Quick-Hitters: Brian Kelly Oct. 1 Press Conference
Brian Kelly communicated no doubt. Notre Dame will play Oct. 10 as scheduled, he said Thursday in his first public comments since the Irish halted football activities Sept. 22 due to a COVID-19 outbreak.
“We’re going to be able to prepare the football team to play Florida State,” Kelly said.
They will presumably do so with a few COVID-related absences, but mostly at full strength and with three key players who were injured earlier.
Junior wide receiver Kevin Austin, fifth-year senior wide receiver Bennett Skowronek and sophomore safety Kyle Hamilton are all expected to return from injury against the Seminoles. Austin had foot surgery to repair a fracture Aug. 3, while the others were injured Sept. 12 against Duke.
“Kevin Austin is in a running program right now," Kelly said. "He ran the last couple of days. He will be modified over the next couple days with practice. Right now, we’re on track for him to compete against Florida State.
“Hamilton is in great shape right now. We expect him to be at full-go. Same thing with Ben. He’s feeling no ill effects from the hamstring. Obviously Kevin is going to be the guy we modify for Florida State, but the other two guys should be at the top of their form.”
Here are some other topics Kelly addressed.
On The Next Few Days’ Schedule
“We did a team activity, conditioning, on Monday, Tuesday we had weight training, Wednesday we had a voluntary conditioning which was met with the entire team. Today we’ll practice, tomorrow we’ll practice, Saturday we’ll weight train and Sunday will be a live scrimmage situation.”
On Altering Pregame Meal Plans
“We’ll be using another facility across the street that gives us much more room and allows us to socially distance, but also from a meal preparation standpoint, control it to our liking.”
On COVID-19 Spread During Games
“In our constant communication with South Florida, they did not have any positives. As it relates to the on-field spread, in that instance, there was some chance there it could have spread, and it did not. The way the game is played, where there is not the duration of contact over a long period of time, it minimizes the spread.
"It appears that way. I’m not an expert. All we’re doing is picking up a lot of these trends as we see them, and that seems to be the case right now. Stay tuned. We’ll see what happens.
“That would make this almost untenable if you were worried about on-field spread.”
On Deciding If They Can Play A Game
“What you’re looking at is, where are you in the handling of the outbreak? Has your testing gotten to the point where you have a handle on it, and you know you don’t have any more spread? That’s part one.
“Part two is, can you put together a team that is at least resembling in some fashion the competitiveness of your group? If you’re missing two quarterbacks, don’t have a full offensive line, have no rotation at the defensive line, at critical positions where it becomes something where you have to play a singular defensive line for the entire game, then you’re putting a player at risk.”
On Ramping Back Up Quickly
“These guys have played the game, they know the speed and know what they need to be ready for. We’re going to have to go against each other and go live. There will have to be some bowl game-type preparation, if you will. But two weeks is not two months. There will be some challenges. But once the game gets going, this group has played a lot of football and I’m confident we’ll be able to get up to snuff pretty quickly.”
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