Notre Dame Football Quick-Hitters: Brian Kelly On Freshmen, Kyren Williams
Brian Kelly opened his press conference Wednesday with a joke about the new alliance formed between the ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12. It probably didn’t land the way he envisioned it would.
“Let’s get something straight,” the Notre Dame head coach said. “This alliance thing? I wrote that down on a napkin last year at a cocktail party. And for some reason that got out. So give me all the credit. I did that. All these ADs are taking credit for it. I had that thing down last year.”
There was minimal laughter or reaction of any kind from the room full of reporters.
“No? OK,” Kelly said. “We’ll let those guys take it then.”
That is when he got a round of laughs from the media, and that is when he dove into more Notre Dame-centric material too. Here are the highlights of Kelly’s media session.
On Freshman Wide Receivers Getting Playing Time in 2021
“I think Lorenzo [Styles] can. He’s coming on. We are seeing consistency from him. And I think Deion Colzie, he’s going to be a really good player for us. I’m pretty sure you’ll see them this year.”
On Freshmen Cornerbacks Ryan Barnes And Caleb Offord
“Those guys were kind of not even ready for competitive reps within our own world. But today I said, ‘Give me Barnes against [Kevin] Austin. I want to see him.’ I think they’ve done a nice job, and those two guys were not at that point for us at the cornerback position.”
On Junior Running Back Kyren Williams’ Energy
“With that high energy, it has to be pointed in the right direction. He’s still young. There will be times that youthful energy needs to be redirected. But as a whole, it’s extremely beneficial for that offense. You’ve got a quarterback who is not necessarily the rah-rah kind of guy. He’s business-detailed.
“You’ve got [Michael] Mayer who is a similar personality. So you kind of need that. And by virtue of that, that’s why he’s captain too.”
On Offensive Coordinator Tommy Rees’ Appendectomy
“He’s lucky. It was a lot worse [than normal cases of appendicitis]. We’re fortunate that everything worked out great. But appendectomy, performed at St. Joe’s, I really appreciate the work Dr. Leiszler did in forcing him to get over there and get checked out. Obviously our friends at St. Joe’s have been fabulous in getting him treated.
“It wasn’t your standard, ‘Hey, we have plenty of time here.’ If this was left unattended a little bit longer, we could have had a much more serious situation.”
On Senior Wide Receiver Braden Lenzy’s Health Status
“He had a shoulder strain. He fell in a one-on-one. [Clarence] Lewis fell on top of him on a catch. He had a strain, so we're just working him back in. We think he’ll be able to be 100 percent in the next day or two.”
On Notre Dame Avoiding Players Entering The Transfer Portal
“They choose Notre Dame for the degree and wanting to graduate from Notre Dame. We’re pretty transparent up front about why you should choose Notre Dame. Don’t come here just for the football. If you’re just coming here for football, this is not the right place for you. Obviously that takes us out of consideration for some guys that are interested in football in whatever they can do to get to the NFL.
“We’re telling the kids, ‘Look. It’s both here. You’re going to go into the classroom with extremely talented, five-star students. You’ve got to be able to understand that.’ For us, it works better that way.”
On Junior Quarterback Brendon Clark’s Health Status
“We think he can get into the scout team work. He’s made really good progress the last couple of weeks. A lot of this is confidence. He wants to get in there. I think we have to get him in there and let him go down there.
“Obviously keep a pretty good cylinder around him, but let him go down there and get some work.”
On The Identity Of The 2021 Team
“Everything we’ve talked about has been maintaining the high standards we’ve set. It’s not good enough for being part of the playoffs, but winning the playoffs. We’ve talked about that a couple times already. High standards, meeting the standards and exceeding the standards.
“I think more than anything else is players understanding that at Notre Dame we’re playing for championships. That's been our mission. Graduating champions.”
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