Posted by: Chris Vannini on January 3, 2013

Bob Diaco is not short on praise for his boss.

After leading Notre Dame to a 12-0 regular season, Brian Kelly won a number of Coach of the Year Awards.

Diaco himself won the Broyles Award for the nation's top assistant, but he made sure to call it a staff award. This is Diaco's third stop with Kelly, whom Diaco called the best boss he's had when asked how Kelly has changed in the last year.

"From a coaching perspective, Brian Kelly is the very best boss that I can have in the country," he said. "I've enjoyed working for him every single day at the three universities that I've worked for him at. As it relates to the challenges of different jobs, every different job poses a new challenge, that he, in short order, in short order, figures out and assimilates. Coach (Hayden) Fry used to say "scratch where it itches," and scratches where it itches.

"Going from Grand Valley to Central Michigan and Division 1A, recruiting, he dove into that. The city is surrounded by an Indian reservation, he assimilated into that culture and used all those resources as assets for the program. Then moving from Mount Pleasant, Michigan to a major city, a spectacular city in Cincinnati, and assimilating into that culture and how to recruit that niche in Ohio. He did that with spectacular form.

"And then at Notre Dame and Notre Dame's distinctions, and Notre Dame's distinctions are well documented worldwide. They fit him and his world nicely. 
So I would say just the normal growth that he's had at every institution he's worked at."

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Chris Vannini is the lead writer for CoachingSearch.com and has covered Michigan State sports for The State News, The Oakland Press and MLive.com. He writes a weekly column for the Detroit Free Press on behalf of SB Nation. Vannini lives in Big Ten country, so his foot speed is far from SEC caliber, but his pulse on coaches is hard to match. Be sure to follow @CoachingBuzz on twitter and send your feedback to chris@coachingsearch.com