No signs of progress for ND offense

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ORLANDO, FL - DECEMBER 29: Quarterback Andrew Hendrix #12 of the Notre Dame Fight Irish runs from the pocket against the Florida State Seminoles in the Champs Sports Bowl December 29, 2011 at the Florida Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Florida. FSU won 18 - 14. (Photo by Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images)

Updated: January 31, 2012 8:23AM

ORLANDO, Fla. — The crystal ball is pretty muddy for Notre Dame right now.

Year 2 of the Brian Kelly rebuilding project ended with a whimper.

The great quarterback grab bag — alternating a mediocre quarterback with an even more mediocre quarterback — was a failure. Time to go back to the drawing board.

Or maybe get married to just one quarterback.

The season was disappointing. No way this team should finish 8-5. The offseason will be pivotal as Kelly, a coach with a sparkling offensive pedigree, tries to figure out why this quarterback hand was misplayed so badly and how he is going to figure it out next year without playmaker Michael Floyd, a good quarterback and a solid running back.

This was a stinker of a game on offense for the Irish, aside for one nerve rattling drive in the second half that produced a touchdown with both quarterbacks playing in the possession.

Let’s be clear about this: Greatness, or even the hint of it, was not evident on one side of the ball in the first half for both teams. Both Florida State and ND were in dire need of a complete offensive transplant. Which makes you wonder: They sold out the Champs Sports Bowl for the first time ever in a matter of days for this kind of a first half performance?

Seven points and not one offensive score? Neither team played like they could score in a phone booth in the first 30 minutes. Apparently, some brands are iconic in name only. Quality is an afterthought. Perhaps they came here for nostalgic purposes, to remember what it used to be like for programs that were regularly competing for national championships 20 years ago.

The most certain thing you can say about the Irish’s loss is that the defense is still pretty good. They have a right to be riled about the issues that have hampered their overall development.

The talking points about the loss, though, were predictable. No consistent flow on offense, no real resolution at quarterback and no clear path back to greatness, or even incremental improvement, for next season in that department.

The pass that floated through Floyd’s hands in the second quarter, a certain 63-yard touchdown pass, 99 percent of the time, caused Tommy Rees’ face to wrinkle in pain.

Floyd, unintentionally, had hung Rees out to dry on that one.

Rees had looked completely awful on one play in the first quarter on the first ND drive when he tried to jam one into a receiver in the end zone. It was a terrible throw and Lamarcus Joyner intercepted it.

Floyd redeemed himself on the opening drive of the second half, catching a high toss that Rees threw up to him in one-on-one coverage from 5 yards. Floyd juggled the ball three times after wrestling it away from an FSU defender.

The randomly good drive was more mirage than execution. Floyd got hurt on the play and Kelly was livid at his other quarterback, Andrew Hendrix, just minutes later when he threw a pass with 14:47 left that was picked off by FSU.

My thought: What did Kelly expect?

Rees had just been in the play before and despite the success in the third quarter, when Hendrix came in for a few plays on their only scoring drive, the whole process looked like the first day of kindergarten at times.

There was nothing fluid about the way the system worked.

Kelly seemed to answer his own question as to why this ultimately proved to be a bad idea.

“We were just trying to get them in the flow as best we could,” Kelly said. “It’s never easy when you play two quarterbacks. What we were committed to not doing is putting Andrew in a package. We wanted him to run the offense so that was the thought process going in.”

Kelly’s problem now is one of credibility. Neither quarterback is completely sure where their confidence level lies with him.

That’s not good. There has to be a clear, solid commitment first, starting with the coach, for better or worse.