Yesterday, I pointed out the two things that should sober up the championship thoughts of even Notre Dame’s most faithful followers:

The best players reside in the South. Period. These players join SEC schools to play their college football (i.e., they stay close to home).

Check any recruiting site, any you will see their rankings of top players are saturated with players that reside in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, Alabama, etc. Every year, the flagship colleges from these states get these players, and top the recruiting rankings (you can include fellow warm-weather brothers Texas and California). Every year, an SEC school wins the national championship.

So, what happened to the cold-weather power programs (Notre Dame, Ohio State, Michigan, Penn St., etc.)? These schools are still able to garner a top 10 recruiting ranking some years (ND had #2 in 2008, Ohio State and Penn State have very good local talent levels), but for the most part, they are closer to #10 than to #1. The top spots (and more of the top spots) are taken by the southern schools.

If the best produce is grown in the South, and stays in the South, schools like Notre Dame would appear to be screwed.

However, there may be a saving grace. The Irish can recruit nationally better than anybody else. “National”, is what Notre Dame is built upon (and why so many ND fans fear joining a conference and becoming “regionalized”). Lou Holtz knew this to be true, that an Irish head coach can go into any house in America, and grab the attention of a recruit and his family. Notre Dame can, and has, pulled the best of the best from just about every state in the country (California and Florida included). Notre Dame, just by name, can naturally do what every program attempts to do once they reach their peak-cherry pick from all over the country (USC went all the way to New Jersey for Cushing and Jarrett, Florida went to California and New York in this most recent cycle, Bobby Bowden cited recruiting nationally and “forgetting ’bout them boys that brung ya there” as a hindsight reason that FSU started to falter). Advantage, Notre Dame.

Hold on a minute now, there is still a problem. National recruiting just isn’t as easy as it used to be for the Irish. There have always been boys (elite recruits, that is) that grew up loving their home state program (”born to be a Longhorn”), and no outside school really ever had a shot. However, there were also plenty of other recruits that would cross state borders to play for the “Yankees of college football” to get the exposure. Notre Dame took advantage of this. A lot. Now, with the exposure of cable t.v., and the internet, a player can receive attention anywhere, so there is not as much incentive to leave home (don’t forget that scholarship reductions play a role, too). If that wasn’t enough, the spread of information has lead to more regional pride than ever (”We’re better than you, haha!”. School boys in the South grow up wanting to wave an SEC banner along with their school’s banner. Oh, and one more thing, Notre Dame isn’t as “sexy” to 18 year olds across the country because they have been winners in, well, their whole lifetimes.

I’m spinning my wheel’s here a little bit, so let’s just finish this. The two school’s of thought are: 1.) Coach a school that has a great local recruiting base and use that to win it all. 2.) Coach at a school with national appeal, and pick talent from a larger basket to win it all.

Notre Dame must go with the second option. That is how they have won in the past. However, with the changes in the college game, there just isn’t enough proof that they can still live that way.

Those expecting an Irish Renaissance under Brian Kelly may find out they are going to be disappointed.

And it has nothing to do with how well he can coach.

All of the conjecture, debating, and theorizing on what the future holds for college football’s most storied program can be boiled down to one matter.

Logistics.

As in, 91 out of the top 150 players (according to ESPN) reside in SEC country.

Only 11 of the top 150 are in the Midwest (Notre Dame’s home).

That is about as disparate as two stories can be. That also shows why the last 4 BCS champions are SEC teams. When it comes to elite prospects picking schools, Dorothy had it right, “There’s no place like home“.

Brian Kelly can coach like Knute Rockne, work harder than James Brown (the hardest working man in show business, for those of you that don’t know), and sell his program like Tony Robbins, and it still might not do the job.

In college football, the players decide who wins.

I’m not so sure Notre Dame can get enough of ‘em.

Paul Hornung, ND’ original “golden boy”, is the namesake for college football’s newest honor: “most versatile player”. What does than mean? Well, to give you a proper picture, the Paul Hornung Award would have gone to either C.J. Spiller, or ND’s own Golden Tate if it were awarded this year (a player that can help their team the most in a large variety of ways).

Hornung is one of college football’s all-time greats (think the original Rocket Ismail, plus he could throw, and play defense), the only player special enough to win the Heisman on a losing team, so his name belongs right up there with the Biletnikoffs and Nagurskis.

However, he might have even more fame for the statement “ND must lower admissions to get the black athlete and win”. Technically, he may be right on lowering admissions, he just made the mistake of using the qualifying term “black”. (That’s what we call racial profiling.)

So, occasionally in his honor, the Blarney will bring you Hornung’s Words of Wisdom, or technically true statements that are worded wrong, and perhaps show some prejudice or some kind of political incorrectness.

Paul Hornung’s Words of Wisdom For 8-26-10:

“You know why Brian Kelly lost weight? Because, being fat and unhealthy cuts careers short. And I mean any career, from football coach to being a Hooter’s waitress.”