Brian Kelly Transcript: Sept. 18
Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly met with the media this afternoon for his weekly Tuesday press conference.
Check out all of what Kelly said.
COACH BRIAN KELLY: “All right. Next up, Wake Forest, on the road for the first time this year, and always a challenge to play on the road against a power five team, especially one that likes to run 100 plays a game. So that's certainly a challenge with the tempo. You know, certainly we felt it last year and their ability to move the tempo and play really good football against us, and we saw how they played the rest of the year with winds against North Carolina State, Texas A & M. You know, they really played really good football at the end of the season.
“You know, they're starting a true freshman quarterback in Hartman, but he's really comfortable with the offense. You can see that Warren Ruggiero has done a great job of really getting him as a mid year comfortable with the offense. They're running it at a high level. He's supported with really good offensive line.
“In terms of returners, they've got some really top-notch offensive linemen. I think Anderson, Haynes in particular, veteran players, coming together, all five starters from a year ago. So anytime that you have in front of you five starters as a freshman quarterback, obviously that's a great situation. And then he's supported with an outstanding receiving core in Greg Dortch, who we didn't see last year because of an injury is an outstanding football player. He can take over a football game. Electric player. Great acceleration, great hands, makes people miss as a highlight reel.
“But again, supported with great receivers. All of them catch the football. All of them great route runners, and Bachman last year had a career game against us. You've got Scotty Washington. You've got just a great collection of wide receivers that can make things happen.
“And they've run the ball really well with Colburn and Carney, both of those guys I think this past week against BC, you know, 275 yards rushing. So a prolific offense. “And then defensively, Zeek Rodney, one of the better defensive linemen that we'll see; very athletic, uses his hands well, tackles for a loss, gets in the back field, backs you at the cornerback position. They had Bates last year who was a great safety. But again, I think a defense that we're a bit familiar with. It has some similarities. I think there are some changes, but they are a very active, aggressive defensive structure.
“And of course, Greg Dortch impacts the special teams as well. So he'll be somebody that we have to keep an eye on as it relates to the special teams. So an up-tempo team. I think they had 106 plays last week against what has always been a really good defense in Boston College, a team that runs the ball very effectively, even though they're in an up-tempo offense. Really good skill players, and an aggressive defense. So we've got our hands full on the road and a challenge that we know that we have to play at a high level to win on Saturday. So with that, we'll open it up for questions.”
Q: Brian, with the Ball State game when they had 97 plays you played your back seven guys almost all of those plays. When you are going against Wake, do you feel a little bit better about your depth that you can do a little bit more rotation on the back side?
KELLY: “Yeah, if you're allowed to. Ball State allowed us to move guys in and out. Wake Forest will make it difficult to get in and out of the game, much more like line changes in hockey than it is, you know, you get a chance to get your guys in. We'll have to be very coordinated in getting the changes that are close to our sideline. And you know, again, they make it much more difficult to get your personnel in and off the field.”
Q: I'm not sure if Nick Coleman was hurt the last game, but Houston played a lot at your nickel for you. How did he fare? Were you just trying to get him more experience or was Nick hurt?
KELLY: “No, Nick was fine. It was just coach's decision to get Houston some more playing time. We'll need Nick this weekend. This will be a game that he'll have to play a considerable amount of football for us.”
Q: And how did you think Houston fared in that role?
KELLY: “I think he's obviously a guy that each and every week when he gets a chance to play, we see more and more from him. It's just a true freshman playing. He's got a nice skill set, but he's learning every time he goes out there.”
Q: In terms of injuries, how is Cole progressing from his high ankle sprain, and do you feel like Robert Haynes is getting closer to where maybe you don't have to watch him as closely in practice?
KELLY: “Cole tells me that he'll be ready for Stanford. So I'll go with what Cole tells me. He's a guy that has worked his tail off in the training room. Cole's a pretty committed guy. So we'll stick with that. I don't think you'll see him this weekend, but he's shooting for the Stanford game.
“Yeah, I think we feel pretty comfortable that Robert is not a guy that is somebody that we think that from an injury standpoint that we have any concerns about.”
Q: Last one from me. We haven't expected to see Dexter as he's working the traits or whatever at this point. Are you starting to integrate him back into more reps at practice? What's kind of his role right now in practice?
KELLY: “Yeah, he's been working hard. You know, we've been working with him on the things that he's gotta get better at. Every single day he's on our SWAT team, so just representing the little things, classroom attendance, you know, in the weight room, on the football field, just being a good teammate, doing all those little things, he's been great. So he's making good progress for us.”
Q: Brian, in terms of tempo, the game of football, the pendulum swings back and forth. Eventually you catch up to the things.
KELLY: “Sure.”
Q: What are the tactics? I mean is there a strategy or tactics that you can use against tempo?
KELLY: “Force them to punt is the best way. Right? You know, certainly if you look at the statistics, they were in a lot of third-down situations, so third-down conversions, getting them off the field. But you know, you say that and I think they were maybe six of seven on fourth-down conversions, too.
“They're going to play fast, but playing fast requires you to keep things fairly simple in a sense. Not that they're a simple offense, but there can't be a lot of checking. There can't be a lot of changes at the line of scrimmage. Last year they did much more of that. So in some instances you just gotta go play. And so as we look at it, we just have to be really on point fundamentally, and we've gotta compete every play.
“I think if you think about taking a playoff, that's where that drive extends itself. So our focus is really about playing with much more sense of urgency in everything that we do in all facets. I think if we play with a sense of urgency against a tempo team like this, you know, that's your best bet in terms of slowing them down.”
Q: Obviously you've played a lot of guys up front. You haven't played as many necessarily on the back seven, but is this the kind of game, and you can't substitute once the series has begun. But do you go into this with the idea that you need to play more guys and substitute by series?
KELLY: “Yeah, I think as we look at it, you know, we haven't made wholesale changes with full units like we have on the defensive line. But we certainly will have to look at those kinds of situations. And the good part about it is we played three and four corners. We've played safeties at a depth number. Again, not in a full rotation, but so we don't have any concerns about playing additional players on the back end. So this will be a week where you'll see more of those guys having to play.”
Q: Obviously the Hartman kid at quarterback is pretty game.
KELLY: “Yeah, sure is.”
Q: As a freshman, but it's gotta be nicer facing a freshman quarterback as opposed to the guy that you faced last year?
KELLY: “He was a nightmare. He was as good as we've seen in terms of executing a particular offensive structure. And you know, again, I think it was a little bit different in the sense that they didn't play quite as fast because they wanted him to obviously get some post-snap reads and get into the right plays, and they were really good at it.”
Q: I know last year when you guys played there was a lot of discussion about how their defense still embodied what Mike Elko and Clark Lea had put together and I'm curious now, a year further removed, do you still see some of the similarities that those guys brought? And if so, could you kind of describe how Clark may be more involved in breaking down their defense this week than perhaps he would in a normal week?
KELLY: “Yeah. You know, this is Dave Clawson's team. So sometimes we give a little bit too much credit to the assistant coaches. Dave has mandated what goes on there defensively. Certainly each coach has his own personality, but the structure is what Dave Clawson has wanted to run ever since he's been a head coach. So you're going to see some similarities as long as Dave's the head coach there defensively in terms of what he's looking for. So yes to that question that there was similarities.
“But you can see Jay has some of his own tweaks to it that we didn't see with Elko or even with Clark in what we do here. But the base is certainly the same because it comes from Dave Clawson.”
Q: So is Clark more helpful in pulling that apart or is it not that complicated? Am I overthinking it?
KELLY: “You know, I think Clark could point out some things here and there that we may have questions on a particular stunt or coverage, but this is the first team this year that we have film on, you know. We had really no film on Michigan. We weren't sure what they were doing offensively. We had a pretty good idea of what they were doing defensively. And then we got something totally different. But this is the first week where we kind of have a batch of film where we've got a pretty good sense of what we're getting.
“And so, yeah, he can be helpful. And we get a lot of that communication in our coordinators' meetings, when I meet with the coordinators, with, hey, what do you think of this, what are they thinking about that, why are they doing this. Other than that, most of the coaches are off breaking down the film and going to work on it.”
Q: Tony Jones coming off a really nice day, and after the game -- he's kind of a soft-spoken guy around us, but he really simplified his game plan and said that I was told to try and see the hole and just hit it. What is the process that you tried to get him to go through, and is it that simple?
KELLY: “I think as you're developing in any position, that, you know, just trust your instincts. And overthinking it I think gets you into trouble. And so what we were trying to do with most of our younger players that hadn't played a lot of football was just to trust their instincts and just play and compete and don't think too much.
“The difference between practice and competition is so different. In practice you're thinking about it. You're hearing about it from a coach where, you know, stay inside the hip of the guard, and you know, up-cut this if it gets stretch. In the game you just gotta see it, feel it and hit it. And that's what we were really trying to do with Tony is just feel it, see it, hit it and let's go and then we'll coach it up later.”
Q: Brian, you mentioned Wake Forest, a success on third downs. For your offense, just what's the sort of percentage that you want to get for that third-down conversion rate, and what have you seen other teams in those sort of situations?
KELLY: “Yeah, anything that hits in that 60 percentile, you know, you're doing pretty good defensively. So I mean they weren't near that number. But obviously from a defensive standpoint, you're doing really well if you're somewhere in that six out of ten range.
Q: Offensively what do you guys want to do when you're in those third-down situations? I think you guys are at about 36 percent on third downs.
KELLY: “Yeah. I mean conversely, anything that gets you close to 50 percent on third down. Now, you have to understand that you're looking at third down and breaking it up. Like you're talking about a generic third down. You know, we have different percentages for third down. Third and one or three, you know, we want to be closer to 80 percent. Then when you get to third and medium, third and long, the percentages start to decrease. But if you add them all in together, if you're getting close to 50 percent, you're probably having a really good day.”
Q: I think Sunday you talked about some of the youth that's on the skill positions, wide receiver obviously being one of those as well. If you can sort of assess what you've seen some of the growing pains and some of the growth out of the wide receivers' positions? KELLY: “Growing pains. Yeah. Yeah. We're still growing. It's pain that we're all trying to look for that consistency and performance, players and coaches alike. And I think if you had the receivers in here, they'd say the same thing, that, you know, we're trying to get that consistency and performance. So how does that come? You just get back out there and work at it. Nobody is discouraged. Nobody is down on anybody. We know it's a process for us. And we're confident that there's better football ahead of us. But we're certainly not where we need to be.”
Q: Backing up on that a little bit, Miles Boykin, obviously he's come a long way, but what are some areas you'd like to see him continue to improve in?
KELLY: “You know, I just think we've put so much on Miles this year. How many catches did he have last year? 12? Maybe 12 catches, and I think that includes the bowl game. He didn't play a lot of football last year. So we've heaped a lot on him this year, and I think the amount of scrutiny has put him in a position where he feels like he needs to be perfect. And that's not what we're after with him. We just need him to continue to grow each week. And I think you saw a little bit of that frustration this past weekend.
“Played a really good corner. That kid was really good from Vanderbilt, too, by the way. But not holding his line, vertically, down the field, some of the things that he's been really good at. And to me that's frustration. And so we really just gotta get him back to the basics and doing the things that he's really good at, and that's just the learning process. So we're going through it a little bit. But I got a lot of confidence in Miles. He'll be fine.”
Q: And Sam Mustipher, what made him such a good candidate to be a captain?
KELLY: “Oh, man. I think the first thing in our program -- and it's different in different programs. I think the first thing in our program is you have to be a real guy, and when I say a real guy or a real person, is that you have to be respected by your peers when it comes to work ethic, when it comes to representing the program, both on and off the field. You've gotta be a guy that cares about his teammates, is not self-centered and just thinks about himself, he thinks about others. So the laundry list of things that hit Sam hit the players here at Notre Dame. And I'm not saying he'd be a captain everywhere, but he's a perfect captain here.”
Q: Coach, you guys like to kind of score quickly, move the ball pretty fast down the field as well. What are some things you might be able to do differently this week to kind of combat the Wake Forest tempo but on the offensive side of the ball? Do you maybe run a slower offense? Do you try to move at a different pace to combat their high tempo at all?
KELLY: “We want to run an offense that is balanced, that attacks the defense and scores touchdowns. We've been fairly balanced. We haven't attacked at all times, and we haven't been proficient at scoring touchdowns. So we've got some work to do. So when we talk about philosophy of offense, that has never changed, and that won't change. What has to get better is we've gotta keep attacking and we've gotta score touchdowns. That's been lacking. And for us to have the kind of success on offense, that's what we gotta get better at.”
Q: And is there a different mindset preparation wise for a road game as opposed to a home game?
KELLY: “No. There's not. I think as you get closer to the game -- there's little things that you do during practice in terms of crowd noise. There's a little bit of preparation that needs to occur relative to travel. And then just understanding that when you're on the road, you know, momentum is going to usually work against you, you gotta close out opponents. So we have a little bit of a conversation. But those things generally don't decide the game. It's still about your execution and your preparation.”
Q: Brian, any of the kids affected by the hurricane down in the Carolinas?
KELLY: “No. We've been fortunate. You know, we have -- one of our players is from the Savannah area. They've had obviously some flooding there. Every one else is pretty much 200 to 300 miles inland, or 200 to 250 miles inland. So everybody's in pretty good shape.”
Q: And nothing will affect you guys getting down there?
KELLY: “No. We seem to be in pretty good shape. Yes.”
Q: And then the question I have, too, is their quarterback who's been suspended for a couple of games and is now coming back, have you seen enough of him on film in case they decide they might want to alternate their quarterbacks?
KELLY: “Yeah. We're aware of Kendall Hinton and what he can do and what his strengths are. And I wouldn't be surprised to see him in the game in some fashion. So we have to prepare for what he does and what he's capable of doing as well.”
Q: Brian, what are the biggest challenges for Clark Lea going down there with the pace of play combined with some prior knowledge of what he is as a coach from Dave Clawson? KELLY: “I really don't think there's much there relative to Clark Lea and Dave relative to what we do. They know from last year, you know, we were up 31-10 and just didn't execute very well, and they had a really good football team, too. I think the pace certainly is something that has to be a bigger concern, and we're aware of that, and we'll prepare for it all week. But everybody's going to have to deal with that. I don't think it's just Clark Lea.
“But in terms of -- they pretty much know our system and what to do there. So I don't think that falls too much on Clark's shoulders.”
Q: And with the tempo of your offense, you were asked about it a second ago, do you find Brandon more comfortable running tempo than less or does that need to be like a pick your spots for it to be efficient versus all the time where defenses would get comfortable against it?
KELLY: “You know, I would like to say that it should be something that we're really good at because we do it so much, but we have to execute better in those times. You know, we didn't recognize some fronts because Vanderbilt didn't get lined up and we cut a couple people loose. And we didn't see a coverage rotation because somebody wasn't lined up. That's inexcusable. So I would say by and large the tempo has been something that's been good for us. We've gotta be able to react to some things that we didn't react very well to last Saturday.
Q: And I guess those are examples are tempo works against you.
KELLY: “Those are examples where tempo did work against us, yes.”
Q: Three games into Drue Tranquill moving inside, could you sort of explain what that affords your defense in terms of football IQ, but also just like the athleticism that he brings to I guess sort of essentially a Will^ linebacker position where he can pick up a No. 1 receiver on a crossing route. That seems fairly rare for that position.
KELLY: “Yeah. So at the point of attack, virtually every play, unless you're really trying to play a perimeter game, quick game, getting it out on the perimeter, and those are games that you can end quickly with some coverage changes.
"So being at that position he's involved in so much more, in run fits, at the point of attack, blitzes, pressures on the quarterback, passing game. So when you talk about taking one of your premier defensive players and moving him in the box, he influences so much more of the game than if he's out on the perimeter.”
Q: And lastly, on Sunday we asked you about your offensive line play. You hadn't talked to Jeff Quinn yet about the grades. KELLY: “Yeah.”
Q: But you felt like they played well. Could you go into a little more detail about where you felt like they took a big step against Vanderbilt after Ball State and Michigan?
KELLY: “Well, I thought we did some pretty good things against Michigan as well. I think where we struggled was movement against Ball State, and we're going to get a lot of movement this week against Wake Forest. So I think last week it was physicality. It was moving people off the ball. It was communication up front. It was just five days playing much better in unison, where it seemed that we were not working together as one as much against Ball State. It's much more of a unit working together against Vanderbilt.”
Q: Swinging back to the receivers, Michael Young has been somebody who's kind of right off the cuff there, breaking through, made the big touchdown catch against LSU, had the big kickoff return last week. How close is he getting into that rotation at receiver which you talked about last week where you want to get beyond more than just your first three?
KELLY: “Yeah. I think, you know, he was limited in camp because of an injury, and I think he's really started to come on. We saw his confidence kind of start to come in the last probably, I don't know, ten days to two weeks physically where he really could cut loose. We saw him on the kickoff return where he starts having a little bit of a bounce back. And then we're starting to see it in practice, too. So I would expect if he's going to continue to show that in practice and if he continues to do that, I think that's going to translate into some more playing time for him.”
Q: Do you consider him your best vertical threat?
KELLY: “You know, I think all of them have the ability in a different sense. You know, Michael certainly has great speed. But, you know, if Chase and Miles are running, and Alizé, all of those guys can get vertical, too. So I don't know that I would paint one better than the other. They are different types of vertical threats.”
Q: From the outside looking in, it's easy to say Drue and TeVon have been taking all the snaps, and now you're playing a team that's averaging 102 snaps a game. How as a staff do you balance a competitive atmosphere and team such as Wake Forest, the way they run, with maybe getting that rest for TeVon and Drue?
KELLY: “They get the rest of their career to rest. I mean they're young. I mean, I think we do a great job with taking care of our players, making sure that they're getting treatment. But we might be making a little bit too much of how many reps they're getting. They're in great shape physically. Drue is -- I mean he takes great care of his body. We'd like to find a way to give him some plays off here or there, but let's go. It's football season. You gotta play. If we can find a couple plays off here or there, we'll try, but it's all hands on deck.”
Q: When you say take some plays away, special teams potentially?
KELLY: “I like him on special teams, too. He's really good there, too. You know, I think we got a good team, and I want to keep the good players on the field as long as I can. If we can find ways, certainly -- and I'm not trying to be a wise guy with this, but I want to keep our players on the field. If we can find spots to get them off -- well, other than that, let's go play.”
Q: Quickly, Alizé Mack seemed to have his most physical game. He was getting hit on every catch and blocking. Can you evaluate his game against Vanderbilt?
KELLY: “Best game he's ever played here. Now, when I say that, it's the not wow you kind of game. He was in -- I mean he was getting cut maliciously by their defensive end. It was bad football.”
Q: Is that legal?
KELLY: “It's legal, but it's bad football. It's just bad football. And I have no problem saying it. You know, we're so concerned about frontal cuts and we got a defensive end chopping him on every play, and he hung in there every play, was digging him out, blocking in line. None of the stuff that people see. But that's what gets you to the next level. Not all this, you know, throw me the ball, catch the ball.
“Certainly we know his physical ability of catching the football, but I'll give that film to any NFL scout and show him what he can do. That was the best game he's played since he's been here.”
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