At least we now know this much about Brian Kelly: He’s no Ara Parseghian. Not yet, anyhow. In 1964, his first season as the head coach at Notre Dame, Parseghian turned a team that had been 2-7 the previous year into one that lost only one game and almost won the national title. In that one season, he re-energized an Irish fan base that had become disillusioned after years of mediocrity.

If hopes for a similar miracle accompanied Kelly into the current season – and they did, in some corners of the Irish Nation – they now are as dead as the leather helmet. After being soundly whipped by Stanford last Saturday in South Bend, the Irish are 1-3 heading into Saturday night’s 8 p.m. road game against Boston College.

Notre Dame and BC are the only Catholic universities that play football at the uppermost NCAA level. The Eagles, who hate their “little brother” role, had beaten the Irish six straight before last season’s 20-16 ND victory in South Bend. This year BC has a 2-1 record, losing last week to a spotty Virginia Tech team, and are going through a quarterback controversy.

No such dispute exists in South Bend, where Dayne Crist had done an admirable job of replacing Jimmy Clausen, who left school a year early and now is the starting QB for the NFL’s Charlotte Panthers. He has an excellent running back in Armando Allen, but no receiver quite capable of replacing the splendid Golden Tate, who’s also now playing in the NFL.

If Notre Dame is better than it was under Charlie Weis, it’s hard to tell with the naked eye. The Irish defeated Purdue as expected in the opener, but then got bewitched, bothered and bewildered by Denard Robinson, who personally rolled up more than 500 yards while leading Michigan to victory in South Bend.

On the road the following week against Michigan State, the Irish seemed to have the game won in OT, only to be caught flat-footed on a fake field goal that went for the game-winning touchdown. Then came the meltdown against Stanford, which controlled the game from the kickoff.

Although a Parseghian-like turn-round now is impossible – where are John Huarte and Jack Snow when you need them? – Notre Dame still could get the six wins necessary to become bowl-eligible. Of course, to the university’s credit, it may decline to go to a bowl on the very reasonable grounds that 6-6 is mediocre and Notre Dame does not believe in rewarding mediocrity.

To salvage his first season, Kelly needs a win over BC. That could get the Irish on a bit of a roll, at least enough of one to beat Pitt and Western Michigan back-to-back at home. That would put the record at 4-3 heading into a road game against Navy.

The Midshipmen are no soft touches, but let’s assume the Irish beat them to move their record to 5-3. Then they return home for what should be a victory over Tulsa. (I have no idea what Tulsa is doing on the ND schedule, so don’t ask.) So that would give the Irish six wins and guarantee a non-losing season.

At this point I see no way they’re going to beat Utah at home, so that would drop the record to 6-4. The last two games should result in a victory over Army and a loss on the road to Southern Cal for a final 7-5 record.

That would be respectable for a first-year coach and it would merit the Irish accepting a bowl invitation. It also will be the only honeymoon Kelly will get. Starting next season, anything fewer than nine wins will not be acceptable at Notre Dame, even considering the fact that the Irish are “handicapped” by high academic standards upon which the administration refuses to budge.

I say good for the administration.

I’d rather see Notre Dame go 7-5 with legitimate students than 11-1 with renegades. I really many Irish diehards won’t agree with me. They’ll argue that Notre Dame must compromise its academic standards or forget about competing for national championships.

They may be right, but I don’t think so. I think the nation’s high schools produce enough players who can do the work at Notre Dame both on and off the field. But Kelly’s job will be restoring the Notre Dame mystique, finding a way to wake up the echoes and shake down the thunder, the way Parseghian did in 1964.

At the beginning of the season, Huarte and Snow were unknowns. At the end, Huarte was the Heisman Trophy winner and Snow his favorite target. It was the stuff of storybooks and legends, and it happens so rarely that nobody realistically had the right to expect the same from Kelly.

Still, the Irish need to do something dramatic to prove that Kelly was the right choice and that the program is heading in the right direction. The first step for Kelly’s program will be reasserting its dominance over the Boston Colleges and Navys of the football world. The second will be knocking off a ranked team like Utah or Southern Cal.

The thinking here is that Stanford may be the best team on the Notre Dame schedule. If so, last week’s loss may not be as bad as it seemed in the game’s immediate aftermath. Much still can be achieved in Brian Kelly’s first season.

But the Irish faithful are tired of living on hope. They want results, the sooner the better.