BGI VIDEO: Brian Kelly On Book's Recent Progress, Playing Boston College
Notre Dame Head Coach Brian Kelly spoke at his weekly press conference about Boston College; provided an injury update for Shayne Simon, Kyle Hamilton, Jayson Ademilola; Ian Book's progress and more.
KELLY: "All right. You know, Boston College will be our seventh team that had the week off to prepare, and certainly, they will be ready to come here and play their very best.
"They always do. They're always very difficult games. It's a team that quite interesting enough, has really evolved into a very difficult team to defend offensively with both the two runningbacks in Dillon and Bailey. Just outstanding backs. One is 240 pounds, 250 pounds, depends on what scale you look at.
"But both of them are just outstanding. Dillon has got the burst to get to the edge, the physicality that you're going to need more than one guy to bring him down.
"Unfortunately, they lost the starting quarterback, but the kid that's gone in there was a baseball player, but he plays with great confidence. He's comfortable back there. Just a savvy kid. He does what he's asked to do, play-action pass, gets the ball to White, who's a really good receiver.
"But the bottom line here is this is one of the top-scoring offenses in the country. Mike Bajakian is doing a great job. I know Mike. He is an outstanding offensive coordinator. Very good offensive line.
"Defensively they have lost a lot of guys in back end of their defense. This is traditionally a defense that turns over a lot of NFL players, so they've got some younger players back there that are going to be good.
"So, again, from our perspective, it continues to execute at a high level offensively, control the line of scrimmage as best we can against a team that really wants to assert themselves in running the football. Should be a great matchup for our football team.
"With that, let you fire away."
Q. What do you remember about Dillon from the recruiting process?
KELLY: That he was a really good player, somebody that we had offered and would've liked to have come to Notre Dame. But I think there were other reasons maybe that he didn't want to come here. I don't know what they were. We never really had an opportunity.
Felt like BC was the best fit for him and it's obviously worked out quite well for him.
Q. Trevor Ruhland has had a long career here, although kind of in the shadows. Do you ever kind of wonder what he would've turned out to be like had he not had 83,000 surgeries?
KELLY: "Yeah, he's had quite a few, and extensive. I think a lot of it is his just, you know, his love for playing the game, first of all. He loves to play and he loves being with his teammates. There is a connection there that has kept him persevering through all the injuries.
"I think others would've probably moved on. I think what has separated him from some other players that I've had that have had multiple setbacks is his personality. You guys have gotten a chance to see a little bit of that this year. The players have such a tight relationship with him that he did not want to give that up.
"So it's nice to see him finish off in his last year here with some playing time and have some success. So that's really what I think is his legacy, just overcoming a number of injuries and now really getting a chance in his last year to contribute to success."
Q. You mentioned yesterday you might know more about Shane Simon.
KELLY: "Yeah, I mean, he's going to have surgery tomorrow. It's what we had feared. It's a fairly significant injury, one that he'll be able to fully recover from, but it'll be a lengthy process. Dr. Ratigan will do that surgery tomorrow. It involves the tendon, the patella tendon. Outside of that, I would probably be getting a little bit outside of my comfort level in terms of other things that need to come together there.
"But something that they're very confident that he'll be able to recover and be back next year."
Q. And probably no contact in spring then for him?
KELLY: Most likely, most likely.
Q. Last one from me. Claypool. I know you mentioned at one point there was a guy up in Canada that tipped you off to him and sent you basketball film.
KELLY: "Yes."
Q. Has he had any tips since, anybody that was worth going up there and looking at?
KELLY: "Well, he was good friends of Mike Denbrock's, this gentleman that gave us the film. So Mike knew him, and that's kind of how the trickle-down occurred.
"So maybe Mike is chasing those guys down in Cincinnati now."
Q. Just some clean-up questions. You mentioned yesterday Simon was the only one of note, but Jayson Ademilola...
KELLY: "Yeah, he had an ankle sprain."
Q. It's an ankle sprain?
KELLY: "Yes."
Q. And you anticipate him being ready to go this week?
KELLY: "Yeah, I think he's day-to-day right now. He was in the training room today and it's Monday, so we'll keep working on him day-to-day."
Q. And then tied in with that, I believe that was Howard Cross' fourth game. Do you know if that's...
KELLY: "No. Think we have him for three. I'll double-check. Let me double-check and we can get back with you."
What do you have? Yeah, we have him for three.
Q. All right. Then I'll ask you next week again.
KELLY: "Yeah, that's fine. But I'll double-check and we can get back to you."
Q. Braden Lenzy, I mean, last week this time we were talking about fatigue or fatigue syndrome.
KELLY: "Yeah, you know, we felt like with everything that was going on with him, we just wanted to protect him a little bit. Worked out pretty good. He looked pretty fast to me."
Q. You mentioned Moala, what a good football player he is...
KELLY: Yeah.
Q. ...and how you need to find a place to get him on the field. Other than sharing the position at rover with Owusu-Koramoah, is there a position that you think either one of them can slide to in the future?
KELLY: "Sure. Yeah, but we'll deal with that later."
Q. So would that be buck linebacker?
KELLY: "That will be something we can talk about in the spring."
Q. With Braden, we know he's had some injury issues. Are there other things within his game maybe with fundamentals that have held him back?
KELLY: "No, I don't think so. Not in particular. I just think the workload at that position is such that it requires, you know, a just a whole different day-to-day kind of preparation. I think that transition is occurring with him and Joe Wilkins and Lawrence Keys.
"Those guys are transitioning into that, and so there is going to be some days where they have to be protected, whether it's soft tissue or whether it's just the load of academics and football, you know, where we have to make coaches' decisions based upon their readiness.
"We do that by seeing how they're practicing, how they're handling the load from week to week. So I just think it's a natural progression that they're going through. They'll be bigger, they'll be stronger, they'll be all the things necessary for them to be much more consistent as we enter into next season."
Q. It's Senior Day this weekend and this class of seniors went through the worst of it as freshman with the 2016 season. How much do you feel like that impacted and maybe guided how those kids responded and lead their careers here at Notre Dame.
KELLY: "Certainly there were some residual benefits. They didn't seem to benefit at the time, but they learned quite a bit from that season in terms of I think the preparation and the locker room and all the things that are necessary to continue to build on your culture.
"Some of those guys are leaders today that have been able to make sure that no one takes our process for granted, and that you continue to work on it every day. So that experience definitely benefited those guys in their senior year.
Q. When they were going through the Senior Day ceremonies, do you get emotional at all watching those guys embrace their parents potentially for the last game here at Notre Dame?
KELLY: "Well, you know, I get emotional just leading them, you know, so I don't know that it comes down to one day. I mean, look, you get motional watching these guys succeed and struggle. It's just not the one day. I mean, I think if it comes down to one day then I don't know what you're doing the other days of the year.
"No, we have three more games, so, yeah, it'll be one where they're not playing in Notre Dame Stadium again, but I think what will be much more emotional is the last game that they play.
Q. When you arrived here and the first few years you were known as Mr. November. Finished Cincinnati 10-0, 10-1, then there was a five-year lull. You went 9-12 in November. Now you're right back on a very strong track; 7 straight there. What would you attribute to getting back that mojo this late in the season?
KELLY: "Better coaching, better leadership, just doing a better job I guess of leading our football team. You know, to really sit here and kind of think about the tougher months, November, it's hard to put a finger on it. There are different things that occur in November, whether it might have been injuries, might have been -- I don't know. There are coaching decisions that you make.
"So there are a number of things. I feel really good where our program is, our culture, our coaches, our players, and feel like the things we're doing right now are benefitting our players so they can go out and play fast and free."
Q. You did say in January of 2018 there was a commitment, like what do we do to get strong in November, because that's been a problem. One of the things I saw mentioned is you need taper back a little bit so you have your legs in November, but you've said that the team wants to remain physical and not taper off so much. How do you balance those two?
KELLY: "Yeah, well that's my job. They want a lot of things. (Laughter.) But there are some things that you have to balance for them.
"So we're not going as many periods as we were in September and October and November. I think what they wanted was they wanted to maintain the intensity of practices. I think that's clearly the most important thing. It doesn't necessarily mean the duration. You're balancing intensity with duration.
"I think the comments to me, the captains, more than anything else is make sure we keep the intensity up in practice. Contact needs to stay up. Don't pull off from that perspective.
"But I still have to manage duration, workload, things of that nature."
Q. I think Drue Tranquill was the one that commented a couple years ago that by the end of 2017 they were so fatigued, they were running on empty pretty much. There were fumes at the end.
KELLY: "Yeah, I mean, again, last year we traveled all over the country. I thought we were playing pretty good football at the end of the year as well.
"So I think that's a commitment year-round to conditioning, weight training, mental, and physical. This team has mental toughness. You can define mental toughness in any way you want, but I think it's in the way they play. They're doing their job. They're holding each other accountable and doing that in the weight room as well.
"There are no guys in there cutting corners. They're doing their job in the weight room, in the training room. That training room was packed this morning. I mean packed. And you do that with a commitment towards getting yourself ready to be the best you can be on Saturday. When you're doing that on a Monday, that's mental toughness. That's accountability in November that you need.
"We're seeing that."
Q. Just want to ask, Kyle Hamilton seemed -- was he okay?
KELLY: "Yeah, he was cleared. He came back in the game and played after he was evaluated for a brachial plexus stinger, that kind of injury."
Q. The last couple weeks Ian has sort of shown some new stuff. I know you've been pleased with that. Curious from a coaching standpoint if Chip Long has also sort of found some new buttons to push or if you have collaborated with him to push the offense in some different ways?
KELLY: "No. We've made some adjustments in practice that I think have helped Ian. We're not scripting as much in terms of just calling it off the script and running it from a particular area in the field. We're on the sidelines and we're running plays much more like a scrimmage.
"So Ian is getting plays from the sideline and getting it in much more of a game-like fashion instead of just standing there and getting it off a script and almost it being formulated for him. We wanted it to be one where he had to see it, digest it, and then we would coach it after the fact in film study.
"Because it seemed to me that we look great in practice because he already had the answers to the test. In this way, he was -- again, I know it's a poor analogy -- but he had to show us the work by going through all the progressions before he saw it. He did not know what the play was.
"I think that's really helped him decipher what's going on and what he's seeing out there. So long answer to your question is nothing different relative to schemes as much as teaching and how we're practicing it. I think that's helped him. I think Tom has done a really good job of changing some things up in terms of pass pictures and things of that nature.
"So we felt like we needed to do a better job coaching, quite frankly. Too good of a player and he wasn't playing to the level that he's capable of playing, and so we need to do take good, hard look at how we were coaching him.
"It's benefited him and he's playing the way he should be playing."
Q. We've only seen Phil Jurkovec in some small spots this year. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, how has he developed through the course of the season? Has he sort of picked up what we saw a bunch of in August where we saw a quarterback who was making progress?
KELLY: "Yeah, I think he showed some real signs. I don't know if you saw the throw. They were in a two trap blitz to strong safety off the edge and the corner was sitting down for the rollover, which is a trap.
"He throws the sideline, and that's hard to do when you don't get a lot of reps. He showed some real signs that you don't normally get those opportunities on the backup quarterback and execute them correctly.
"But it's hard being the backup quarterback and stay locked in all the time. So there are a couple things where you scratch your head, but I just think it's just a matter of time. Once he gets in there and gets a lot of work we feel really confident that he'll be successful."
Q. Brian, three weeks ago we sat here and asked you about three hundred questions about Ian Book and Phil Jurkovec and quarterbacks. How do you feel like Ian has handled that noise in the last three weeks, and are you surprised at all by the way he's handled it?
KELLY: "I think he's had to come up with some ways to obviously avoid a lot of it, and I think he's done a nice job. Some of it is going to seep through naturally because of the nature of the position at Notre Dame. You don't come to the Notre Dame as the quarterback expecting to have to wear earplugs. You're going to hear it, and you have to be able to deal with it.
"I think he's figured out how to do that. He's going to get way too much credit for wins and way too much blame for the losses. I think he's balanced that out. I think that we're coaching him better. I think he's playing better. I think he's playing at the level he's capable of playing, and I think he can play better.
"So, again, I just think that there is a young player there that is getting better down the stretch here, and I think there is more out there for him."
Q. Then the team as a whole, how do you feel like they have responded since that loss at Michigan?
KELLY: "I think the proof is the in way they've played. They've executed very well. They've been physical and controlling the line of scrimmage in both offense and defense.
"I think we had one false start penalty. That's been something that's been an issue for us. In the Georgia game we were all other the place. Again, that was home versus away, but still, it's about personal and unit discipline."
"A lot of good signs in many of those areas."
Q. Quick housekeeping with McKinley's foot. Is he out for this week?
KELLY: We will have a better sense of him today. He's out of the boot. We'll run him today, get a sense. He was on the alter G at a percentage that allows us to begin to run him, and then I think we'll probably get a better sense Tuesday, Wednesday.
Q. Follow up on Book. He mentioned after the game he found a mechanism for dealing with being quarterback at the Notre Dame. Is that just blocking out the noise?
KELLY: "No, I think I kind of what I said. Look, you can't bury your head in the sand. You've got to be aware of your situation. That just comes with being here at Notre Dame. You want to be at Notre Dame and have the bright lights. That comes with this territory. That's why you choose to come to Notre Dame.
"But there has to be a time where you push all that stuff aside for a few hours and come back to it later. It'll still be there. You still got to deal with it. So I think he's found a way he can put that stuff aside and go have fun and play this game without all that. Maybe was carrying that with him 24/7 and he found a way to just put it aside. It will be there when you get back and deal with it then."
Q. Compartmentalizing, for lack of a better word?
KELLY: "Yeah. I'm a football coach. I try to stay away from SAT words."
Q. If you could take us back to when you were growing up in Massachusetts and what it was like following Boston College and their football program through the years and what have you seen during that time?
KELLY: "I wasn't following Boston College that much growing up. I mean, it was more Notre Dame. I didn't pick up Boston College until I was just about ready to leave. That was a little bit of the Holy Cross/Boston College games that were being played that were competitive back then.
"But I wasn't much of a fan of anything but Notre Dame really growing up. That's all we had on TV. Boston College wasn't on the television set much growing up in Boston. It wasn't until I was gone from Boston that BC started to be played on radio and television."
Q. Around the time Flutie and things started to take off then?
KELLY: "Yeah."
Q. What have you seen of their program since the uptake, as they've grown with the program?
KELLY: "I think just from a football standpoint, you know, being in the ACC has obviously benefited them greatly. They have certainly a reputation of being a physical football team. Obviously going back to Coach Coughlin in terms of they have either turned out great defensive players or obviously the tight ends, quarterbacks.
"I played Boston College when I was at Central Michigan with Matt Ryan. It's always been a program that has turned out really fine players year in and year out, and an extremely competitive football team that can beat anybody on any given day.
"Certainly know the difference here that when they're playing Notre Dame, this is a big game. We know obviously they're playing for bowl eligibility, so there is a lot playing for this game."
Q. Coach, you mentioned you started talking to guys about next year and coming back for a fifth year. Have you had conversations with Ian, and do you expect him back next year?
KELLY: "Yeah, I've talked to a lot of the guys. Not going to get into the specifics. Those are conversations that we try to have with guys that have eligibility remaining. I really don't like to have you know, 28 guys that are seniors and do this thing twice, walk them out twice.
"So we try to have some conversations with them, and then we're obviously trying to help them make some decisions on the NFL and things of that nature. So lots of those conversations are percolating. They're not priorities right now, but we like to lay the groundwork right now."
Q. With a win on Saturday you would be undefeated at home four the second straight season. How much pride do you take in that and what goes into staying undefeated?
KELLY: "Yeah, our players take great pride in protecting their house, if you will. It's been a big source of pride in terms of our summer workouts. It's clearly a goal of ours. Winning at home is important. It sets up your schedule. You're generally playing six, seven games at home. It sets up your year.
"Yeah, we take a great deal of pride and have a great student following. We love playing in front of our students and our fans and it's a great atmosphere."
Q. And then Shaun Crawford will be playing Senior Day on Saturday. He's obviously been through a lot.
KELLY: "Yeah."
Q. To see him playing, being able to walk out in the pads and uniform on Senior Day, what does that mean to you and him?
KELLY: "Perseverance. He's gritty, tough. He was right in the middle of the action on Saturday. Again, he's come back from an elbow injury, but this might have been his healthiest year so far. It was a pretty severe elbow injury.
"Yeah, great to see him out there competing, physical. He's a great leader for us as well. Yeah, it was nice to see."
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