Should Notre Dame Hire Bob Stoops or Brian Kelly as Head Coach?

Brian Kelly and Bob Stoops are both top candidates for the Notre Dame head coaching job now that Charlie Weis has been fired. But should the Irish hire Stoops or Kelly to replace Weis?

Which coach is a better fit for the Notre Dame football program and which is more likely to come?

Should Notre Dame Hire Bob Stoops or Brian Kelly as Head Coach?

Both Bob Stoops and Brian Kelly have the right personalities and backgrounds to coach at Notre Dame and both are winners which make them both great fits.

Both are Catholic according to ESPN and both have Midwest ties.

The difference between in my opinion however is that Kelly is ready to hit the ground running. He has current Midwest ties and familiarity with ND's main recruiting ground than Stoops does right now. Kelly can recruit in big states like Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania and steal players from the Midwest powers.

Stoops has in-roads in Texas, however, which would also make him a good hire for Notre Dame along with his successes.

But Stoops has a disturbing trend of failures in big games and with Notre Dame usually having an easy schedule that revolves around one or two big contests with USC and/or Michigan and another top team that happens to be on their schedule, Stoops might have a hard time winning when the chips are down if his Oklahoma failures are as much of a trend as they appear to be.

Kelly is the hot name and the candidate with the most potential. He's not quite Urban Meyer but in terms of style of play and style of coaching and handling the media is as close as ND will get without hiring Urban Meyer himself.

Urban Meyer has said that Notre Dame is his dream head coaching job but the odds of him leaving a good thing at Florida aren't high.

For those reasons I believe ND should hire Kelly who would come a bit cheaper than Stoops and would fit well with the personnel ND already has in place.