Brian Kelly's Plan Finally Comes Together

Brian Kelly's secret-to-success storyline has been a bit overplayed so far this season.

But its worth revisiting again after Notre Dame's win Saturday over Virginia because the Irish head coach was so adamant in the preseason when he put it out there.

"For the success of this football team, it's going to be up front," Kelly said. "It's going to be our offensive line, our defensive line, our ability to run the football and stop the run. If we do that, this is going to be a pretty good football team."

Through the first three games this season, Kelly's Irish never blended those two elements together.

* In the opener against Louisville, Notre Dame rushed for 230 yards, but gave up 249 rushing yards.

* Against New Mexico, the Irish were shockingly outrushed 212-157.

* And against Georgia, Notre Dame managed only 46 rushing yards on 14 tries, the fewest rushing attempts in a game during the Brian Kelly era.

Kelly had to have been ticked off with 14 rushing attempts and 47 pass attempts against Georgia, so he challenged his coaching staff before Virginia to "be more stubborn," to trust that talent and preparation would eventually win out, even if the plan didn't immediately unfold.

"We couldn't get frustrated," Kelly said. "We had to be demanding in every facet. We had to be demanding of ourselves (as coaches) more so than demanding of our players in terms of our preparation."

Staying true to Kelly's challenge, Notre Dame never strayed from its run-first strategy against Virginia, even though it had little to show for it through three quarters. Then it happened.

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Behind the work of senior tailback Tony Jones Jr. and an Irish offensive line that enjoyed its best performance of the season, Notre Dame gashed the Cavaliers for 120 of its 178 rushing yards in the fourth quarter.

The effort against the No. 12 rush defense in the country moved Notre Dame up 10 spots to No. 75 in the country in rush offense, and the Irish don't face another rush defense ranked higher than 89th until November.

After being out-gained on the ground in each of the first three games this season, the Irish won the trench war against the Cavaliers 178-4. Virginia's total is skewed because eight Irish sacks led to negative-29 rushing yards for Cavaliers quarterback Bryce Perkins.

But take the lost yardage on sacks out and Virginia still managed only 59 rushing yards on 21 carries, a 2.8 average. In the last two weeks, Notre Dame has moved from 129th to 110th to 71st in rushing defense.

"We're seeing better communication, better continuity with the group," Kelly said of his run stoppers.

One dominating half does not a season make, but to finally see the Irish following Kelly's preseason script to success -- run the ball, stop the run -- will be a perfect launch point to more of the same for the rest of this season.

A shoulder injury cost Irish defensive lineman Daelin Hayes his senior year of high school. Another one will do the same to his senior season at Notre Dame.

Kelly announced Sunday that Hayes needs surgery to repair a torn labrum and is done for the year.

That's the bad news.

The good news?

Because the injury happened before Hayes played a fifth game this season, he'll be eligible to return for a fifth year in 2020. It's a prospect that Kelly called "highly possible" and a blessing in disguise for a defensive line that will lose standout ends Khalid Kareem and Julian Okwara to the NFL after this season.

And, considering the embarrassment of riches already in place at defensive end, having Hayes down this year but back in 2020 becomes a nice insurance policy.

Obviously, losing Hayes, who was averaging about 30 snaps a game, is a tough hit for the Irish defense.

But with a starting defensive end tandem of two fifth-year seniors -- Hayes and Ade Ogundeji -- with Kurt Hinish and Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa on the interior is a solid base for Irish defensive coordinator Clark Lea to build upon next year.

As a 45-point favorite this weekend against Bowling Green, Notre Dame can essentially treat this as a bye week and look ahead to its matchup with USC on Oct. 12.

Saturday is such a mismatch that Kelly didn't even bother addressing any of the Eagles personnel during his weekly press conference. That's a first.

"It's a great week for our football team to really be evaluated on what do they want to be, how good do you want to be," Kelly said. "If they're not locked in, not great in the weight room, if they're not great in the classroom, and not locked in on the practice field, then it's a great indication to me that they don't want to be great."

With a Brian VanGorder led defense coming to town, it will be hard not to be great on Saturday.

VanGorder, the Falcons first-year defensive coordinator, is posting the same kind of crummy defensive numbers that got him run out of South Bend in 2016 and led to a 2-10 record at Louisville last season.

The Falcons (1-3) rank 117th nationally out of 130 FBS teams in rushing defense, 129th in passing efficiency defense, 111th in total defense and 120th in scoring defense.

And that's averaging into those figures a game where the Falcons defense allowed only three points and 70 total yards in a 46-3 blowout of FCS bottom feeder Morgan State.

Keep your rosters handy. This game will provide live-game evaluations of the Irish second- and third-stringers, its walk-ons and maybe even the leprechaun.

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