It’s starting to feel like old times with the Notre Dame football, again – a dominant program that takes what it wants (wins and recruits) from wherever it wants it (be it the Coliseum, Yankee Stadium or Monroe, Ga.).

But what do I really know about “old times” anyway? I was eight years old the last time Notre Dame won a national championship. By the time my formative years rolled around in the mid-90s, I was wearing worn out Irish apparel to high school – in Texas mind you – so that I could pass my devotion to a dying program as “vintage.”

In the interest of disclosure, by the time Charlie Weis was fired after a 16-21 stretch over his final three seasons in South Bend, I wasn’t sure what it took anymore to be successful at Notre Dame. The only thing I felt was certain was that Notre Dame needed to hit a homerun with Weis’ replacement in the midst of a 21-year championship (and general relevancy) drought.

I wasn’t sure if proven champions such as Bob Stoops or Urban Meyer could even reverse the wear of the mismanagement of Notre Dame football for the better part of the last two decades, but I thought the University should pony up the money to try. Set the new standard for the salary of an elite coach with a blank check, if that’s what it took.

I was less convinced that a relative FBS neophyte such as Brian Kelly could break the cycle of mediocrity in South Bend. I found the comparisons to the pre-Notre Dame careers of Irish coaching legends such as Ara Parseghian and Lou Holtz incomplete. Parseghian and Holtz were groomed in conferences such as the Big Ten and the SWC against regular national championship contenders.

Kelly’s background at the FBS level included the Mid-American Conference, and the Big East, which has a less than stellar record when it comes to churning out successful coaches elsewhere. Prior to 2010, only one championship coach from the watered-down, Miami and Boston College-less Big East had posted even a winning record at a successive stop – Bobby Petrino with an 8-5 record at Arkansas in 2009 – since 2004. Other championship coaches, including Walt Harris (Pitt, 2004), Rich Rodriguez (West Virginia, 2003-05 and 2007) and Paul Pasqualoni (Syracuse, 2004) failed to muster any success, putting Big East glory into a different, less flattering perspective.

By the time the clock hit zeros after a 35-17 Oct. 23 loss to Navy, I was convinced that the Holtz trend Kelly was mostly likely to follow was a new defensive coordinator by year three. Kelly admitted afterward that his staff had few answers for a Midshipmen offensive game plan that racked up 367 yards rushing and 438 total yards.

“If we played like we played defensively, there won’t be a year five and six for me,” Kelly acknowledged. “We have to execute better, clearly, on both sides. We’ve seen glimpses of it. We just haven’t been able to grasp it as a consistent form for us.”

A week later, I was not only unsure if Brian Kelly was the right coach for Notre Dame, I was uncertain if the program was truly committed to building a truly competitive program that could contend for national championships ever again, forget once in a while, much less annually. All Notre Dame had to show for its $100 million program was a 4-5 record through October, a 22nd year of disappointment and a bunch of women’s soccer and fencing championships – a clinic in Title IX execution, if nothing else.

But somewhere around the beginning of November, Kelly and his staff slowly seemed to conquer the enigma that has been coaching at Notre Dame since Holtz left South Bend. Whatever curse that has lingered appears to be lifting with each small victory along the way.

First, Kelly had to get his upperclassmen to buy into his program, a tall order as many of those players surely started to shift their focus from the team disappointments of failed campaigns that rounded out Weis’ tenure to personal aspirations and doors opened by the rest of the Notre Dame experience.

With the careers of seniors such as running back Robert Hughes and linebacker Brian Smith left for dead, Kelly and his staff somehow inspired a maximum effort from such players at the season’s breaking point and in need of a “next man in.” After carrying just 17 times for 90 yards through the first nine games, Hughes stepped up in relief of the injured Armando Allen over the final four games, and carried 51 times for 210 yards with both of his touchdowns in 2010. Smith moved from outside linebacker to the middle alongside sophomore Manti Te’o following an injury to Carlo Calabrese against Navy, and held his own with 27 tackles down the stretch.

Notre Dame’s four-game winning streak to close the season was the program’s first such streak since 1992, and while the competition was suspect – Utah, Army and USC were all beaten by 20 or more points within two weeks of playing the Irish, and Miami rode a two-game losing streak into the Sun Bowl, including a home loss to South Florida in the finale – it shouldn’t be overlooked that at worst Kelly and his staff were finally beating the teams Notre Dame should beat, which had been an agonizing challenge for recent staffs.

But even if fans or foes, alike, aren’t putting much credibility into Notre Dame’s momentum on the field, recruits apparently are. For all of the questions surrounding Kelly’s prowess as a recruiter, he’s responded with authority.

Sure, the recruiting landscape appears slightly tamer with ruthless recruiters such as Urban Meyer and Pete Carroll out of the game. The hottest college coach in America – former Stanford head coach Jim Harbaugh – took his talents to the NFL, taking one more big hitter off of Notre Dame’s trail. But Kelly and his staff have taken whatever foundation Weis and his staff laid, and built a fortress on it.

Kelly and his staff have pulled off what once seemed impossible. Texas has currently provided the Irish with the second-most prospects of any state recruited this season. Cornerback Jalen Brown, running back Cam McDaniel and defensive back Bennett Okotcha will collectively more than double the number of Texans on Notre Dame’s roster if they follow through with signatures on Feb. 2.

The defeatist “if they’re looking we’re looking” approach has been replaced by the relentless mantra: Recruit until Signing Day. Instead of kicking dirt over the potential losses of critical defensive line prospects such as Aaron Lynch, Stephon Tuitt and Ishaq Williams, the Irish coaches simply worked harder.

When Williams set out for a visit to Penn State, defensive coordinator Bob Diaco undercut the trip with a 4:30 a.m. visit that secured the Brooklyn native’s verbal commitment.

“Any questions about whether or not Ishaq is important to their program are answered right there when the coach calls a minute into the permissible period and then shows up four and a half hours later,” Williams' father Shaun Williams explained to ESPN.com.

“I had just gotten out of the shower. We were getting ready to get on the road. I had on a bathrobe and was drinking some tea when coach Diaco came in. We were talking. We were laughing. When he left Ishaq said, ‘Daddy, how are we going to tell Penn State that I'm not going to go there?’ ”

Less than a week later, Tuitt was on the fence, if not on the other side of it after proclaiming a switch from Notre Dame to Georgia Tech. Perhaps the Irish had spread themselves a little thin when it came to Tuitt, a prospect from Georgia where local ties can often be too much to break.

It’s no secret that Monroe Area head coach Matt Fligg is close with Georgia Tech’s staff. If his comments to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution are any indication, he was instrumental in getting athlete Demontevious Smith, a teammate of Tuitt, recognition from the Yellow Jackets’ staff on the recruiting trail.

“I have been on [Tech recruiting coordinator Andy McCollum] about Demontevious since last year,” Fligg said. “He has the ability to make the big play any time he touches the ball. His character and attitude is the best I’ve coached and I’m old.”

Smith is currently one of 21 verbally committed recruits for Georgia Tech, and Tuitt nearly made a 22nd from Monroe Area High School, just about an hour outside of Atlanta.

“Tuitt made the decision [to commit to Georgia Tech on Jan. 18] after hunkering down with his mother the last two days and having a long conversation with Monroe Area head coach Matt Fligg Tuesday morning,” Chip Towers reported. “He called Notre Dame coaches immediately after that meeting, then Tech head coach Paul Johnson.”

But like a scene out of an old Western movie, Notre Dame’s new four horsemen – Kelly, Diaco, recruiting coordinator and defensive backs coach Chuck Martin, and defensive line coach Mike Elston – rode into Monroe to reclaim what was once theirs, welcomed by the locals or otherwise.

When all was said and done, Tuitt was back on board as Notre Dame’s 23rd recruit in what should be a stellar class if all remains status quo.

“They just told the truth,” he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution when asked what changed his mind. “They didn’t say anything negative about Georgia Tech or anything like that. They just told the truth about what Notre Dame could do for me and what I could do at Notre Dame.

"I should be solid to signing day."

And just for good measure, Kelly and his staff stole defensive end prospect Chase Hounshell from recruiting nemesis Florida and former head coach Charlie Weis (now an offensive coordinator with the Gators on Will Muschamp’s first staff).

Will any of this add up to National Championships? After all, that’s what we’re all here for. Sure, the academic alums will continue to cheer on Notre Dame, win or lose, out of loyalty for their alma mater. But if Notre Dame wants the subways to keep running through the station, then they need to get back on top.

I don’t know if Notre Dame’s current run is all a part of the championship reclamation process. But I’m more inclined to buy into it now than I was three months ago.

