Brian Kelly is smarter than you

All hail the Irish! Everybody is expecting them to be blown out against Alabama in the BCS National Championship Game, and the eye-rolling when it was announced Notre Dame would play in the championship game almost caused an earthquake.

But you know what? Screw you guys, the Irish are No. 1!

And guess what? Their coach is number one. Brian Kelly has been named the AP Coach of the Year.

Kelly received 25 votes from the AP college football poll panel. Penn State's Bill O'Brien was second with 14 votes. Stanford's David Shaw (four), Texas A&M's Kevin Sumlin (three), Kansas State's Bill Snyder (two) and Alabama's Nick Saban (one) also received votes. 

 Kelly is the first Notre Dame coach to win the AP award, which started in 1998. Of course, the Irish haven't played for a national championship since 1988 and spent much of the past two decades trying to find a coach who could restore a program that was becoming a relic of its proud past.

After two seasons with Notre Dame, Kelly decided he wasn't spending enough time doing the best part of his job: coaching players. Kelly changed that in 2012, and he shuffled his staff. Then, with Kelly more in tune to his team and the assistants in sync with the head coach, Notre Dame went from unranked to top-ranked.

 Looking at the top picks for coach of the year, he seems like the natural one. I understand that Bill O'Brien has a lot of adversity facing his program, but I feel like we should be avoiding heaping praise on Penn State for a while. Stanford was good but got upset, but I do like Texas A&M's Kevin Sumlin. Either way, the Irish are better than your football team. Get over it.