There are lies, there are damnable lies, and there are college football press conferences.

Never seen more fuss over a second-tier coaching vacancy than the blanket coverage of who would become the next sucker to use the gold-plated toilets in the football offices at South Bend, Indiana. 

Never been less surprised to see a coach become intoxicated by the fraudulent mystique and lunge at the filthy lucre than I was to see Brian Kelly abandon the unbeaten ship at Cincinnati and take command of Charlie Weis’ last lifeboat at Notre Dame.

Not that they’re listening, but I’ll issue the same words of warning to Kelly’s first recruiting class that I did to Nick Saban’s parade of wide-eyed minions at Alabama and Rich Rodriguez’s prospective Michiganders.

He’s a slick wordsmith. He’ll motivate you to run a 4.2-second 40 through the flames of hell. Just don’t expect him to hang around for your entire five-year plan.

Small wonder that one of the first jobs in Kelly’s adult life was working for philandering Senator Gary Hart’s ill-fated presidential campaign. The spin doctor-turned-coach brings his own “Monkey Business” to the gridiron fray.

Kelly shirked the final three years of a contract that would have paid him nearly $2 million to leave Cincinnati and genuflect at the blasphemous feet of Touchdown Jesus. More about the professional wisdom or insanity of that move later. The foremost issue is that Kelly’s signature and handshake are worth less than a Ryan Leaf rookie card.

Go ahead, freshman or sophomore Division I athlete. Walk up to your coach the day after the regular season ends and tell him you’re departing for a school that better fits your individual interests.

He’ll pat you on the back and thank you for your meritorious service, if you’re lucky. And then you’ll receive a missive on NCAA letterhead, regretting to inform you that’s you’ll be precluded from playing games for a full calendar year as penance for your change of heart.

The “punishment” in Kelly’s case was not being able to coach his jilted Bearcats (12-0) against Tim Tebow and Florida in the Sugar Bowl. Not that Kelly intended to engage in any activity but courting prospective leprechauns. Wouldn’t want leading 80 guys who sweat, cried and sacrificed for him into the biggest game in their program’s history to get in the way of that.

I don’t profess to be an expert in contract law, but I do know that signed agreements are ubiquitous in the sporting realm. Everyone from Tom Brady to the 12th player on the East Jerkwater Springs Junior High boys’ basketball team inks one. And with few exceptions, the holder makes it as legally binding as your mortgage.

Coaches appear immune, presumably because they’re well-off enough to hire attorneys who can draft an escape clause.

And so Kelly made an escape that falls into the Be Careful What You Wish For, You Might Get It category.

Only people who’ve been drinking the golden kool-aid since they grew up listening to Notre Dame on a transistor radio, or their brainwashed grandchildren, see this as anything but a lateral move at best.

Cincinnati is 34-6 with two BCS bowl appearances the last three years. The Bearcats were a half-second of Colt McCoy’s blind luck and a foot of space between leather and upright in the Texas-Nebraska game away from playing for a national title.

Our Lady’s proficiency over the same span was 16-21, with a lonely 2008 appearance in the Hawaii Bowl. Yes, in case you didn’t get the memo, “unique circumstances” make the Irish too important to play in a third-tier postseason game unless it involves a tropical vacation.

Notre Dame hasn’t been relevant since Lou Holtz could remember what he ate for breakfast. The school that gave you Knute Rockne, The Gipper and Joe Montana now struggles to beat teams that were 0-13 a year ago (Washington) and loses at home to programs that used to play in the Yankee Conference (Connecticut).

Remember a few years back when Paul Hornung suggested that Notre Dame needed to scale back its academic standards to funnel “athletes” back into its football program, and he was immediately branded a racist?

Never let the facts get in the way of a good witch hunt. The Irish flagrantly reduced their admissions threshold to accommodate recruits from all ethnic backgrounds during the Holtz era. (Chris Zorich was half-Croatian, for pity’s sake.) And the school actually returned to the college football summit for a season or two.

Jimmy Clausen and Golden Tate’s year-early defection to the NFL confirms that stodgy, self-righteous Notre Dame isn’t any less a football factory than Southern Cal or Florida. So it’s time for the school to abandon all pretense, put its mouth where that pile of money was and cut Kelly some slack if they have any desire for him to justify all this hubbub.

Either that, or the Peter/Willingham/Weis Principle will prevail, and a jettisoned Kelly will retreat to Minnesota, Fresno State or some other institution where the commitment to win actually exceeds the pressure to do so.

And I can think of a few soon-to-be Cincinnati alumni who will be laughing their collective Big East championship butt off when it happens.

Kalle Oakes is a staff columnist. His email is [email protected].