University of Notre Dame's head coach Brian Kelly had been voted Associated Press college football coach of the year.
From the AP college football poll panel, Kelly received 25 votes, with Penn State's Bill O'Brien coming in second with 14 votes.
Kelly, who joined Notre Dame in 2010, is the first coach from the college to win the AP award, which started in 1998.
Notre Dame had been looking for a coach who could implement a winning program for the franchise and motivate the team to be successful, with Kelly proving his prowess immediately.
Before becoming head coach of Notre Dame, Kelly had worked as a coach in several universities. He was head coach at Grand Valley State University from 1991 to 2003. Then he coached Central Michigan University during 2004-06, before joining the University of Cincinnati in 2006 as head coach, where he remained until 2009.
"I think the job tends to distract you," Kelly said. "There are a lot of things that pull you away from the primary reason why you want to be head coach of Notre Dame, and that is graduate your players and play for a national championship.
"Now, to do that you have to have the pulse of your football team and you've got to have relationships with your players. If you're already going around the country doing other things other than working with your football team, it's hard to have the pulse of your team.
"That's why I got into this. I want to develop 18 to 21 year olds. My development as the head coach at Notre Dame this year has been about getting back to why you would want to coach college players.
"You want to learn about them, you want to know their strengths and weaknesses, you want to help them with leadership skills, you want to help them when they're not feeling confident in their ability.
"For me, that is why it's been the most enjoyable year as the head coach at Notre Dame, is that I got a chance to spend more time with my team."
Kelly, who has an overall record of 199-66-2, worked on the team's offense before appointing Chuck Martin, who was a defensive backs coach, as offensive coordinator in February. Kelly also hired Bob Elliot from Iowa State to coach safeties. He made many more changes and placed suitable professionals at key positions.
"We conduct the game differently," Martin said about Kelly's style of coaching. "We set out how we thought this team could win with the personnel we had and with the young quarterback.
"Most people say 'OK, you're going to play the young guy, you're playing for the future.' We just went 12-0 with the young guy and he got yanked four times.
"The rest of the world wants 12-0 with no warts. We have plenty of warts. Somehow we're 12-0. Just goes to show the job (Kelly) did that we made it work week in and week out with what we have."
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