Transcript: Brian Kelly On The First Spring Practice Of 2020

Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly spoke to the media after his team’s first spring practice of 2020. He addressed what he has seen from new offensive coordinator Tommy Rees, the new position coaches John McNulty and Mike Mickens, and more.

BRIAN KELLY: "All right. Obviously, the first day of spring practice. You know, we have had a good off-season. I'm really pleased with the leadership of our team, and that was evident today.

"We practiced the right way today. You were all there today. The pace, the competitiveness. You don't have guys on the ground on a first-day practice when you're in helmets, that's -- you guy are lucky because it doesn't get much better than that for a first-day practice. It was competitive.

"There were high levels of execution, and there was a really good tempo to the practice, got a lot of work done technically and tactically, and that's what we were looking to do. From that perspective, we took a good step forward in the construction of this team.

"That's really all I have to say. I'll let you guys fire away. I'm sure you got a couple of questions that I probably don't want to answer."

KELLY: "No, they're not. They're not limited. We limit them on GPS today. Hainsey got up over 500 on his GPS, which is a workload number for us. It's a number that Rob Hunt and I look at and feel like where he is we want a certain workload for him. He got to about 500 and we wanted to shut him down.

"Kraemer got to about 375 and we shut him down today. But those guys are going to continue to work through and be able to do virtually everything during the spring, so we're pleased with their progress."

KELLY: "Cam Hart is in shadow, aggressive shadow. You saw him out there today. We're probably pushing the envelope a little bit with Cam. He really wants to be out there, and I think we're being very cautious but I think aggressive with Cam.

"Crawford has got a little bit of a hamstring. You didn't see him much today. Kizer is out there.

"Lamb is about three weeks out before we can move him to the next level in his progressions.

"Shayne Simon is doing great. He'll be full go for camp.

"Howard Cross will be full go for camp.

Let's see, Banks is about five and a half weeks out on the foot. He had a fracture.

Brunelle had the clean up from high school on the shoulder.

But Skowronek is about 90% from his ankle. He's doing much better. You saw Hayes out there. We'll modify him a little bit, but he's doing well.

Quinn Carroll the same thing.

So that's pretty much the injury list in terms of guys. So a lot of guys that are making their way back on to the practice field.

KELLY: "He's still on scholarship. He's still with us. He's working on some things academically.

"We've given him some time to take care of some things that he needs to work on.

"He's coming back from injury, so he wouldn't be able to practice anyway from that perspective, so we're just giving him an opportunity to work on some things."

KELLY: "Yeah, just ill. He's got strep throat. Yeah, we've had it bouncing around with a couple of guys."

KELLY: "Today would not be a good day to kind of say who is the one, who is the two. There is always a pecking order in a sense that guys are going to have to fit somewhere.

"But remember now, for the last two and a half months there hasn't been ones, there hasn't been twos. I don't put up a depth chart, per se. I don't push that with our coaches. We don't like to talk in those terms.

"But somebody has to go out there. What we like to talk to you our team about is there are competitive opportunities out here. But somebody has to go out there with 11 guys, and Kevin was out there today. You can see he's a guy that can make plays. But there are other guys.

"McKinley, Ben Skowronek made some plays. Lenzy was making catches all over the place, improving obviously the things that he worked on last year, which was those congested catches and tough ball catches, the balls behind him.

"He made those today. There is great competition with a lot of really good receivers. Lawrence Keys looked really good out there today. I could probably go on and on. It's really not about who is one today as much as about creating competition with a number of really talented receivers."

KELLY: "He's always had the talent. He's obviously doing things right both on and off the field. His development has been one that we're really pleased with.

"That's why you're seeing a lot more of him on a day like today."

KELLY: "It has been submitted, but none of that would come through until the end of -- I think May 15th, middle of May is when all those are officially cleared.

"We don't think that there will be any issues. We're not expecting any issues with him nor Crawford. Those would be the two."

KELLY: "Most of it occurs in the locker room. A lot of it occurs outside of the practice time. So I think a lot of it has been developed prior to when we get on this field by setting standards and expectations.

"They know what when to want to accomplish. We had a meeting yesterday with the staff. I think Katie was in it as well. This is the first team that I've had that has really established in their own mind who they are and what they want to be. That's hard to have a group of 18- to 21-year-olds come together and say, This is who we want to be and this is how we're going to go to work every day.

"What we see out here today is manifested by how they do things on a day-to-day basis in the locker room, in the community, in the classroom. You don't need a lot of guys out there yelling because they've set a standard as to how they want things to be accomplished."

KELLY: "The first part of that is just making sure they understand what my expectations are of our coaches, and that is demanding but not demeaning.

"Clearly understanding that our guys have high expectations and that you are to meet those with your preparation and your teaching and your ability to motivate our players to the levels necessary to be at a championship level.

"Setting those standards, and then of course obviously teaching the fundamentals of the game. This is about technique. In spring practice we're not out to win. We've already won the spring game.

"This is really about building that success and building that competency in the group that you have.

"They're really good teachers and they're different in their own right, but building success and competency with the group, and that's what they can do and they've proven they can do that."

KELLY: "Well, there is a lot of questions there. I'll tackle the first one. I don't know if this has been talked about as much. What I was looking for in the offensive coordinator, one of the key components there is that I wanted the coordinator to be the quarterback coach.

"I just think that that relationship is really key to having great communication, and some of the nuances that occur in play-calling require that that relationship is with the coordinator.

"My success and my experience has found that if you're not coaching at that position there is a bit of a separation there that can occur, and I want it to be at that quarterback position. Tommy had done that and was on a job interview during the bowl preparation and really liked the way that that went.

"His relationships are really good. What really has been for me impressive is his relationships with all the players, not just the quarterbacks. Because you can't just be the offensive coordinator and the quarterback coach.

"You've got to have great relationships with the offensive linemen, the offensive line coach, the running backs, the running back coach, all of them. He commands the room. He has really good interpersonal skills. He has a good sense and awareness, and he's going to do a great job at the position in which he's been hired for."

KELLY: "I don't know that we were that bad last year. We scored a lot of points.

"There seems to be this narrative out there that we weren't very good at running the football. We were a pretty good offense last year. We keep parsing last year. Our job is to win football games. We're going to continue to work on that focus of everybody needs to improve in every facet. It's not just the offensive line. It's going to be tight end play, running backs, quarterbacks.

"I don't know. There is this kind of persuasive feeling that the offensive line has to get better. I got to get better. The wide receivers have got to get better. Everybody has to get better across the board.

"We can get off that train of the offensive line has to get better. Everybody has to get better."

KELLY: "I'm sure they do. I'm sure they do."

"Whatever I say is going to be taken 800 different ways.

"Look, this is about getting student-athletes to be student-athletes. So if there is a student-athlete component in transferring, I'm fine with it. I think you should give them the opportunity as long as they're students and athletes. That's really my only comment on it.

"Look, I was allowed to go from Central Michigan to Cincinnati. I got to move up. I got to move up from Cincinnati to Notre Dame. So if players want to move and move up, I don't have a problem with that.

"But I had to do some things to move up, you know. I had to be successful and do things the right way and follow the NCAA rules and be a good citizen. You don't just get to choose and do things just because you want to do them. As long as they're thoughtful and have some parameters, I think it's fine."

KELLY: "His presence itself has been great. He's thoughtful. Look, what's great leadership, right?

"To me, when you battle through adversity -- after the Michigan game, for him to lead our football team to six consecutive wins, that's pretty good. That shows some resilience and leadership, and all those guys know that.

"They want to follow a guy like that just because of his actions from last year. So he's got a ton of credibility and a lot of the respect from his peers. He doesn't really need to walk around and scream and yell.

"He's got a presence about him, and he just needs to be Ian Book. Complete a shitload of passes. That would be great, you know, he keeps doing that stuff, and lead in the manner of who is. He doesn't need to be anybody else. Just be Ian Book and I think he'll be fine."

KELLY: "We're regulated in terms of we don't have some things that the NFL has in terms of having the laptops on the sidelines and being able to get digital information at halftime, things of that nature.

"We're regulated from that standpoint. We don't even have those feeds that Major League Baseball has that led to maybe some of these things. I'm not an expert on this stuff.

"I got my hands full here in football. We don't of some of those things in college football.

"Other than that, it really kind of ends the digital piece coming into the sideline or the locker room for us to gain any kind of audio-visual advantages from that perspective."

KELLY: "I thought Tommy was just somebody that had that presence about him that he wanted to always be in this profession.

"I didn't know about Mike really. Mike was very cerebral, very smart. He could always give you back what game plans were and what we wanted to do.

"He was really a sharp player, but I never knew that he would want to get into the business itself.

"But Tommy was a no-brainer."

KELLY: "I think that we really needed somebody dedicated to the position. In the interviewing process, what I really liked about his presentation to me was his focus solely on teaching the techniques and his experience working with multiple tight ends.

"I thought last year when your offensive coordinator was the tight end coach, the guy that gets left out sometimes is the tight end because he has so many other responsibilities that that position in itself required much more focus and attention.

"I thought he did a great job of showing why he should get this job. I liked his presentation, the way he handled himself. I liked his experience. I liked his recruiting experience geographically as well. So there were a lot of things to like about him, but primarily it was his focus on the position."

KELLY: "Excited about Chris obviously. Loved him as a player. His presence among our players is recognizable still. He just represents a group of — he kind of has that attachment to the McGlincheys and the Nelsons and certainly the Eiferts and the Martins. So that group has been very successful, so he carries a lot of that.

"But in himself, he was a tough, physical, hard-nosed player. Had a lot of versatility and a very smart player, and brings that to the coaching. He'll be a big add for us."

KELLY: "There is an opening here that we've got to go through the HR process, but we have an analyst position."

KELLY: "Good question. As you saw today, if you watched, we employed a lot of two tight ends, and one of them certainly can obviously be moved around, but they've got to be physical in-line blockers. So a physicality is a mindset. It's not just a guy that is in space catching footballs. They've got to be able to do both.

"So the mindset of being physical, blocking a six technique, not just out on the perimeter, and having that kind of physicality to the position."

KELLY: "That's a good question. I mean, we operate on much more of a reactive level. We're still trying to figure out targeting. You know, we're finally getting the kid off the field to stay on the field. I mean, it just seems like we're a step behind here.

"But, I mean, there are some really very simple things that we could be doing. I don't know why we have eight signalers when we could put an earpiece in the helmet to talk to the quarterback. It shuts off before the end of the play clock. They seem to be easy fixes. I don't know if it has to do because we have a legislative body that makes it more difficult.

"I'm not in there, on that committee, so I really can't talk about it. But I would agree with your question, and we should be a little bit more cutting edge when it comes to technology. We're just not."

KELLY: "I don't know if he's going to play the boundary. TaRiq has got a lot of traits that are — first of all, he plays the ball well in the air.

"He's got good speed, and I think the areas that also make him a really good Power Five corner is that he's got experience.

"He brings experience, ball skills, and speed. He's got to continue to get stronger, right, physically, but I know Mike is really high on him early on in what he's seen. As to where he plays, whether he's in the boundary field right or left, that's still to be determined."

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