Brian Kelly Transcript: September 2
Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly held his weekly Sunday teleconference with media members on Sunday afternoon. Here is the full transcript.
Q. We asked about Clark Lea last night. You commended all the coaches for good reason. Could you comment on your communication with him in his first game as coordinator, how you think he called his game.
KELLY: Yeah, I thought it was measured, very clear what the plan was. It was easy to talk to him and communicate down to the sideline to the assistant coaches to get any adjustments made. As you know, he's very stable in all situations. You don't know if a bomb has gone off in the coach's box because he has such a calm demeanor at all times. It makes it very easy to work with Clark in communication.
Q. How did Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa come out?
KELLY: A broken foot. Fifth metatarsal. He'll have surgery tomorrow. That's usually something that takes about 10 weeks, so we'll lose him for a considerable amount of time. It's disappointing obviously for Myron. He's an outstanding player. Again, we're hopeful we'll get maybe some play out of him at the end of the year. If it's 10 weeks, maybe we get considerable play with some light-game activity from him.
Q. Could you give us an injury update? Anybody else might have come out of that game a little hurt?
KELLY: Nothing other than a physical contest would normally bring. We'll have some guys with some bumps and bruises. Certainly Michigan will as well. But nothing that will keep guys out of practice on Tuesday.
Q. What pleased you the most about the victory last night? Was it the offensive line play or the defensive line performance or the play of Brandon Wimbush, or all three?
KELLY: I just think how hard we played, the physicality that we played with. Those things as a football coach, when you really evaluate, you want to see how hard your team plays in all position groups. I don't know that there's a group that didn't play with that kind of grit and toughness. That was most pleasing.
Then you can start to break it down from there. The leadership of Wimbush, the energy that Alohi Gilman brings, those things on either side of the ball really show themselves. The consistency of a Justin Yoon — you know you have a guy you can count on. Those would be the micro. The macro was certainly the physicality of our football team.
Q. When Myron went down, Jayson Ademilola got a lot of high-leverage snaps. Could you grade his performance. What will you do to maybe fortify a little bit more depth at that position with Myron out for so long?
KELLY: Jason will be put in a high-leverage situation. Micah Dew-Treadway will get some snaps. We'll cross-train Jonathan Bonner, as well. I think that's probably the plan of attack, Jayson getting more snaps. We have a lot of confidence in Jayson. He's ready to play really good football for us. As I mentioned, Micah Dew now gets an opportunity to play some more snaps, then cross-train. Those would be the three things that would kind of be enacted now.
Q. Chase Claypool looked amazing on special teams, as he did as a younger player. What went into the thought process with you and him in returning him to that role? How do you feel like he performed at wide receiver?
KELLY: Yeah, I think he brings a lot. The game is still coming to him in terms of knowledge of everything that he does on a day-to-day basis. He has such a want and a desire and a high care factor. You love his energy. You love the emotion he brings. Sometimes it's a balancing act of not getting outside those lines. But he's a kid that loves to play the game.
There's an exuberance to him that you want to get him on the field. I think Chase's better football is still in front of him. ... I would say he's still learning the nuances of the game. As we continue to develop him, I think you'll see even more exciting things from him.
Q. Talk about your defense. You got two turnovers. You shut down the running game of Michigan. What did you do differently to shut them down?
KELLY: Well, we stuck with our plan. Again, I think when you look at where we've been over the past year and a half, it's been a point of emphasis. Our kids have really taken hold of our scheme, have been really fundamentally sound. Look, it's not rocket science here, right? You've got to be disciplined, you've got to be physical at the point of attack. Our guys do a really good job and they're well-coached.
Q. Ball State, another in-state school, what is it like to play a team like that?
KELLY: I think Coach Neu is taking on his personality of their football team. They got off to a great start last week. We have this game set up with Ball State when Bill Scholl, a former (associate) athletic director here at Notre Dame was there. It's one of those games where you try to reward somebody that was part of Notre Dame. We did that with Chuck Martin with Miami of Ohio last year. We're looking forward to it. An Indiana school that has a lot of players from the state. I'm sure it will be exciting for everybody.
Q. How were you able to contain Shea Patterson?
KELLY: Our guys clearly understood that discipline in their pass-rush lanes, discipline in coverage, staying plastered on their receivers. We did a really good job except for one drive where we got out of what we had done all game, and that is staying disciplined. If you start doing somebody else's job — that's where we got into some problems in that one drive they scored the touchdown. So I would credit it to the discipline of our defense, doing their job, that's how we were able to contain Shea Patterson.
Q. I believe Alohi [Gilman] after the game said the defense hasn't reached its peak yet. What is the peak for this defense?
KELLY: We can be cleaner in just some of the discipline items defensively. Up front, there's a lot of things. I know talking to Coach [Mike] Elston, he wants to see individually his players execute better. I think we can play better in the back end of our defense with our eyes. I think we tried to do a little bit too much at times at the linebacker position, although we're better.
Our physical and mental were better. I think the technical and tactical pieces need to get better.
Q. Take us through the mechanics of what you want to put Ian Book in the game? Is it goal line, red zone situations?
KELLY: There's a package set up for him in short yardage and in some blue zone situations where we think he can handle some direct snap offense, pro style, if you will, that really fits him. But if we have to put him in the game, i.e., the example of Brandon when he got his eye poked, he did run the entire offense at a high level.
We want to keep him involved in the game. Brandon is going to run the ball a lot this year. He's going to need a blow here and there. That's why it's important we have those packages in there so he's always feeling the football in some fashion, getting him in the game, keeping him ready. Again, that's going to be the nature of the offense.
Q. About the linebackers, how do you feel Asmar Bilal played in his expanded role to an every-down player?
KELLY: A little better than I thought. I saw a couple of the eye violations. He played pretty good. He missed a sack. There's some things that we have to clean up there. But all in all, he played pretty good. Made some plays that we need him to make. He played physical, played fast. So I think the arrow trends up for me in terms of what we can get out of that position, in particular what he can do for us. I think we got to work on his eyes and his vision, seeing things. So this game gives us a great opportunity relative to an evaluation and allows us to really focus on those things that will make him a better player.
Q. I saw you guys went ahead in your first two possessions, scored a couple touchdowns. After that you were only able to score 10 points. What happened from the third possession throughout the rest of the game with your offense?
KELLY: Michigan's very stingy defensively. We made some really good plays. It was a fight for every inch throughout the game. Give Michigan a lot of credit. We had a touchdown called back because of a procedure penalty. But we expected a hard-fought game. We wish we could have executed a little bit better in the second half, but we were playing a really good defense.
Q. Can you evaluate Brandon Wimbush's performance, how he performed with completing the passes, analyzing everything?
KELLY: I thought he showed great energy. He ran the ball with a physicality. Made some really good throws, obviously. When you play a defense that brings as much pressure, you're not going to get a lot of spot throws against a defense like this. Your completion percentage, if it's 50% or greater, that's a pretty good day. All in all, I thought he was really good. He knows he can be better. That's a good thing after you have a good win in your opener against a top-15 team.
Q. Michigan runs a lot of formations, personnel. What is the key to defending that type of offense as well as you did, as opposed to an offense that really sits in one formation or a couple formations?
KELLY: You have to communicate really effectively. Alohi did a great job there. Then up front, Drue Tranquill making sure we get the checks. They can out-flank you immediately if you're not doing a good job both in the back end of your formation and linebacker. Really good communication, a plan that puts you in force position to keep the ball inside the defense. I think the plan was good, and then the execution from the kids in terms of communication.
Q. How big of an emphasis was it to generate pressure on the play-action situation for Patterson?
KELLY: We knew we had to get a push and get the ball out of his hands because he wants to push the ball vertically down the field. We had to keep him in the pocket. The one successful drive they had, we got a little greedy and looked for sacks instead of getting the ball out of his hand. It was part of our game plan to make sure he stepped up in the pocket and got the ball out. We did a really good job of that until the last drive where he got outside the pocket. It wasn't necessarily getting the sacks as much as condensing the pocket and forcing him to get the ball out before he wanted to.
Q. I think going into the game maybe the over-under on the number of carries for Jafar Armstrong might have been five or six. To get 15, was that how the game went or the confidence factor?
KELLY: Quite honestly, we didn't know if we were going to get two or 15 carries. We were probably of the same opinion of most of you guys, that we weren't sure how it was going to shake out until we started to play the game. We knew we were going to start him, then kind of go from there. But I thought Tony [Jones] came in and complemented him well with some physical runs. Then we kind of just played off those two. Avery Davis gave him a blow. It just organically went that way. We didn't have any predisposed idea of how it was going to go. We kind of needed to get into the flow of game. Of course, he rips off two touchdowns, and obviously it went the way it did.
Q. The right side of the offensive line, Robert Hainsey's status health-wise? How did you evaluate the performance there?
KELLY: It was good. Josh [Lugg] went in because Hainsey needed an IV during the third quarter. We had to get hum fluids in him, or he would not have come out of the game. He was playing really well. In evaluating the offense, we were pleased with Liam [Eichenberg]. Alex Bars played exceedingly well, he's physical. [Sam] Mustipher played well. I was really pleased. They handle add lot of junk up front, a lot of things we had not seen before. That's what happens in an opener, you have all seven months to come up with stuff. Don Brown is a really good defensive coordinator. They brought a lot of stuff we hadn't seen. Those guys had to sort stuff out. They did a really good job.
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