Notre Dame is plugging the injury-related holes on the offensive line with a former top-150 recruit and a senior with starting experience.
Sophomore Zeke Correll will start at center Friday at North Carolina in place of Jarrett Patterson, who sustained a season-ending foot injury Nov. 14 at Boston College. Senior Josh Lugg, who started five games at right tackle last season, will take over this week at right guard for Tommy Kraemer, who is out due to an emergency appendectomy.
Elsewhere, Brian Kelly said wide receiver Braden Lenzy is expected back from a hamstring injury suffered Oct. 24 at Pitt.
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"You can pencil him in there," Kelly said. "He has made great progress. He’s going to move from modified work, which would be our own scouted work, and he’s going into 11-on-11 work this week.”
Friday's game at North Carolina (3:30 ET, ABC) is a meeting of top-25 teams, but also is the first time Kelly and Tar Heels coach Mack Brown will face each other. Kelly has been an FBS head coach since 2004, while Brown has held that role since 1985, with a break from 2014-18. They have 404 combined wins at the FBS level.
“For both of us, it has been our consistency in our approach," Kelly said. "Being who we are, day in and day out. You can see that in who Mack is, what’s important to him and what’s important to me.”
Here's a roundup of some other topics Kelly addressed in his weekly press availability.
On North Carolina’s Offense
“Clemson comes to mind as an equally talented football team...Certainly, a really deserving in terms of all the accolades in what they’ve accomplished. They don’t go away. They have come back in fourth quarters and won football games. They keep playing. It’s an equally dangerous team in the way they keep playing.
“From our perspective, we want to be who we are. We want to be physical. We want to control the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. They’re going to play how they play. We have to minimize big plays. The most important thing in this game is who can keep the points down. If you look at the scores over the last four weeks, it’s big points.”
On Limiting Explosive Plays And Defending Run-Pass Options
“One thing is the impact the run game has to their RPOs. The run game is central to what they do. You have to have a running game for the RPO game to be effective. But this is like any other offense. It’s rhythm. And rhythm comes from balance. If you have balance, you have rhythm. If you don’t, you lack the rhythm necessary.
It’s our job to get them and get (quarterback) Sam (Howell) off rhythm. You do that by keeping the down and distance in your favor. It’s very important for us to do that at the line of scrimmage, and then eliminate the big plays.”
“If I was to center on two things without giving away too much of a game plan, it’s that you have to be really good around the line of scrimmage and being effective and stopping base run plays, and then you can’t give up big chunk plays. They’re going to get some. But you can’t have them throwing the ball over your head left and right.”
On Notre Dame’s Wide Receivers
“There are other pieces in there. Those guys are physical. They exert a presence of physicality, which is seen on film. Those guys will block your tail off. They have the ability to go up and get the football. You add that dimension. When you watch them on film, the first thing that jumps out is these guys will do the dirty work. Then when the ball is thrown their way, they’re going to fight for it.
“Add that to winning one-on-one matchups. Avery Davis has the ability to run after the catch. The tight ends and running backs coming out of the backfield. You have a very good balance within what you’re trying to put together offensively.
“We’re not five wide and all over the field, but we’ve established our DNA in terms of what we want to look like, and it starts with being physical.”
On Recruiting In The Ongoing Dead Period
“The whole process is a challenge. We have a pretty good handle on how we’re going about recruiting in this extremely challenging situation where you can’t get a young man to your campus. We have to start with the premise this is a challenge. We’ve gotten a niche or routine in how we like to do things with virtual visits, presentations.
“We’re going to have to continue to do that with some modifications, I would hope, for the NCAA when we talk about the ’22 class. Certainly, they’re going to have to open it up relative to advancing phone calls and things of that nature. The challenge is in the fact that we have to do this. Now that we have a pretty good process in place, it’s just adding more pieces to it and being creative.”
On The Off Week Activity
“Nobody traveled. Nobody was in a position to do so either. We wanted to maintain our bubble. Guys were here. We stayed in our modified quarantine, if you will. Guys tested Saturday, and all their tests came back negative. We wanted to maintain that.
"Once you step outside this environment we’ve created, you open yourself to the uncertainty. Our guys understand that and know this is what they signed up for. It’s not easy, but they’re committed to did. They’ve come this far. There’s no turning back now.”
On Running Back Injuries
“C’Bo [Flemister] will practice today. He had an ankle [injury]. He ran yesterday. Our trainers were optimistic that he will be ready to play this weekend. We’ll be smart with him. But he should be a go for this weekend.”
“The guy who has swung back and forth is [Kendall Abdur-Rahman]. He has been a swing guy for us. We don’t want to mess with [recently moved running back] Jafar [Armstrong]. We want to give him a fair chance to get comfortable at the receiver position.”
“Kyren [Williams] had a little bit of an ankle [problem]. Nothing major. The week off did him some good. He looked good in the weight room this morning.”
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