BearcatReport.com - Offensive genius or mad scientist?

September 9, 2009

Scott Springer
BearcatReport.com Staff Writer

Usually on a Wednesday, college football coaches have their "game faces" on for their Saturday tilt. But, if you're Brian Kelly, and you've just triumphed over a Rutgers team on Monday that most so-called analysts picked to beat you, you've still got some rehash to do. People are naturally curious. Many, including media, wonder how he does it.

The track record speaks for itself. In 19 years as a head coach, he's had exactly one losing season. That was in 2004 in his first season rebuilding Central Michigan (a team he eventually led to a MAC championship two seasons later). Beyond that, Brian Kelly wins and does it his way.

Counting Grand Valley State, Central Michigan and UC, Kelly's won seven league championships. He went to the NCAA playoffs six times with Grand Valley and won two Division II national championships. He's had five seasons in double-digit wins, led two teams to bowl games and coached in three bowl games (all at UC-International, Papajohns.com and Orange). With the holiday shellacking of Rutgers he's 160-57-2.

Oh yeah, he's been featured on a number of bobbleheads,too. (First 5,000 into Saturday's game at Nippert vs. Southeast Missouri State will receive a Brian Kelly bobblehead.)

"This is my third bobblehead," said Kelly in his self-deprecating way. "The problem we're having is that the bobbleheads are getting wider and wider. You'd hope they'd get larger, but they're getting wider and that's not a good thing. I wasn't exactly on board with the way it came out, so in future references, I think I probably would pose for my bobblehead."

Don't let Kelly's dismay over his bobblehead fool you, he's a very proud and very confident man now. He never wavered in his opinion of what his offense could do and seems relatively unfazed that his team lit Rutgers up like a Christmas Tree on Labor Day. It's particularly pleasing that his squad performed their magic successfully on the road.

"We had 26 first-time travelers," Kelly detailed. "26 that had never traveled before, they didn't know where the buses were. They didn't know at the hotel that you pick up the key. It was new and our seniors and our veterans did a great job of making it seamless. I mean, we were here early, on time for everything. The biggest thing you have as a football coach is how your team's going to handle themselves when they go on the road."

Kelly was so concerned with the travel procedure and his newer players that he actually called a rare, Friday team meeting.

"I told them, 'I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, but you're doing all of the little things right,' and they were disciplined Saturday because they'd been disciplined all the way up to it," Kelly said.

The team's focus and discipline has caught Kelly's eye going back to the beginning of preseason work. Where once there may have been some confusion and adaptation to Kelly's methods, this team clearly is on the same page. That said, they still are college students.

"We still like to touch the stove sometimes when it's hot," said Kelly. "It's a work in progress. The bottom line is our guys are doing the little things right to be successful and we need to keep duplicating that week after week."

Duplication of the Rutgers game each week would be good in a lot of areas. Racking up 47 on a Big East team is nothing to sneeze at. Especially when Kelly pretty much pulled back the offense in the fourth quarter. While many of us have seen how this staff operates offense, the more Brian Kelly's 'Cats are featured on ESPN, the bigger his legend becomes of being the proverbial "offensive genius".

Strangely enough, Kelly's offensive prowess came out of necessity as he came from a defensive mentality.

"When I became a head coach at 28-years-old, my entire background was on defense," said Kelly. "I felt to be an effective head coach, I needed to study and learn and have my own style relative to offense. I didn't have a chance to study under great coaches that had great offensive systems. I really had to create my own style of offense. I don't consider myself a "guru". I think what's unique is, everything that I've put together is based on 19 years of being a head coach, not an offensive coordinator."

Kelly's philosophy is simple. While most defensive-oriented coaches are conservative, he surely is not . On the other hand, he doesn't see himself as a "riverboat gamble" either. He believes in assembling an offense that works based on the personnel.

And, then there's one more important item....

"That you don't have an ego that you have to throw it and score and have big yardage or run it and have great yards," said Kelly. "You want to win."

While some may disagree about Kelly and the ego, there's no debate that he's playing to win. One of the more reassuring things of the Rutgers game (for those of us that have seen teams sit on the ball with lesser leads) was to see Tony Pike come back out in the third quarter and throw the ball with a 31-7 lead.

Some offenses have names, "West Coast offense", "run and shoot", "shotgun/pistol". "pro style", "spread", "full house". Others come from disciples of Bill Walsh, Sid Gillman, Mouse Davis, Don Coryell, Woody Hayes, etc. Kelly's comes from necessity.

"The offense that you see today is really a combination of a lot of different things," said Kelly. "Figuring out as a head coach how to win, as well as taking schemes and so forth that I thought would fit the personnel that I had."

Having consistency in the coaching staff is also a big help. Offensive Line/Coordinator Jeff Quinn was actually at Grand Valley State pre-Brian Kelly, while QB coach Greg Forest has been with Kelly for most of his run as a head coach.

"That's how you get it done," Kelly agreed. "(Also) Charley Molnar's been with me through Central (Michigan) and had that time with me, so we're all on the same page in terms of what we're looking to achieve on a day-to-day basis. We've got a library of information, of what we want to run. I tell them, 'Listen, I want you to go to this chapter in this book,' and they can get to it and know exactly what I'm looking for. To have those guys with me for 18-19 years now is a great advantage."

Included in those chapters of offense, might be some paper napkins or other materials one can write on. Kelly openly admitted in his Wednesday press conference that he's scribbled plays wherever and whenever he can.

"Yeah, I sure do," he said. "I've got a notebook at home where I'm just doodling. Some people pick up a book and read a little bit, you know, do things around the house. I'm not very handy. I've got a guy who cuts my lawn and somebody's got to fix my sink, I can't even do that. But, I've got a notebook where I just doodle and sometimes that stuff sticks. Other times, I'll come in the office and the guys will look at me and go, 'Are your crazy?' I go, 'Of course I am, let's put it in.'"

While past offense here have been borderline predictable, that's the part of Brian Kelly that fans seem to enjoy. They still run the ball effectively, but when was the last time you saw a major college football game where the offense lined up with five wideouts?

"I'd done it before, but not here," said Kelly. "We did it at Central, did it at Grand Valley in the third year. It usually takes a couple of years to get the tempo to the level that you need. We've increased the tempo each year that we've been here in terms of how fast we want to play."

So, is this the fastest he's ever played?

"We're close, we haven't gotten everything put into the level that we need to," said Kelly. "We've got to be able to answer some other things the defenses are going to do. That is, we're going to get a lot more "drop eight-three-man rush-make Tony Pike run the ball" when you go "no back". So, you've got to have some answers there as well. There's a lot more for us to progress and work towards."

While this all sounds like "basketball on grass", as one former coach used to put it, Brian Kelly wants everyone to know that he's not against running the ball. If he had to play another style, he would.

"Depends on the circumstances of the game," said Kelly. "If it's about winning and eating up clock, I'd be happy to run two backs, two tight ends and a flanker to win a game. I've always played the game to win the game on offense, not to have nice stats and big numbers. I was always the head coach, I wasn't the offensive coordinator, and it was about winning. If I was going to keep my job, I needed to win. I was not afraid-if I had to play that style to win, we would play that style to win."

Kelly's not beyond seeking help and advice for his offense either. As many noticed with the "Wildcat/Bearcat" formation ran successfully at Rutgers for QB/TE/QB? Travis Kelce, it looked very "Tebo-esque". That's no coincidence as Coach Kelly and staff traded notes with Gators coach (and former Bearcat) Urban Meyer. So, those red zone plays come with a twinge of "orange and blue".

"We did some studying that that formation was going to be part of our offense (but) we didn't know who those pieces were going to be," said Kelly. "I spent some time with Urban Meyer from Florida and we exchanged some things. We gave him two or three things that he thinks is helping his football team and he gave us a couple things that we thought would help our football team. We didn't know who the personnel was going to be in that (formation) that was ever changing. We knew we wanted Mardy (Gilyard) in there because obviously him coming out of the backfield creates some issues that you don't normally see."

That's pretty much the Brian Kelly way. Create what you don't normally see. In more ways than one (and as I said earlier in the article) the track record speaks for itself.

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