Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly on starting QB: ‘We know exactly who it is’
Brian Kelly knew he had to act quickly.
The Notre Dame head coach said after Saturday's loss to Cincinnati he didn't want to constantly flip-flop back and forth between quarterbacks Jack Coan and Drew Pyne.
Coan, the graduate transfer from Wisconsin, has started all five games for No. 14 Notre Dame (4-1) this season. Pyne, a true sophomore, has played in each of the last two games in relief of Coan, who was injured two weeks ago against Wisconsin and benched for ineffectiveness against Cincinnati.
Kelly has landed on a signal caller to stick with starting this Saturday at Virginia Tech (7:30 p.m. ET, ACC Network), but he's keeping that decision close to the vest. He wouldn't tell reporters who it is during his press conference Monday afternoon.
Kelly not disclosing the information to the media was due in part to not having told his team yet either. He said he was set to inform the the quarterback himself and the rest of the team who will start behind center for the Fighting Irish later Monday afternoon.
"We're going to have one guy and we're going to let him know the reps are for him to be the starter and focus on one guy," Kelly said. "We just haven't gotten a chance to talk to that individual yet."
He added, "We know exactly who it is."
It's not too difficult to read between the lines. A week and a half ago, immediately after Notre Dame beat Wisconsin 41-13 and Coan couldn't finish the game because of his ankle injury, Kelly said this: "Jack Coan is our starter."
He was definitive then. Now, not so much. A lot can change in 10 days.
Pyne didn't need to do a whole lot against the Badgers. He threw one touchdown pass and let special teams and the Notre Dame defense do the heavy lifting in that win.
Against Cincinnati, Pyne was asked to lead a 17-point comeback in the second half. And he nearly pulled it off; the Irish inched to within 17-13 midway through the fourth quarter after not scoring at all with Coan operating the offense in the first half.
Kelly said he came to a conclusion on who should start at quarterback based on these parameters: "Who graded out well, who played well." The upper hand there had to go to the player who had one touchdown pass, no interceptions and 13 points accounted for and not the one who had zero touchdown passes, one interception and zero points accounted for, right?
Pyne certainly made mistakes though, too. Kelly went in depth on a particular one on Pyne's first drive of the game. Notre Dame faced fourth and five on the Cincinnati 30-yard line in the third quarter, still trailing 17-0. Kelly said Pyne misread Cincinnati's coverage, and it resulted in Notre Dame's turnover on downs.
Pyne thought it was a one-high safety look. It was actually cover two. The hot route in that situation was sophomore tight end Michael Mayer's option into the short field. Senior wide receiver Braden Lenzy ran a go route to draw the secondary farther back, and Pyne thought he was running a comeback. He threw the ball into no man's land. Not only did Pyne have Lenzy's route wrong, he missed a wide open Mayer.
"Nobody was perfect, as we know, at the quarterback position," Kelly said. "There were some mistakes made by all three. But I think at the end of the day, who gives you the best chance to win? This is still about winning football games. We feel like we got a team that can win the rest of its games. We want to put the quarterback out there we believe gives us the chance to do that."
Coan, Pyne and freshman Tyler Buchner all played in the same game for the first time this season last week. Coan and Pyne seem to be the only two with a realistic chance of starting against the Hokies given that Buchner has only been used as a change of pace running threat. That will likely continue to be his niche.
Kelly has landed on a starter. Not divulging who it is publicly will only be a story for a few days. Once the ball is kicked off at Lane Stadium on Saturday and one of the three QBs leads the Notre Dame offense onto the field, the story becomes how that player performed in a hostile environment with the Irish needing to bounce back from their first loss of the season.
"I'm more interested in what we do than trying to hide something from Virginia Tech," Kelly said. "They've seen all three play. They're pretty smart. They can figure it out. This is really not about trying to gain a competitive advantage more than it is just wanting to focus on talking to our kids today and wanting to get them moving and start the process that way."
----
• Learn more about our print and digital publication, Blue & Gold Illustrated.
• Watch our videos and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
• Sign up for Blue & Gold's news alerts and daily newsletter.
• Subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts.
• Follow us on Twitter: @BGINews, @Rivals_Singer, @PatrickEngel_, @tbhorka, @GregLadky, and @ToddBurlage.
• Like us on Facebook.