Decisiveness Needs To Grow Within Notre Dame Team

Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly met with the media for about 25 minutes Tuesday and discussed his team’s decisiveness, preparing for Navy’s offense, injury updates and more.

Kickoff for Saturday is at 11:39 a.m., and the game will be broadcast on CBS.

A main theme after Saturday’s win over Miami was Notre Dame’s indecisiveness.

It showed on some of the major blunders by the Irish — freshman Jalen Elliott’s inability to recover an onside kick and sophomore C.J. Sanders’ muffed punt to name a couple.

Kelly was asked how he builds that within the team.

“We talk about that openly as really a piece that still needs to grow within our football team,” he said. “Some of that is just inexperienced players that have to trust in those three areas, and we just have to continue to work on those and be pretty transparent in talking about those things on a day-to-day basis.

“And then pointing them out when those opportunities arise in practice, and then spending time.”

It has to do with Notre Dame players not trusting their talent, not trusting their technique or not trusting their teammates.

“So it comes in different forms, that indecisiveness,” Kelly said.

Kelly got his option scout team — or as he calls it, the “Flag Team” — ready several weeks ago, he said.

“This is a difficult week in terms of preparation,” Kelly said. “They [Navy] have answers for everything and they’ve seen everything.”

In the past, Kelly and current special assistant to the head coach Bob Elliott did some advance scouting of the Navy offense and visited schools that had success against the Midshipmen.

“Well, we did some studies from other programs that had success and just really wanted to see some thoughts that other programs had that had gone against Navy multiple times, not just one time, and we had seen them several times,” Kelly said. “So we kind of just wanted to visit some other schools that had gone against Navy and had a modicum of success.

“So we kind of compiled all those thoughts and schemes, if you will, and then sat down and said, ‘All right, what makes sense with what we do?’ And then went to work from there.

“So Coach Elliott compiled all that information by sitting down firsthand with other coaches that had firsthand knowledge of what we were doing and came back here. We installed some things that have been really effective, fine tuned them a little bit, and then he's worked directly with the graduate assistants that are running the scout teams to help them run the offenses effectively for our defense.”

Navy senior quarterback Will Worth leads an offense averaging 35.4 points per game, which ranks 32nd in the country.

In terms of rushing offense, the Midshipmen rank fifth in the country, tallying 296.6 yards per game. During his studies of the option, Kelly found that it’s impossible to shut down one aspect of the scheme and have success.

“There’s not a specific thing that you take away as much as at times you’re going to have to fight through a block-on-block situation to make a play,” Kelly said. “It never becomes a math equation, where in a lot of the football that’s played, you can get an extra hat to a particular run play and outnumber them; you can’t do it against this offense, so don’t try.

“If you try to outnumber the dive or try to outnumber the quarterback in a particular defensive structure, they’ve got answers. That’s really the answer to how you defend this, is that you can’t have all the answers.”

The Irish are still relatively healthy this season, but three players suffered concussions against Miami.

Kelly said there has been progress with the concussion-related injuries. Junior linebacker Greer Martini and senior right guard Colin McGovern passed cardiovascular tests Monday, and will wear non-contact jerseys Tuesday in practice.

Junior defensive tackle Daniel Cage is a day behind the other two players in the concussion protocol because he had an academic conflict with Monday’s cardio tests.

• Due to the early kickoff against Navy (11:39 a.m. ET), Notre Dame is flying out of South Bend on Thursday evening.

• After his struggles against Miami, Sanders and sophomore Chris Finke will compete for punt return duties this week at practice, Kelly said. A decision will be made on Saturday.

“He’s a talented football player. And he needs to trust his talents,” Kelly said of Sanders, who had a crucial muffed punt against the Hurricanes. “So as it relates to him, it goes right to that. When you trust your talents, you won’t be indecisive.

“You’ll go up and get that football, and you won’t suffer the consequences and our team won’t suffer the consequences.”

• Kelly on fifth-year senior nose guard Jarron Jones: “Jarron has matured quicker after he’s graduated. The feeling, once you’re a graduate at Notre Dame, the reality is it’s sunk in that it’s time for me to look towards what my future is going to be.

“Whether it’s football or being employed, that kind of has helped him really prioritize things in his life. The degree and achieving that was pretty big in his life. That was a milestone.”

• During Notre Dame’s long scoring droughts against Texas, Michigan State, Duke and Miami, it had a lot to do with an inability to run the ball, Kelly explained.

“That lends itself to having some of those periods of not being consistent offensively,” the coach said. “If you’re consistent at running the football, we’re going to be scoring boatloads of points, and that’s why we run hot and cold at times offensively, because we haven’t established the consistency at running the football.”