The University of Notre Dame was “collectively responsible” for the October death of a student manager working for its football program, according to an internal report released by the school earlier today. Notre Dame president Rev. John Jenkins cited insufficient protocol for safety and unusual wind conditions as causes for the death of Declan Sullivan, the 20-year-old team videographer who was fatally blown off a hydraulic lift during a Notre Dame practice.

According to the report, the football program’s policy was to keep the videographers off the lifts if the winds reached more than 35 mph. After coach Brian Kelly opted to hold practice outside, the staff checked the wind speeds six times during the day to make sure they had not exceeded the threshold.[..]

When checking weather websites, the staff saw reports of 23 mph sustained winds with 30 mph gusts prior to practice, according to the report. Computer forensics show that no one on the staff clicked on a wind advisory icon that warned of possible winds exceeding 50 mph, said John Affleck-Graves, the university’s executive vice president.

Eight minutes after the football staff checked the weather for the final time, the National Weather Service reported wind gusts up to 38 miles per hour in South Bend. There were no wind gauges on the field, so the staff depended on their own observations to determine if the conditions were safe.

–Chicago Tribune.

Those observations did not include Sullivan’s Twitter feed, who expressed fear for his life minutes before the wind would topple the lift he was occupying. The school, in its way, absolved the negligence of Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly and his staff, which is neither satisfying nor surprising.

The entire 145-page report from the school can be read here.

I’m not big on the whole concept of sports hate. I’m an Ohio State alum that has a lot of respect for Michigan. I don’t think that hating an opposing player/fanbase/whatever comes off as anything other than thinly-veiled envy. It’s just weak and really sad. Having said all of that, I really, really hate Notre Dame football coach Brian Kelly.

You’ll remember that Kelly bolted for South Bend while his team at Cincinnati was in the middle of an undefeated season, and then stood idly by when a member of his student staff was killed in a needless accident because Kelly had to have his precious video. And he just sticks his nose in the air at every turn, as if we dare ask about how one of his players might have raped a student. I do not care for him.

So imagine how wonderful it must have been for Kelly to return to Cincinnati to roast a local celebrity and then talk smack to all the poor losers that he left in his wake in 2010.

“I had a steak named after me at The Precinct [some stupid steakhouse --Ed.]. It was 12 ounces, and I thought that was fitting for someone who went 12-0,” Kelly joked to the crowd. “But I’m no longer on the menu… So Jeff and I cut a deal. He said, ‘Here’s what I’ll do for you. How about if I cut Butch Jones’ and Marvin’s steak down to 4 ounces, since they only won four games?’ ”

–Chip Patterson/Eye On Football.

Very funny, Chunk. You should type that joke up and hang it next to your Sun Bowl trophy. That’ll do wonders for recruiting. So would your wandering your fat ass into oncoming traffic, but I’ll take what I can get.

I liked Notre Dame a lot better when their ineptitude was limited to losing football games, but this is pretty GD tragic: a 20-year-old member of the Notre Dame football program’s video team died in a fall after a scissor lift he was standing in was toppled by high-speed winds. And one could argue that the kid, who was in the tower filming Wednesday’s football practice, saw it coming, as evidenced on Twitter.

In the first [of two Twitter posts], Declan Sullivan, who was perched on a scissor lift to film a Fighting Irish football practice, made a dark joke predicting his horrific fate.

“Gusts of wind up to 60 mph. Well today will be fun at work. I guess I’ve lived long enough,” Sullivan wrote at 3:22 p.m., just as practice was getting started, CBS reported.

More than 40-minutes later, the 20-year-old junior from Long Grove, Ill., was frozen with fear as wind-gusts approached 50 mph.

“Holy [f-ck]. Holy [f-ck]. This is terrifying,” Declan wrote. –NY Post.

Less than an hour later, Sullivan would fall from that tower. Sad. Deadspin has more on how Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly not only was adamant about having practice outdoors in the wind, but also that the team stayed out for 25 minutes after Sullivan’s fall. I don’t see how anyone in their right mind could have asked that kid to go up 50 feet in the air in the middle of a windstorm. I really didn’t think I could be more annoyed or angered with Kelly than I was when he left Cincinnati. I was wrong.

Brian Kelly, the only football coach to have three consecutive 10-win seasons at Cincinnati, is headed for South Bend.

Kelly is expected to meet with his team Thursday night before the Bearcats’ football banquet to inform them of his decision. The media were suddenly banned from the banquet Thursday afternoon.

Kelly, 48, is 34-6 in his third full season at UC. He is 160-54-2 in his 19th year of coaching at Cincinnati, Central Michigan and [Division II] Grand Valley State. –South Bend Tribune, via SB Nation.

No details have emerged as far as terms of the contract or who will coach the Bearcats against Florida in the Sugar Bowl on January 1. But Kelly will not continue building the football program in Cincinnati, despite earlier statements to his team that he did not intend to leave. It’s just very sad for a lot of reasons, none more depressing than the fact that Notre Dame might actually start winning again. Crap.