Sabel's Haus

The Heisman campaign has officially started for Tony Pike.

Unfortunately, Pike won’t be playing football at the University of Cincinnati next season: Heisman Trophy or not.

UC may end up being without head coach Brian Kelly, if it's not careful.

Rumors are flying about whether Kelly will leave the Bearcats after the season for another school, Notre Dame being the most talked about.

Kelly probably wouldn’t leave Cincinnati for a lower-level SEC or PAC-10 school so Notre Dame would probably be UC’s biggest threat to take him away.

Irish head coach, Charlie Weis, could be one more painstaking loss to an inferior team away from getting the ax at the historic school.

That’s where Kelly comes in.

Who knows? Maybe Notre Dame doesn’t lose another game this season and Weis keeps his job. Then UC keeps Kelly for at least one more year.

Realistically, though, Notre Dame will lose another game and will cut the cord on Weis.

Then, Notre Dame’s powers that be throw $10 million on the table for Kelly and he leaves UC without a second thought.

To that I say, match it.

Easier said than done, I know.

Still, UC has to find some way to come up with the money and whatever else it is that Kelly may want.

Raise ticket prices, raise concession stand prices, sell plasma, have a bake sale. I don’t care what it is; just do something.

With the success of this team, fans will still come to Nippert even if ticket prices go up a few bucks.

I realize $5 extra per ticket won’t equal the millions of dollars it will take to keep Kelly around but the big wigs at UC need to find some way to make the money.

If UC is to continue producing a top-10 football program, it will have to start acting like one and Kelly might be more inclined to stay at UC if it offers him the same amount of money.

Besides, Kelly should want to become the first legendary coach at UC instead of just another one of the many at Notre Dame.

The Irish fans expect to win national championships. A UC football championship would be unheard of in Cincinnati, but Kelly has the chance to do it.

After all, another national title at Notre Dame is another notch in the bedpost. Kelly would become another one of the great coaches at Notre Dame.

A national title at UC and Kelly will have officially transformed the entire program. He would be a legend in Cincinnati. The kind of legend that has buildings named after him 30 years from now.

After all it would be the first football title at this school as opposed to the 13 national championships at Notre Dame.

We have to find a way to keep Kelly at UC.

Signs at games, Web sites, Twitter messages and everything in between.

Guerrilla advertising type stuff. If he doesn’t know he’s wanted in Cincinnati by the students and fans, he may go to Notre Dame anyway.

If we can’t find a way to keep him here, UC will still be considered a stepping-stone school for coaches to get to the next level.

We need a coach like Bobby Bowden at Florida State or Joe Paterno at Penn State – a coach who wants to be at UC for the long haul.

And if Kelly does leave, we could be right back to where the program was just four years ago. A 4-7 team that’s mediocre at best.

I don’t see why Kelly would want to coach Notre Dame anyway. He has done so much to build the UC program and has gotten them so close to the national championship (that was weird to type).

If he goes to Notre Dame, he’ll just have to rebuild that team.

So, I say we start the ‘Please stay, BK’ chant.

UC has the right coach. It just needs to find a way to keep him.