Is 2016 Salvageable?

With a season that has started began with promise that lead to a quarterback controversy that never was, a 1 – 3 record and a fired defensive coordinator can Irish fans have any hope for a “successful “ year?

For true Irish fans any season with three losses can’t be successful since they will not be in the hunt for the College Football Playoffs and a bid for a National Championship.  Maybe the real question should be can Notre Dame have a respectable season?

In theory with eight games to go the best the Irish could finish is 9-3, of course along those lines the worst they could finish is 1-11.  If your program is supposed to be a top program 9-3 doesn’t cut it, it defiantly will not put you in the discussion for the playoffs, let alone a National Championship.  However keeping things in perspective finishing 9-3 would probably be seen has a success based on how we started and 1-11 is not likely either.

For this discussion we are going to predict a 4 and 4 finish for the Irish.  To be fair they could finish 6-2 but they could also finish 2-6, so let’s split the difference.  That would put the Irish at 5-8, totally unacceptable.  Even if Kelly and crew could win 6 of their last 8 that would get them to 7-5 making them bowl eligible, probably the Gildan New Mexico Bowl against North Texas.

Keeping this as optimistic as possible let’s say we finish the regular season with 6 to 8 wins.  First if one of those wins can be the season finale against USC and second if we can have a convincing bowl win (although we know it will have to be a lower level bowl) maybe the season can be salvaged in some way.