Quick-Hitters: What Brian Kelly Said After FSU Game
Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly addressed the media after a 42-26 win over Florida State.
Kelly on feeling grateful to play after the victory over FSU:
"First and foremost, winning is hard. Just to be here, talking about a victory is really satisfying given the fact about 10 days ago we had 36 guys that were unavailable to us. In short order, to prepare our team and have our guys be selfless and take care of themselves and put themselves in a position to win a football game today, I couldn't be more proud of our group, our coaches, our support staff.
"We gave the game ball out to [head trainer] Rob Hunt and Dr. Matt Leiszler. We couldn't have been here today without their extraordinary efforts to get our football team safe and healthy."
Kelly on Shaun Crawford moving back to cornerback:
"Cam Hart got out of quarantine yesterday. [Nick] McCloud was unavailable until Thursday of this week. Clarence Lewis was unavailable until Thursday of this week. So we're down three the corners that played quite a bit. So it was TaRiq [Bracy] and a bunch of freshmen that really weren't particularly ready. So Shaun had played the position, so he was again, selfless.
"He moved over to the cornerback position and bailed us out in a very, very difficult time, playing a position that he hadn't been repping at all because he had played all those safety reps."
Kelly on running back Kyren Williams bouncing back after fumbling the pass on the first drive of the game:
"He's a competitor. We just reminded him about ball security. Again, and he wasn't hit a lot. We only had one opportunity in these last three weeks to go live with our guys. And again, I'm not up here to make excuses for guys. But he's a great competitor, and he bounced back. Great competitors put that play behind them and they move on. That's the kind of competitor he is. He moved on from a mistake he made and showed the kind of athlete that he is."
Kelly on why the team is running the ball so well:
"They have really good guys blocking form. There's five guys upfront, there's receivers blocking form, there's tight ends that are blocking form. We got a lot of guys that are doing a lot of really good work for the backs. Then they're making good decisive cuts and seeing things very well. It's a combination of all those things: good backs that are making really patient cuts and letting the offensive line do their work."
Kelly on what inspired Ian Book to push the ball down the field so much against FSU:
"It was a conversation that he kind of had with us this week. He said he felt really good—as good as he's felt in quite some time. I don't know, maybe a perspective that he had gained that he was very calm in the pocket. I thought he saw the field well. He was aggressive in pushing the ball down the field. It was nice to see and if we continue to see that from Ian Book, he's gonna be very difficult to defend."
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