What We Have Here Is Failure... to Communicate

 Notre Dame Coach Brian Kelly references an old football joke from a coach he worked under, and social media frets that he might have threatened his players for poor play Sunday night.... Sad.  

But funny too! *

When asked by ABC's Katie George about Notre Dame holding off a furious Florida State rally, Kelly replied, "I'm in favor of execution. Maybe our entire team needs to be executed after tonight. We just didn't execute very well."

The ninth-ranked Fighting Irish led 38-20 entering the fourth quarter but were outscored 18-0 in the final 13:42 of regulation.

During the Buccaneers' inaugural season in 1976, when the team went 0-14, McKay once was asked asked about his team's execution. He famously replied: "I'm in favor of it."

"It's an old John McKay quote," Kelly told reporters in Tallahassee. "I was kidding. It was tongue-in-cheek. It wasn't funny? ... I was talking and making a joke about it. It was taken serious? Are you people crazy?"

*  "Boo!"  PC crowd jumping at they own shadows now... 

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ADDED:  Worth reading:  analysis of the Jack Coan and Graham Mertz quarterback fight for the job situation at Wisconsin, that left Mertz on top. 

The 2019 season was one of the better years Wisconsin has had at the QB position this decade, if not the second-best after 2011 Russell Wilson. Jack Coan had three 2018 starts under his belt heading into the year, and hadn’t exactly inspired the Badger fan base in those limited looks. 2019 was a success for the New York native individually and the team collectively from just about all angles.

Yes, Wisconsin should have finished off Oregon in a 2020 Rose Bowl Game that they dominated for long stretches. Yes, you would have liked to see more a second half fight after carrying a 21-7 lead over Justin Fields and Ohio State into the Lucas Oil Stadium locker room, but 2019 was a win.

Coan took care of the football at an elite level, played the best game of his career (until last night) at Minnesota with the season on the line, and led Wisconsin back to Pasadena.

Waiting not so quietly in the wings was the future of Wisconsin football, their four-star, 2019 prized recruit Graham Mertz. Being on campus in 2019, you heard more about the Kansas product than you did about Coan. Unfair, Messianic expectations were placed on Mertz from day one in Madison, but you can understand the frustrations of a fan base that has felt they’ve been a QB away for 8 years. Hope about the future of the position was like oxygen for a Wisconsin football fan, and the arrival of Mertz provided it.

No matter how well Coan played in 2019, there was a different buzz about someone who had just been named 2019 All-American Bowl MVP. The timeline was set up perfectly, even if some in the Badger community wanted to see Mertz unleashed heading into 2020. Coan would get his ride off into the 2020 sunset and Mertz would have a maximum of three years (redshirted in 2019) to lead the Badgers to the promised land.

COVID-19 messed up a lot more important things than a QB situation in Madison, but in its tailwind also found a way to screw that up too.

Coan injured his foot in camp in October, and needed surgery ...

What that ended up meaning was a lost season for Coan and an unexpected handing over of the keys to Mertz. From every account, Coan supported his Wisconsin teammate with grace and humility. To make matters worse for his expectations, Mertz was Messianic in his debut against Illinois. Five touchdown passes and a few Wisconsin records later, the Badgers were sitting at 1-0 on the year.

The final six conference games were a mess on all levels, not from a specifically Mertz perspective but from a pandemic perspective. Wisconsin barely knew who would be available, Mertz himself had a symptomatic COVID-19 case immediately following Week 1, and the Badgers QB dealt with a shoulder injury following his second start.

That leads us to today. Mertz, for a variety of reasons, struggled in the 2021 season opener against Penn State. Coan, of course because this is sports, dominated to the tune of 4 touchdown passes in his Notre Dame debut against Florida State.

Naturally, the questions begin. Did Wisconsin make the wrong choice? How are the Badgers feeling after watching what Coan just did? How are we lucky enough to have a Wisconsin-Notre Dame game on the schedule this year?

The answer to the first question is simple. There was no choice to be made. The injury was the end of the road for Coan at Wisconsin and there was no other way it could have gone. Both parties knew it and the former Badger QB showed tremendous resolve in being an active part of Wisconsin’s sideline despite knowing his time in Madison was likely over following surgery.

Telling a highly-touted prospect with obvious potential that he will start the equivalent of half of a season (a COVID-19 season at that) and then be benched for his third year at school doesn’t make a lot of sense. I guess it makes a lot of sense under one condition: you are trying to make them transfer.

Coan had one year left following his injury, and it was a year that he was never even supposed to have but absolutely deserves. He is in the perfect situation to have a phenomenal rest of the season in South Bend, and a majority of Badger fans will be cheering him on when he does. This wasn’t how Wisconsin wanted it to end, it was how they were forced to have it end.

We also don’t know how the Mertz story ends. We are still just beginning it. Coan is a 22-year-old proven college quarterback that can win games at the highest level. Mertz is a 20-year-old QB with 9 starts under his belt, 8 of which came under the strange aforementioned circumstances of 2020. Sure, in a perfect world you would want Coan this year and Mertz moving forward. There is no such thing as that perfect world.

A caveat should be added, however, to that whole cheering Coan on thing. September 25 at Soldier Field may not be the most welcoming environment of Badger fans he has ever been in. Of course we get to see him play Wisconsin. Sports has a way of giving us our deserved closing chapter, even if the rest of the story hasn’t been perfect.

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Our lives are better left to chance
I could have missed the pain
But I'd have had to miss the dance...**

**  Speaking of painful moonlight dances, Happy Rosh Hashanah, Feldman Fieldmouse. Never forget to live, and the value of all life! (some of you's got some repentin' to do...)