you can let your playmakers take over like Clemson did vs Notre Dame and Alabama last year.

Personally I think Kelly stays at Notre Dame for at least another 3 years.  He's got his machine running smoothly up there and with 10 years under his belt under the Golden Dome it's his baby.  Can Notre Dame win a Natty with Kelly at coach?  Yes.  It might not be this season but I think they are set up to win double digit wins every year and be in the contention for the playoffs too.

Now they just got to develop those playmakers once they hit campus in the spring.