The chaos of the offseason reached South Bend today, as Notre Dame and offensive coordinator Chip Long mutually agreed to part ways. First reported by Football Scoop and confirmed by South Bend Tribune’s Eric Hansen and a host of other beat writers, Long was Brian Kelly’s offensive coordinator for the past three seasons.
Long arrived from Memphis and provided a jolt of energy in 2017, riding Josh Adams, Brandon Wimbush, and a Joe Moore Award-winning offensive line to historical rushing totals. The Irish set program records that year in rushing yards (3,503), yards per carry (6.3), and single-game rushing yards (515 yards against Boston College).
In 2018 the Irish offense took a step back in most major offensive categories, but Long navigated a midseason overhaul of the offense as Ian Book took the starting QB role from Brandon Wimbush with an entirely different skill set. This regular season may have been the most disappointing for Long, as the Notre Dame offense again didn’t improve as expected in Book’s second season starting. But despite this offensive inconsistency, the Irish averaged 37.1 points per game, highest of the Brian Kelly era.
How good was Chip Long anyway?
In Long’s three seasons, the Irish ranked between 19th and 33rd nationally in Offensive SP+. While the Irish weren’t elite, performance and playcalling as a whole felt strong relative to Notre Dame’s talent level. While the offense underperformed expectations in 2019, the decision to part ways feels like a combination of fit, timing, and different visions as opposed to strictly performance-related. Few programs make coordinator changes that aren’t promotion-related after three straight ten-win seasons. This feels a little like Ed Oregeron deciding to part ways with offensive coordinator Matt Canada in 2017, although that marriage lasted just one year.
While Notre Dame’s points per game have increased in the Long era, a good bit is the result of an increased offensive pace. The Kelly era before 2017 was characterized in part by moving at a glacial pace, and one of Long’s biggest changes in 2017 was to truly utilize hurry-up no-huddle. But despite significant changes and enjoying the most autonomy in play calling and offensive scheme, Long’s seasons don’t stand out much from other Brian Kelly offenses.
The biggest shortcoming of Long’s offenses in my mind was his inability to elevate Notre Dame’s offense in big games. Against more talented opposing defenses it rarely felt like Long was able to bring much of a strategic advantage. In the Irish’s six losses with Long as coordinator – and it’s a testament to his success that they only had six – the team averaged 13.5 points per game and 4.2 yards per play.
Still, Long’s offensive acumen has been well-respected by coaches and opponents, including meeting with Nick Saban last offseason. At many points, like the dagger throwback touchdown to Alize Mack last fall against Stanford, Long showed a combination of a strong feel for the game and deft playcalling. He’s been a strong coordinator but not one that could make a program-elevating impact with good but not great offensive talent. 2019 seems like a microcosm of Long’s three years in its inability for things to come together at the same time.
Book was inconsistent, particularly in the first half of the year, as Cole Kmet and Jafar Armstrong missed time. As they returned Chris Finke battled injuries and didn’t offer the offensive threat he was counted on to provide, then Michael Young transferred. The run game flashed dominance against USC then no-showed against Michigan and Virginia Tech. Down the stretch as Book improved Tony Jones Jr. was banged up, the right side of the offensive line went out.
In the same way Notre Dame’s talented in offensive position groups seemed to ebb in flow in Long’s three seasons. In 2017 the offensive line and running backs were excellent, but Brandon Wimbush’s limitations as a passer eventually caught up with Notre Dame in key games. Then when the torch was passed to Ian Book it was with an offensive line that struggled to run efficiently and prevent negative plays. If Equanimeous St. Brown or Miles Boykin stay an extra year maybe it gives the offense of the past two seasons the added playmaker needed to come through more in bigger games.
What’s next for Long and Notre Dame?
The coaching carousel has spun quickly this winter, with several offensive coordinator roles already filling up. Long’s old boss Mike Norvell picked a different former coordinator, Auburn’s Kenny Dillingham, to join him in Tallahassee. Auburn hired former SMU coach and Clemson OC Chad Morris, and Texas and Oregon are likely to focus elsewhere.
Long made every initial list of top candidates to replace Norvell as head coach of Memphis, but there’s been surprisingly little buzz connecting him to that role compared to internal candidate Ryan Silverfield and former Memphis DC and Mizzou coach Barry Odom. That search may be moving more slowly, but if Long doesn’t land that promotion he may need to set his sights a little lower to OC jobs like Arkansas or even a return to his previous role in Memphis.
Letting go of a solid offensive coordinator like Long is a gamble for Brian Kelly. Many fans won’t lose sleep over his departure, but offensive minds are at a premium now more than ever across the FBS and NFL levels. Insiders expect internal candidates, namely Tommy Rees and Lance Taylor, to be the favorites to replace Long. The relative inexperience of both makes the idea of co-offensive coordinators a very real possibility as well as some shuffling to figure out the right new coach to bring in to coach tight ends or another position group.
It’ll be interesting to see the off-season news as far as what the heck happened in the middle of this season. Was there more to Michael Young leaving and what (if anything) was Long’s involvement? When Kelly said they had to “coach better” and then talked of practice changes was that an indictment on Long? Did Kelly get more hands on leading to Book playing better and a belief that a Kelly-Rees-Taylor brain trust would be better than the Kelly-Long connection? Was the Kelly-Long dynamic too type A in personality to work?
Lots of questions right now.
I thought Long was OK, mixed legacy he leaves behind. I’m open minded enough to consider that the offense could operate at closer to 2015 levels with Kelly the undisputed leader again and the underlings supporting. Maybe morph the “BK 2.0” from the overall CEO role into a 3.0 version back to focusing on the offense and make Lea the associate head coach with about full autonomy on the defensive side of the ball. Not sure if they’ll go there but it makes sense in my mind at least to perhaps be productive to have BK calling the plays again
Sounds like it’s as much about Long’s relationships within the program as it is on-field performance.
It sounds like all of the beat reporters are unsurprised by this, and know more than they’re letting on. Chip being a “hard ass,” relationships with coaches and quarterbacks abrasive…it seems to have been an issue.
Aye, to continue my comparison from above it feels like Long was a little too much of a “Kelly 1.0”, the prickly bad cop and that wasn’t helping. Which makes logical a more calm personality like Rees or Taylor would mesh better with the HC and help the offense. Either way for better and worse we all know the range, strengths and weaknesses of a BK offense though. Short of Kelly pulling a Coach O and being willing to go way bold on switching things up it probably is what it’s going to be.
I do hope/expect, as I said in the other article, that reports will come out that Kelly was more hands on or made a change post-Michigan that helped Book and that’s what they’re banking on carrying forward next season as far as the last month went and that they thought it would be better next year without Long. To what degree that’s true, spin or complete wishful thinking I suppose will be left to our imaginations until September
I’m guessing that Long basically got sidelined after the Michigan debacle. Based on the noise, it didn’t seem like he was meshing with what the offense needed to so.
The note I’m reading about this it looks like something dramatic happened prior to the Michigan game. Young quit and the team didn’t even show up for that game. Now, Kelly announces that Long is leaving the program.
Pie speculation on my part, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s how it went down.
Very mixed feelings about this. I will say the 37.1 average this year was super deceiving. 3 fumble returns for a touchdown, a pick 6, the Stanford blocked punt, Georgia fumble and MTA fumble return all gifted touchdowns as well. Felt like on the whole they disappointed this year. Personally thought it was more of a talent issue, but all the false starts and general inconsistency was maddening
The case against Tommy Rees, Offensive Coordinator is pretty straightforward:
(1) there’s not much external evidence he was a particularly good QB coach;
(2) he has spent eight of the last ten years as a subordinate to Brian Kelly. He does not represent new thinking, at all, and the three coordinator hires that represent new thinking post-2016 seemed to pay off well.
The (apparent) case for Tommy Rees is, uh, his dad’s a coach, and he made the most of his talent as a QB.
On its face, the Against way outweighs the Pro. If he’s it, I hope it’s more than just BK’s comfort level that leads to his hiring, but whatever it is is not readily apparent.
That said, there is a separate rumor that it might be Mike Denbrock, who would probably be the worst possible plausible hire, so I guess yay Tommy Rees?
I don’t think we really have an idea if he’s a good QB coach or not. What Book was able to do last year was really impressive. This year wasn’t the improvement we hoped to see but it’s impossible for us to know how much Rees is influencing that or not. When Matt LaFleur was our QB coach it’s not like we were like wow, he’s killing it yet his rise to NFL OC then HC has been impressive.
The closeness to BK to me is a double-edged sword. No one walking this earth knows better than Kelly what Rees is capable of, and as fans we don’t know much if at all what Tommy would like to do differently than BK, any other outside influences, etc. On the surface he seems like the same thinking and doubling down on BK’s offensive vision, but we don’t know that to be true and I don’t think BK frankly cares.
Young offensive minds that are good seem like they are identified and elevated quickly these days, so I don’t think it’s insane. BK is also probably biased and I agree having external perspective would be great, so I’m hopeful there could be a veteran brought in as the new offensive assistant and potential co-OC.
Good riddance.
Long always had one or two brilliant playcalls per game, but other than that things seemed like a struggle. I don’t know what the advanced stats say about this season, but it’s felt like an explosive but very inefficient offense. A lot of unsuccessful running plays, short pass plays that didn’t work, and passes turning into scrambles, all of which eventually get bailed out by growing it up to Claypool. That’s not even getting into ND’s absolute no show on offense in the biggest games during his tenure. Sure, he can produce som offense against G5 teams, but if we want to compete against good programs, Long’s AAC garbage isn’t going to cut it.
Thoughts on Rees reportedly becoming the favorite for OC:
My initial reaction is basically the Chrissy Teigen GIF. It’s just about the most controversial decision you could make which is going to artificially raise the bar for success when…..realistically…the talent on hand probably doesn’t have a ton of room for growth. It’s going to magnify any struggles in a way I’m not sure we’ve seen in the Kelly era.
Is Rees ready for this? None of us really know. I know that if it ultimately doesn’t work most of the blame will fall on Kelly and his decision but at the same time even the ones who are pro-Tommy in general should realize this could turn dark for the former QB.
The lack of fresh blood or the idea that the scheme will be altered a little bit with a new OC at least sounds promising. Selfishly for our site, at least it would be more worth diving into as we approach next season. Bringing Rees in as the OC I’m not sure what we’re supposed to say?
One thing would be that all signs point to less running, perhaps a lot less running? How much emphasis would Rees put on the option read? RPO? He was rumored to be calling plays or the passing game coordinator for the last 4 games which featured 125 pass attempts, 56 rushing attempts from non-running backs, and 98 rushing attempts from tailbacks. What’s this balance look like next year? Will we see the QB bringing back all of the last-second checks at the line that Rees was so known for?
A couple positives to think about:
If Kelly were to make this move you have to believe that they believe Rees really is an up and coming superstar in the profession. I know the extreme skeptics will say it’s just a lazy crony hire for the sake of being subordinate to Kelly but I do think if this trigger is pulled you have to think they truly believe in Rees’ abilities.
Also, you have to assume Rees would be taking this job knowing Ian Book is coming back and that the fit, relationship, and development for 2020 is going to be enhanced. That would be good news.
I do wish someone else more ‘flashy’ or interesting were hired but experience tells us hiring assistants quite often is a crap shoot and we are constantly wrong about things.
The more I think about this hire and the timing I do see some parallels to BVG post 2015. On the surface things look good offensively, one could argue another year in the system and we’ll continue to use to see more growth. Or the offense could stagnate and hold this team back from making a jump next year. The offense was the outlier in the playoffs last year. And when you compare our offensive performance to the playoff teams this year, it is nowhere near good enough.
Nd vs Michigan compared to Ohio state va Michigan. Not even close
Nd vs Virginia compared to Clemson vs Virginia. Maybe worse, we scored 35 but the offense really score 21. Clemson scores at will
Nd vs Georgia compared to LSU vs Georgia. Well you get the idea. Was that talent or scheme or coaching? Probably all of them but clearly this offense is not close to on par with playoff offenses so I understand the change and respect kelly for being willing to make it. Ironically the same crowd that complains ND is satisfied with 8 wins a year then 10 wins a year is the same crowd complaining players are too soft today, etc.
Now Rees as the hire?? That’s a different story. Eric seems to do a good job summarizing those thoughts, but I get and respect the separation from long
I get and respect the separation from Long, but only if there’s a better alternative. If they went hard after two or three top external choices and then had to settle on Rees, that would be disappointing. If they just go to Rees by default, that represents something else altogether, which I would say is 1) a lack of desire to be the best, or 2) Kelly being unwilling to truly change the offense and bring in someone with different ideas to his.
It’s a gamble but I don’t think anyone will have grounds to be disappointed if it’s Rees because it’s all fan projection. I think a lot of us are biased by either personally liking Tommy for what he gave to the program despite his limitations or against him he wasn’t a great QB. If Tommy is the genuine article who would know better than BK? There has to be a willingness to consider that Tommy might actually be really really good at this along with the possibility he’s not bringing much new to the table to BK’s offense and that we won’t really know until the games are played.
Well, let’s not give BK too much credit for being an evaluator of coaching potential. For somebody with as long a track-record as Kelly has in the sport, his coaching tree is pathetic.
Is having a coaching tree really important though? He’s gotten a bunch of jobs FBS HC jobs that wanted them. Ideally they would have killed it there but I see his job more as ensuring they ensure team success while under BK and that he can get them those jobs. Kelly’s ability to groom them for that next HC role if it’s not succeeding him feels way down the list of things to care about.
To that point. He isn’t even trying to hire people based on whether or not they would eventually be a HC at all. He is only evaluating these coaches on whether they would be good coordinators under him.
It is his job as their boss to try to get them HC jobs if that is their goal, but that’s not related to his hiring or evaluating.
Look at Bill Belichick’s coaching tree…they’ve all failed elsewhere. He’s still a great coach. Obviously not putting brian and bill on the sams plane. Just saying you don’t need a tree to prove you’re good.
Bob Davie’s coaching tree is stacked! Bring back Bob!
Who cares about the coaching tree. Such a completely overrated consideration. Btw, I don’t notice anyone ever giving Kelly credit for promoting Lea to DC and recognizing that he had the ability to make that leap when Elko left. If there’s a recent situation that might parallel a theoretical Rees promotion, it’s Clark Lea. The introduction of BVG is such a red herring here, and a rather tortured one at that.
BVG is the albatross that will (rightly) never leave Kelly’s neck. It was a terrible hire that wasted probably the most talented ND roster of the decade in 2015. Retaining him into 2016 was absolutely a fireable offense.
If this (Rees) fails it will follow Kelly as much as his BVG hire always will. With Book back this offense should be very good. (I’m counting on a couple young WRs stepping up.) If he does this, I have to think Kelly has great confidence in Rees. Will Kelly look to hire an experienced OL/TE coach to fill the void. Someone to help Quinn if he stays might be a good hire.
That run to pass ratio, in the last 4 games seems ok. (154-125) It’s a lot of non RB runs but, doesn’t that fall on the quality of the RBs more than anything? ND scored 175 pts in those 4 games. Yes, some of those points were gifts for sure. None the less, that’s 43 pts per game.
It’s not like Notre Dame had either good running backs OR a good offensive line the last 4 games, so I agree no point emphasizing the run. If Rees was truly in an expanded role the final few weeks, that’s a plus. That’s the best and most confident Book played all season.
This take is good.
Also, Long’s penchant for mock turtlenecks will always be hilarious to me. Especially wearing them with short sleeves.
That’s from August 2018 and he’s wearing a mock turtleneck under a polo shirt under a short-sleeve quarter zip. What kind of maniac does this???
I’m sure this is just because I’m fashion deficient, but I was unaware that short-sleeved mock turtlenecks existed until now.
He must be cutting the sleeves.
Are we certain it’s a shirt at all? Maybe the Under Armour deal has gotten so ingrained into ND that they are making priest collars.
Regardless, good pickup. This is pure insanity.
cutting the sleeves off Mike Brey’s early century mock TNs?
I can’t get past the short sleeve quarter zip!?!…!
Yep, that is some Steve-Bannon-level insanity.
Lot of people were pissed about internally promoting Clark Lea and that has worked out pretty well. If Kelly thinks Rees is the best guy for the job, I’m not going to be mad at all. Other coaches have had plenty of success promoting internally. This is a “who cares” decision to me, because it’s not like Kelly has had a 100% success rate hiring externally.
There may be some revisionism at play, since he’s been good, but I don’t remember many people having a problem with Lea getting the job. I recall him being viewed as the safest bet to continue the progress Elko made, and he had already gotten rave reviews for his work with the LBs. Perhaps there was some ‘let’s go get someone else’ momentum, but I certainly hoped Lea would get the job after Elko left.
Yeah, looks like you’re actually right, at least based on the comments to the 18Stripes article about the hire. I must have been thinking about the Jeff Quinn situation, which was the one where people were more annoyed.
Do people think Lea’s success might be giving TFR a leg up?
I’ve seen him run. He ain’t got a leg up.
Are you the cop who chased him down???????
That was funny too.
That was funny.
It was still a big leap of faith at the time, and Kelly had a good sense that Lea was cut out for a coordinator-level job based on his performance as a position coach. I don’t know why the situation with Rees couldn’t play out in precisely the same manner.
The folks who have a stick up their asses about “crony hires” should actually take a look at the makeup of some other coaching staffs across the country. Kelly brings in as many outsiders as any other program that we might want to emulate.
Yeah, I felt the overall was “OK he did pretty good as a position coach, but he’s young and getting a full DC step up is a bit of an unknown”.
Which is a mirror for Rees a bit. And like the Notre Dame defense in 2018, the ND offense in 2020 has a lot of seniors in key spots, 5th year QB, etc. Set up really for success at least in year one.
Rees may make an excellent OC, but I would prefer he cut his teeth elsewhere. When the rumors first started coming out, I had hoped we would be able to go for Chad Morris. Perhaps that is a bridge too far, and he is now off the board anyway.
At the end of the day, this is Kelly’s offense and the OC is merely the play caller, although that is more than a ‘merely’. Perhaps Rees was calling the plays in those games.
None of the internal candidates, Rees, Taylor, Quinn excite me. Quinn would utterly destroy the fan base, the ranting on NDNation would turn up so loud it would make 11 seem quiet. With Rees, it would be resignation would the ranting would probably stop at 11.
I would tend to choose Taylor for that reason.
All that said, I would suggest a bold move would be to bring back Tony Alford as OC/TE coach. He is sitting as Assistant HC- Offense at tOSU. He has been at ND. He just got passed over again for his dream job at Colorado State for Steve Addazio! Yeah, mediocrity! I grant you that his title is probably more administrative and he is not likely the play caller, kind of like Mike Elston. He needs to take that step. He is a great recruiter, there is an element of continuity, we were all upset when he left ND, and he brings some fresh perspective from about as successful a program as you can get.
I believe Alford borderline burned bridges or at least didn’t leave a pleasant memory on his way out the door when he left the ND staff. Doesn’t sound like from a personal/personality standpoint that coming back to ND (especially in the Swarbrick/Kelly era) is going to be on the table.
An external hire would be more exciting, no doubt about it. I’m not really sure Kelly’s appetite for it, like you said he’s always pretty hands on with his QB/offense as it is. Getting someone to augment that who knows him, his system might be the best way to get 2015 results. A huge overhaul into a spread, vertical Lincoln Riley offense probably isn’t in the cards.
I dont necessarily want a huge overhaul, but we will actually have the receviers next year to make it possible. Lenzy and Keys are fast. Assuming Austin returns and the FR are as good as advertised, we will be able to get up the field.
That said, I would like an different perspective and new ideas on fixing problems. They know the issues along the line and with Book, and they stayed in place throughout the year.
If Alford burned bridges so be it. I don’t know enough about assistants to know who would be a good hire. I just don’t think Rees has the experience to do it. I think he is still learning how to be a QB coach. Adding OC seems like a stretch.
I’ve heard the same re: Alford
Thinking of it more (weird how the mind works) I recall the Notre Dame people were perturbed as well by some of Alford’s anti-ND comments on the recruiting trail that went over and beyond the scope of necessary. Brendan or Tyler or one of the other writers may remember the specifics more, but I remember it was something seen as conduct unbecoming by Alford that’s left him in not-good-graces any longer.
That’s a shame because he would be a kick ass OC, to me for Notre Dame. He could actually get good RBs to come to South Bend too.
I think you’re mixing him up with Kerry Cooks. Alford is a serious recruiter and I’m sure he used his knowledge of ND to point out the negatives, but I don’t remember any rumors that he was over the top. Cooks is a very different story.
Ahh, gotcha. Yeah that’s probably on me.
I see Rees as very much in the same vein as Kellen Moore, who has had great success as a very young first time OC this year with the Cowboys.
A real gym rat. Scrappy.
No one with half a brain cares about what’s discussed on ND Nation.
Is Rees a good recruiter? That is really all I care about. We have had tons of OCs, and outside of 2015, the O has always been ranked about 20-25. I think BK will continue to manage that, unless we get a wunderkind (maybe it is Rees).
My thought: Mike Sanford. After WKU, he is now OC at Utah St. He was a great recruiter right? And he OCed our best years (granted the OL and RB talent was incredible). He is also familiar for Kelly, so not like he would risk personality conflicts for his final few years of coaching.
Rees gets a lot of love for the work he did with Buchner, who is the next one (as all the elite HS junior quarterbacks always are).
Sanford would be intriguing to see what he’s learned along the way.
Well, according to the 247 recruiting rankings Long was ND’s best recruiter at #8…Rees is #140. However, those rankings stress quantity over quality. Long’s average player rating was 91.31 while Rees boasts a far superior 94.53 average. In player rankings that translates to Rees 3 recruits averaging top 120 and Long’s 8 recruits averaging top 240.
However 247 doesn’t make it easy to see which recruits are credited to which assistant coach and i’m not doing that much legwork.
Rees was key with Buchner, Jordan Johnson, and Rylie Mills, just to name a couple. He tends to be involved in QBs and Midwest kids. He’s good, relates to the kids well and they seem to like him.
Why on earth would anyone want to bring back one of the coaches whose fingerprints were all over the 2016 disaster? Hard pass.
The 2016 disaster where we had the 18th best offense per SP+, our 2nd best ranking under BK? Numbers that are in this article.
BVG was an awful hire. But that caused 2016 and Kelly and the team’s reformation and rise since. My understanding is that Swarbrick was in on making that happen, at least strongly encouraging Kelly to make the changes he did. So i hope that if it really is to be Rees, that its because they both see some There there, and not because Kelly is relapsing into bad hires and Swarbrick is just watching him do it.
I interpret letting Long go as a sign that Kelly has learned his lesson from BVG. He hesitated to fire BVG and it materially hurt the program. Now he’s seen issues popping up with Long, and instead of letting it fester he’s taken his lessons learned from the BVG experience and made this personnel change sooner rather than later.
Agreed. Underappreciated element of this story: Kelly actually is cut from the same cloth as Long. They’re both “old school” guys, and if Kelly was really stuck on doing it his way he would’ve kept Long around and told everyone else to, ahem, get used to it.
But Kelly went through a necessary reinvention after 2016 to make himself more new school, and it apparently wasn’t something Chip could it wanted to pull off.
Any recruiting ramifications for Long? We’ve got some pretty important offensive players coming in. Couldn’t we have waited until after the early signing period????
Ok, since my comment above i found an easier way to see which assistant was the primary recruiter for each player. Long is the primary for Tyree and Mayer…but those two seem solidly Irish. He’s also the primary on Bauman and Watts. He’s also the secondary recruiter on Baker, Pyne, Brunelle, and Peitsch. If you exclude Peitsch his average goes up to .9293 still 47 spots below Rees’ average. However, being OC meant that Long was involved in a lot more players than Rees was so there’s apples, oranges, and some rutabagas in this comparison, i think.
Rutabagas be killin’ it.
Good info. So he’s certainly a mild+ recruiter, but probably not a loss that will hurt, as long as the new coach on staff is a go getter on trail.
i just looked at the chart again and realized just how bad the 2016 defense was. 2nd highest SP+ rating and ranking in the Kelly era
and solid YPP.
Every time I see a goatee I realize how bad the 2016 defense was. I can no longer look at my senior photos (a regrettable time in my life as far as facial hairs decisions went).
Coaches a very important. Players are even more important. I notice that Ohio State has 3 players in the top 6 final Heisman voting. All 4 of the playoff teams have at least 1 in the top 10.
When was the last legit Heisman contender we had? I’m thinking Rocket?
Maybe we’ve topped out, given the level of talent ND can realistically land.
Manti & Quinn ? But your point is noted. It’s quite obvious an uptick in talent is still needed.
2012 Te’o 2nd
2009 Tate 10th
2006 Quinn 3rd
2005 Quinn 4th
That’s it post-Holtz. Not good enough for a perennial contender, but way more than most programs will ever dream.
1992 Brooks 5th
1990 Ismail 2nd
1989 Rice 4th
1987 Brown 1st
Holtz years were a little better, but even when his teams were loaded with talent the media hacks were always talking about “they’re a great team with no superstars”…how Bettis never got votes is beyond me.
1979 Ferguson 5th
1977 McAfee 3rd
1974 Clements 4th
1970 Theismann 2nd
1968 Hanratty 3rd
1966 Eddy 2nd
1964 Snow 5th
1964 Huarte 1st
1956 Horning 1st
1954 Guglielmi 4th
1953 Lattner 1st
1952 Lattner 5th
1949 Williams 5th
1949 Hart 1st
1947 Lujack 1st
1946 Lujack 3rd
1943 Miller 4th
1943 Bertelli 1st
1942 Bertelli 6th
1941 Bertelli 2nd
1935 Shakespeare 3rd
That’s all of them. So considering the greatly increased parity from the 30s-50s to now it really isn’t that bad. The 2020 class has two 5* commits. If two could become the new average and if the Blue Chip ratio can stay around 60% then more Heisman hopefuls will arise. It isn’t impossible.