	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 15, 2015

Brian Kelly

South Bend, Indiana

Q. I was interested in asking you a little bit about your freshman kicker Justin Yoon, who hails from Milton Academy here in Boston. Just a question about how it was he came on your radar. Was Boston College ever involved in the recruitment process? Were they one of the teams that you got him to commit over?
BRIAN KELLY: No, it was just us and Stanford. Those were the only two schools that were in play. He had visited Stanford and Notre Dame, and we became involved with his recruitment through a kicking camp, the Kohl Kicking Camp, and found out about him through that satellite camp, and then we brought him to our kicking camp and offered him a scholarship at that time. And then his recruitment then just went through the normal process. I visited him, went to Milton Academy, and again, got him to commit here over Stanford.

Q. And at the time that he signed, I think you hailed him as being one of the more important commits you got that day and he might have the most impact. Certainly as a kicker everyone knows that they do have that type of import, but what led you to believe that he would have as big an impact as he has for your team?
BRIAN KELLY: Well, outside of the skill, obviously, which is part of this process, he had the right demeanor. I thought everything that he did virtually -- the position requires poise and confidence and the ability to bounce right back. He had all those things, and we knew we were going to have to play him as a true freshman, and we had a good football team, so he was going to be very, very important in terms of plugging him in.

Being a great student, you know, obviously playing a number of different sports at Milton Academy -- he played hockey; he played lacrosse; he played soccer. We knew he had a great competitive spirit, so all of those intangibles really we knew about coming in.

Q. Except for Adams rushing for 141 yards, Wake Forest held Kizer to only 111 passing yards. Why did the Wake Forest defense give issues to you guys the whole game?
BRIAN KELLY: Well, I don't know in terms of the issues. I thought Wake Forest played pretty good. But we only had 40, 45, 46 snaps, so I think what the real issue was was that Wake Forest controlled the football.

Q. When you guys go to Fenway Park, talk about what that's going to mean to the players, playing in a baseball stadium even though it's going to be a football field. Talk about what the atmosphere is going to be like.
BRIAN KELLY: Well, we love these Shamrock Series games. We play great venues throughout the country, and this will be another great one in an iconic venue in Fenway Park, and the guys were really excited about playing in a stadium that has such great tradition.

Q. I wondered if you could run down the report with Onwualu, Cage, CJ, and maybe Nic Weishar if he's on that list, what your probability of getting any of those guys back this week is.
BRIAN KELLY: I'd say probable on all of the concussion guys. Onwualu will be out. He's got a second-degree MCL. That's really it. We don't have anybody else that showed any injuries that would put them in any other kind of position from the game. I think that's it, the three concussion guys -- I'm looking at my notes here. The three concussion guys, and Carlisle had a minor ankle, and that's it. Oh, and of course Equanimeous, he's got a grade 3 AC, so that's going to be six weeks.

Q. With either Onwualu or EQ, is it going to be surgery for either of those guys?
BRIAN KELLY: It'll be surgery for EQ. It will not be surgery for Onwualu. We'll PRP him tomorrow.

Q. And just curious with your safety play, we've ask you about him a lot this year, I wondered what you thought of it in yesterday's game.
BRIAN KELLY: It was better. It was better. You know, we needed to be a little bit tighter on a couple 3rd down situations in the red zone late in the game, but secondary play was improved.

Q. Obviously this week has some special meaning for your players, being able to play at Fenway, but what about the head coach? How meaningful will this be for you, and when was the last time you were at Fenway Park for a baseball game?
BRIAN KELLY: I threw out the first pitch this summer at Fenway. I think it was the Tampa Bay game. So got a chance to go back and go to a Red Sox game, and Sam Kennedy has been terrific and really doing everything to accommodate Notre Dame and making it a very comfortable situation for us there. Looking forward to going back. Obviously growing up in the area, being a big Red Sox fan, it certainly will be fun.

Q. You didn't one-hop it, did you?
BRIAN KELLY: You know, Travis Shaw was catching my throw, and he thought it was a split-finger, so they're supposed to dive a little bit, so he covered it up pretty good for me.

Q. Earlier in the week we talk about the extra prep time some of your opponents had, and you said it was more mental and physical advantage than actual adjustment of schemes. I wondered if Wake Forest maybe had a few more adjustments for you than normal with their two weeks of preparation.
BRIAN KELLY: Well, they certainly did a lot of things in their coverage and their -- they played their front totally different than they had all year. So clearly they game planned a lot of the stuff for us, specifically with that week off. So it's an advantage, clearly. I'll be honest; when you get a week off this late in the season, just like BC will, we have to do a really good job of looking at our own self-scouting and analyzing what we do because they really were totally different in the way they defended our run game and things in the back end of their defense.

Q. Would you expect something similar from BC, or with BC is it pretty much what you see is what you get?
BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, they're a different animal in terms of how they play in the back end. I would expect them to be a little bit more like who they are.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297