Get him before Michigan does....

[TheCropDuster]

Kelly isn't a Michigan Man, but he's the best man

 

Posted: November 28, 2007

 

I know this is going to come as a shock, a slap in the face to the Michigan Men of the world. But hear me out.

 

Want an end-all, be-all coach, a guy who encompasses everything and lacks nothing? Then take a page from history and follow Ohio State's lead.

 

Hire Brian Kelly.

 

Seven years ago, when Ohio State had become a team that couldn't beat Michigan, the Buckeyes went out and did the unthinkable: They hired a coach from the NCAA's lower divisions, Youngstown State's Jim Tressel.

 

Now that Michigan has become a team that can't beat Ohio State, Kelly -- whose first head coaching job was at Division II Grand Valley State -- would be the perfect fit. Not Les Miles, not some NFL retread, not some guy Lloyd Carr thinks is the Michigan Man for the job.

 

This is about hiring the best man for the job.

 

Kelly, in his first season at Cincinnati, is a relentless recruiter, a guy who can draw up X's and O's with anyone. And -- in what would be a welcome change -- he oozes charisma. He is everything Michigan needs, with a history of winning championships in tow.

 

Four years ago, after he won his second straight national title at Grand Valley State, the reality of the business hit Kelly full force.

 

"If I wanted a chance to sit at the big poker table," he says, "I had to start at the bottom."

 

So in 2004 Kelly accepted a job at Central Michigan, which had one winning season in the previous nine, and went to work. Last year, he won a MAC championship. Then, only days later, he took the Cincinnati job. Eleven months later, the Bearcats are one victory away from just their second 10-win season in 120 years of football. Their first was in 1951.

 

Now the big table has an open seat -- and it's time to lay out the cards.

 

If you think Kelly is a gamble, consider where Tressel came from and where he is now -- one of three key hires of the past decade, along with Bob Stoops (Oklahoma) and Pete Carroll (USC), that changed the landscape of the game.

 

High rollers in Columbus wanted Glen Mason, the OSU alum who knew the way of Woody. Instead they got Tressel, briefly a Buckeyes assistant before he left after the 1985 season, built a national power at Division I-AA Youngstown State and was hired by Ohio State in January 2001.

 

Ten months later, the Buckeyes beat heavily favored Michigan. Two years later, they won the national title.

 

Few question the thinking behind Miles going to Michigan, his alma mater. Just like few would've thought twice about the Buckeyes hiring Mason. Seven years later, Tressel is the best coach in the game. Mason is unemployed.

 

"Athletic directors and presidents are tuned in much more now," Kelly says. "A lot of it is breaking through perceptions."

 

And embracing reality.

 

Matt Hayes is a staff writer for Sporting News. E-mail him at mhayes@sportingnews.com.