TRANSCRIPT: Brian Kelly Post-Georgia Teleconference
On if defensive players faked injuries during Georiga game...
Kelly: "Owusu was evaluated for a concussion. He was brought to the tent, so it's hard to be booing at a young man who's being evaluated for a concussion. And, quite honestly, Georgia doesn't play very fast. I found that to be quite interesting, that there would be such a number of questions on something like that. And then the other one was cramping. But again, it's a non-issue. It happens in college football all the time. Guys go down and they've got to be administered to.
"I've seen games played against us where [that happened] many, many more [times]. So not really sure why you're asking the question."
On how the offensive line played...
Kelly: "I think there's room for improvement. We're putting a lot of pressure, obviously, on our offense when you're throwing the ball. We want to be more balanced. We're really thin at the running back position right now. When you put that much pressure on the offensive line and they know you're throwing the football, it was as a pretty good job with the group up front and sorting things out. But again, I think what was most disappointing is the inability to communicate effectively, and we've got to coach that better, but you also have to be aware. We had too many false start penalties. We knew they were going to move and stunt upfront, and we didn't handle that very well.
"And then we had some issues with the silent cadence with our quarterback and, again, we've got to do a better job there. But all in all, their pass protection. From a running game standpoint, we didn't commit to it, because we knew that we were a little short there. But they played a very, very good defense. And we had a chance to win so they came out of this doing a pretty good job."
On if any players were injured against Georgia:
Kelly: "We came out of it clean. It's interesting, when we play physical games we always seem to come out of it pretty good. Whether it's Michigan State or Michigan or games like that. Sometimes the Stanford games have been like that as well. No one to be concerned about for this weekend.
"As it relates to getting guys back, I would say probable for Michael Young, I would say probable for Jahmir Smith and I would say that, as it relates to Jafar, we're probably a couple of weeks from Jafar getting back into action. And I would say a probable for Braden Lenzy. So three probables there for this weekend. And Jafar is making great progress towards coming back sometime, we're hopeful, right around the USC game."
On what he liked about how his team played against Georgia:
Kelly: "We played fast. We played physical against one of the top SEC teams in the country. So we play these games to measure ourselves nationally in terms of where we are. Our mission here is to win championships. So you want to measure your program against the best, and we feel like we measured ourselves on the road in a hostile environment. Our defense never flinched.
"They handled sudden change very, very well. I think our offense left a lot of points out there. We can play better, so it's a team that can get better. And so when you look at it in its totality, even though we lost the football game, there's a lot to take away from this feeling good that Notre Dame's football program and its team and, in particular, the 2019 team has a chance to do a lot of great things this year."
On tight end Cole Kmet's performance:
Kelly: "Anytime you have a player that you believe can have an impact to get him off to a good start, it creates, obviously a lot of energy on the sideline. When you're bringing a guy back in and his physicality was felt right away. And then he gives us great versatility because now you've got to worry about somebody running down the seam and it creates some other opportunities for a chase Claypool and some other players on your football team.
"Now that we know that we've got him back, it allows us to really start to focus on how we can get our weapons the football. We still have to develop our running game. There's no doubt about that. Hopefully, we get some guys back healthy there. He did a great job in terms of not worrying about the injury coming back, making physical plays and playing physical. I thought it was a great way for him to come back in his first game."
On the defense's ability to contain the Georgia offense:
Kelly: "Yeah, they were fast and physical. As I said, there were a few things in terms of what we'd like to clean up. I think there's some things that we lost, some leverage and some particular gaps. Our catch man has got to be better in our leverage on the perimeter. As I said earlier, if you look at the stop we had just in the third quarter was a huge momentum piece for us. Offensively, we had some drops in the third quarter and we had an opportunity to take control of the football game in the third quarter, and we gave it to Georgia.
"It wasn't that they took it as much as we gave it to them. And a lot of that was because of our defense setting the tone. And so I'm really proud of the way they played. They've played, again, fast and physical and eliminated the big play that Georgia was used to making."
On wide receiver Chase Claypool's performance:
Kelly: "He's a warrior. He plays so hard and, every single play he's demanding the attention of the Georgia defense and made an incredible catch late in the fourth quarter. Everybody knows we're going to go to him and he still comes up with big plays, got hit a couple of times and just gets right back up. He makes a huge on special teams, can't get blocked, just unblockable. He's a warrior and he's so instrumental to our success and can't say enough good things about him."
On how players can lead by example with their play:
"There are so many guys on our football team that, by the style of their play and the way they work, they lead. And just the way he plays the game, he influences the other players around him. We tell our guys all the time, just because you don't have a 'C' on the jersey doesn't mean you don't lead and people are influenced by the way you play. So he continues to do that. He's well-liked by his teammates and it rubs off on others."
On how to prepare for playing Virginia this upcoming week:
Kelly: "We play a lot of big games and so we can't put all of our emotional energy in one game. We talked about that last week is that we have to go down here and treat the Georgia game like a business trip because the next game is going to be as big. You go into a season with an emotional balance from week to week. We've got to go to Michigan and that's going to be a big one. We've got to go play our rival USC. We've got to go to Stanford.
"Navy is always difficult and an emotional game for us. We set the season up that way and we don't play up and down to our competition. We play to a level that is consistent week in and week out. And we kind of talk about that and our guys do a great job of balancing it that way."
What will you take from this game against Georgia to use in future games:
Kelly: "We do an exercise every week where what did we do well. What do we need to do better and then what did we learn? We do that on offense, defense and special teams. We did a lot of things well, but there's a ton of things that we have to do better offensively. We left a lot of offense out there. We have to be much more detailed, too many penalties, too many false start penalties, infraction errors. Too many missed opportunities in the passing game.
"Defensively, we've got to do a better job on the perimeter and the one-on-one 50-50 throws and then the special teams, we were outstanding in special teams, but a couple of untimely penalties. So we do a full assessment of where we have to be better and then we look to improving that during the week of practice."
On if running backs C'bo Flemister, Kyren Williams and Avery Davis can help against Virginia:
Kelly: "They will. We're going to have to keep people honest. I don't know that we're all of a sudden going run it 50 times, but we're going to have to display a running game that keeps a defense honest. And I think that that's the most important thing right now as we continue to work towards getting guys healthier.
"Jahmir will definitely help and then trying to get these younger guys up to a point where we can keep them in the game for a more extended period of time along with, of course, Tony. So it's a work-in-progress for us. We know where we need to be in terms of what the running game needs to look like. But it's going to take some time until we get all of the assets, if you will, back into place."
On using a smaller linebacker rotation and how they performed against Georgia:
Kelly: "We're really seeing some strong improvement from Bilal. He played really well. He continues to emerge as somebody that we feel does not even merit getting taken off the field. He's played really well now in successive weeks. He struggled a little bit against Louisville and since that time has played very, very good football for us, so that was nice to see. Drew played very well again, and to see him in the way he's tackling and communicating.
"Owusu played his best game, so obviously that played a lot into our rotation as well. 22, number 40 and number six, those three guys really played well for us. We didn't play a lot of snaps, Eric. It wasn't a situation where we felt like we needed a big rotation in and out of the game. You're right though, those two guys merited the snaps and played pretty good football."
On Asmar Bilal's relationship with Drue Tranquill and how he's developed as a leader:
Kelly: "We were just commenting, Clark and I and our meeting this morning, how he has become so much more communicative in the sense that he had been a guy that we have been trying to get to talk a lot more out on the field, to be engaging a lot more because he is such a quiet guy.
"Maybe Drue's rubbed off on him in that sense because we've seen a different guy, one that really is engaging, one guy that is really enjoying what he's doing. I think we're seeing it in his play. So, if that's what's going on with those conversations with Drue, we're all for it. As a football player, I think Clark's doing a great job and really getting him to the next level as a linebacker. So things are trending in the right direction there."
On how special teams players performed:
Kelly: "Marist graded out with one of the highest grades that we had. He was outstanding first time out there. So we learned that he's a guy that can get out there and play with anybody. Obviously, both kickers were outstanding, the punter was outstanding. We had a net punt, we won that by 18 yards and our average starting position was the 35. Theirs was the 19. We're playing really well.
"A lot of guys are making impact on that team. We have a lot of really good players. But I would say right now, if you want to ask me about our special teams, the two kickers really have really been so much more than we could have hoped for at this point. And then we're getting some young players. Jack Kiser, 24; Marist 35. We're getting some young guys stepping up and playing big roles as well."
On how quarterback Ian Book handled loud noise during last week's practices:
Kelly: "No, we had used silent count and, as a matter of fact, we had our Saturday walkthrough and we went 15 minutes of silent cadence without any issues. I just think, unfortunately in the moment of the game, he just went back to muscle memory and what he had done so much is the clap and it cost us. Obviously, very unfortunate but we'll have to continue to work on it and clean it up so it doesn't happen again."
On Marist Liufau starting on special teams for the first time at Georgia:
Kelly: "We get four games with these guys before we have to make a decision. We had made a tactical decision early on from what we had seen from him that he was a guy that could handle himself against the very best opponents on our schedule. So we had earmarked the Georgia game for him to be his first game. But no, he had shown us from the very beginning that this was a young man that was going to make an impact on special teams for us.
"The other guys that played had done a nice job, but we weren't sure whether their four games were going to run out after the first four games or not. They were kind of still in the evaluation. He was not. We were sure about him, and he validated that and he played against Georgia."
On if he will go over four games:
Kelly: "That is still up for debate in terms of his impact. If he impacts the way he does, we'll have to consider it."
On TaRiq Bracy breaking up passes in the end zone:
"He played the most out there. Shaun made a couple of really good plays, too, when he was playing the wide field. He got beat on one, but Shaun made two nice plays. 28 and 20, Bracy and Crawford together have done a really, really nice job. We've got to give some techniques to Troy and give him some more opportunities to change up what he gets. He plays so much press over there. But 28 had a really nice game for us and continues to get better each and every week. So your observations on that were right on."
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