Quick-hitters: Brian Kelly on injuries, home underdogs, Cincinnati ties

Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly is optimistic graduate senior nose tackle Kurt Hinish (concussion) will only miss one more game. He's expecting freshman left tackle Blake Fisher (meniscus), though, to potentially miss the rest of the season.

Fisher suffered a meniscus injury in the Sept. 5 opener at Florida State and had surgery shortly afterward. The initial timetable for return was eight weeks. Now, Kelly sees any return to action this fall as a bonus.

“That injury is generally something that takes you through most of the season, if not the entire season," Kelly said Thursday. "If [trainer] Rob Hunt comes to me in Week 10 and says, ‘We’re well ahead of schedule,’ we’ll get our hopes up then. It’s not part of what we think about on a day-to-day basis that Blake is going to be back with us during the season.”

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Hinish went in the concussion protocol earlier this month and missed the Sept. 25 win over Wisconsin. He will not play Saturday against Cincinnati (2:30 p.m., NBC), Kelly said. He's targeting a return for the Oct. 9 game at Virginia Tech.

“Kurt went and saw a specialist," Kelly said. "He was cleared from having any kind of head injury. It was something different. He won’t play this weekend. We expect to have him back next week.”

Sophomore Michael Carmody replaced Fisher in the opener and started Sept. 11 vs. Toledo before leaving that game with an ankle sprain. He has not played the last two weeks. His string of absences might end there.

“Carmody has been getting a lot of work at left tackle," Kelly said. "He too is improving each week. We think we’re in the right position for him to be able to play at left tackle on Saturday.”

Here are some other topics Kelly addressed in his final media session before No. 9 Notre Dame (4-0) hosts No. 7 Cincinnati (3-0).

“In our two-minute drill yesterday, we had Coan in there. I thought he did a pretty good job. He’s ahead of where I thought he would be on Wednesday. He has today and tomorrow. Drew [Pyne] and Jack have split first-team reps and we’ve continued to work Tyler’s package that he has traditionally had in weeks past. We’re getting all three of them ready right now.

“[Tyler] Buchner is back to where he was when he got a really good sense of the game against Toledo and Purdue. I think we’re back to that level and hope to increase that as we go into next week.”

“The reality of it is we’ve been working against this defense since last spring. If you’re just trying to prepare for it for two or three days, there’s some complexity for it. That’s where we’ve gotten the insight more than anything else. Mike and Marcus are not bringing anything to the table other than the installation of the defense we’ve gone against since last spring. That’s the knowledge base."

“Not really. They understand what protecting the home field is. They’ve done it 26 times in a row. This is much more about two top-10 teams. You have to go attack your opponent. You can’t sit around and wait. This is a heavyweight fight. If you’re just going to dance around and wait, you’re going to get knocked out. This is a really good football team. You have to come out swinging and be aggressive."

"He has the ability to put the ball down the field. His deep balls are as good as we’ve seen in a long time. And I mean anybody. He throws the ball down the field very well. Then his ability to run. Those are the two things that separate him from a lot of the quarterbacks we’ve played.”

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