‘Tis the season for holiday parties and sometimes difficult guests. Brian Kelly, Notre Dame’s 11th-year football coach, put himself squarely in the latter camp with his comments ahead of Saturday’s ACC Championship Game against Clemson. Win or lose, there’s a good chance the second-ranked Fightin…
‘Tis the season for holiday parties and sometimes difficult guests. Brian Kelly, Notre Dame’s 11th-year football coach, put himself squarely in the latter camp with his comments ahead of Saturday’s ACC Championship Game against Clemson. Win or lose, there’s a good chance the second-ranked Fighting Irish will be invited to play in the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day. But would Kelly and the Irish show up? As things currently stand, the Granddaddy of Them All remains one of two national semifinal sites — New Orleans’ Sugar Bowl is the other — for this year’s College Football Playoff. There has been some informed speculation that the Rose Bowl venue could change from its traditional Pasadena home, where COVID-19 protocols and the county’s stay-at-home order would preclude spectators. From Kelly’s perspective, that’s a non-starter. At least that was his public stance on Friday when asked about the College Football Playoff and its selection committee. “Maybe they need to spend a little less time on who the top four teams are and figure out how to get parents into these games,” Kelly said on a media teleconference, “because it is an absolute shame and a sham if parents can’t be watching their kids play.
