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UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 30, 2018Brian KellySouth Bend, Indiana Q. Miles Boykin had a huge game for you guys, a breakout game of sorts for him. What was it like to see him really have a humongous game for you guys and lead the receiving corps there? BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, he's a big play maker for us. Obviously, there were times where we almost say we've got to get him the football, and it was great to see it distributed in the manner that he got his hands on the ball, made some big plays for us. He's really difficult to defend. Whether we're throwing quick screens to him, slants, or go balls on the outside, I thought he showed his versatility last night, and he's a big weapon for us. Q. Obviously, knew that Dexter was coming back last night, but did you even anticipate the night he would have throwing for 160 yards and a touchdown? BRIAN KELLY: I knew he was going to have a lot of energy. I don't think that we envisioned 21 carries, that the workload would be at that level, but he earned the 21 carries. So all the credit to him because he was vigilant in his workouts and in his preparation, conditioning-wise, did all the extra things to put himself in game-ready position, and then the 21 carries, I think that's probably the thing that surprised me the most. Q. I'll dispense with a question I'm sure is on everybody's mind. Could you give us an injury update? BRIAN KELLY: Yeah. You know, your typical bumps and bruises from a physical game with Stanford. Tranquill has a metacarpal fracture which we'll cast on Tuesday, but will not need to be surgically repaired at this time. So he will not miss any time for us. Dexter came out of it pretty good. Tony Jones has got a little bit of an ankle. Of course, Jafar Armstrong with the infection, he's probably -- we probably won't get him back until after the bye week. Then the big injury is Bar's. It looks like that's an ACL/MCL, we'll get confirmation on his MRI here a little bit later. But our doctors feel the worst is possible here with the knee. Which is devastating for us, because we're losing a captain, and we're losing somebody that is respected and revered by so many in the program. And it's not just editorial on my part. This is more I just feel so bad for the kid because he comes back as a graduate student and then you lose him. We've got other players that will go in and play and play at a high level. But to lose him in his senior year is really hard on us. Q. My other question is, if you would, talk a little bit about your defense's potential, what you liked about it yesterday, what you see for it in the future? And also, would you talk about the evolution and maturation and growth of Jerry Tillery since he's been here and what he's providing you now as a leader on the field? BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, I think what we really liked, there were a couple things that stood out. We were aggressive early. We went for it on fourth down. Didn't come up with that on offense, and our defense comes up with a big stop off of that. I thought that was huge. So it will be the ability to really control down and distance, and put Stanford in predictable down and distance situations with our defense was something that we did well all day. But I think the thing that really stands out is ball disruption. We got the ball out of Costello's hands, either through sacks, deflections, pass break-ups, interceptions, dropped interceptions, the ball was out quite a bit. So I think our defense did a great job there. As it relates to Jerry, yeah, this has been a process here. He's a guy that comes in as a heralded player, he's learning the position, defensively growing, and through some ups and downs as shown a grit to him now that he is in his last season of competition. He's becoming a complete player both on and off the field. So that's what you're in this for to see the development of players like Jerry Tillery, and we're watching it right before our eyes. Q. I had a couple coaching questions for you. You're five games in and you've had some tough contests, and you've always been very effusive with your praise of the Stanford coaching staff. When you look at Clark Lea, now he's five games in, what was the game like last night especially with that chess match against David Shaw and his staff say about the job he's been able to do up to this point as your coordinator? BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, he's very thorough. And his defensive game plans are well thought out, well put together. He took away what they do. Their vertical game was obviously problematic and has been. We doubled up their inside verticals in passing situations, left our best players in one-on-one, gave them different looks up front. It was well conceived. It was a great tactical plan. Then he had the players in position to execute it. So he and the defensive staff have worked very well together. Again, you saw that come to life against Stanford last night. Q. First half K.J. Costello went 10 of 16, they had 198 yards of offense, second half I believe he went 5 of 11, and threw some balls up that could have been picked. Were there some adjustments you guys made in the second half to take increase the pressure and take some of those things away, or was it more just taking the execution to a better level? BRIAN KELLY: I think it was first down, actually. We were really good on first down in the second half and putting them behind the chains, and they became much more predictable for us, and we were able to get into some looks that made it difficult for them to execute. Q. I wanted to follow up a little bit on the injuries. I was curious with Tony Jones Jr., I'm not sure if you mentioned him. And even if his ankle is a little bit better, what is your running back situation look like from a depth standpoint? Does Jahmir Smith kind of move into that spot with Dexter and Tony and Avery? BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, Tony's got an ankle sprain. We don't think it's a serious one. We'll see how things play out during the week. You know, it's not something that we think -- we'll probably have to be careful with him during the week, but we expect him to play with Dexter. Certainly we will have some auditions here. Avery's still got to continue to develop, to put the ball on the ground, but he's a guy that we have a lot of confidence in. But we'll have to get another one of those younger backs ready, whether it be Jahmir or C'Bo. I'm not really sure who that's going to be. We'll meet on that later today, but you're right, we'll have to activate one more. Q. And I don't think I can connect a two-part question that involves John Shannon and your offensive line, so I'm going to go with the offensive line. I would assume that Trevor Ruhland is the long-term solution there with Alex likely being gone for long-term? And how did you feel like Trevor played last night when he came into the game? BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, we don't have to alter our game plan or calls when Trevor's in. He's very reliable. He doesn't have the size, necessarily, as Alex does, but he brings some other strengths to the position. As you know, he played a full game last week against Wake Forest. So he's a really solid player, very instinctive, very smart. I think you're going to see him quite a bit in there. But you're going to see Banks in there as well. We're going to give him an opportunity. He's been playing really well. So, you know, I would not discount having him as part of that rotation as well. Q. It was a real active night for Asmar Bilal, I'm just wondering, what the season started I don't know how certain you were with him at rover, but where have you seen him progress since the start of the season? BRIAN KELLY: I would say recognition, which has allowed him to diagnose plays so much better. You know, those instincts sometimes require repetition, real, live repetition. Hadn't had a lot of it. So the more he plays, he sees things better, and he is a gifted athlete. He had always been, but a little bit, you know, slower in reacting. He's now closing that reaction time down with much more instinctive movements. So that's just attributed to playing time and a young player getting more reps is starting to show the skillset that he has. He was great in coverage, and set the edge really well for us. So I think just the more he plays, the better he he's going to get. Q. I was going to follow up about the coverage. Because I don't think that you necessarily consider that a strength of his, but it looks like he's done a pretty good job in coverage. Is that an area where he's significantly improved? BRIAN KELLY: Well, we haven't had him in a lot of man situations, quite frankly. He's been a re-router and a hook to flat player primarily playing zone, right. So we've taken him out of the game and gone nickel most of the time. We left him in there to play with the tight ends and man coverage, and obviously we probably should have done that sooner, because he showed himself very positively in his ability to cover and see the football and not get a pass interference. He played with the off hand very well. Yeah, just getting him out there and letting him do some things, I think he's building our confidence in the zone. Q. If I could clarify, you mentioned Aaron Banks playing more. Are you talking about guard or are you going to shuffle? BRIAN KELLY: I am, I'm talking about guard too, yeah. We think he can play tackle and guard. Q. It's one thing to see it in practice, but in the last two games since Ian took over, what things are you seeing from him that you wouldn't have necessarily anticipated in terms of how he's played under pressure and the effect he's had on the offense? BRIAN KELLY: Well, I think you're hoping that when you put somebody into your offense that he's going to do his job, right? But what he's done is he's brought up the others as well, you know. I think that that's -- that's not surprising, but you're not asking for all that when you insert the quarterback. You're asking for him to be effective, efficient, to get the ball out, to make good decisions. But he's creating an energy with the group because they know they're going to get the ball. They know they're going to have a chance to run after the catch. They know they're going to be able to do these things. So there is a heightened excitement and responsibility now that each of the play makers feel because they know they're going to get a chance to touch the ball and make plays. Q. Can you describe as well the impact that that's had on your running game? BRIAN KELLY: Well, it's obviously opened some things up to give us, you know, an opportunity where we're not always having an extra defender at the line of scrimmage. You've got to worry about a passing game that can spread the field, and that obviously -- if we can get some feared numbers in the running game, we're going to be very, very effective. Q. One more follow-up with Banks. Are you looking at him exclusively as a left guard, and maybe have Trevor on both sides, right and left, or do you want Josh just on the right side? Is it a 3 for 2 type of deal at guard? BRIAN KELLY: Well, what we -- we want to get Banks, obviously of the three guys, the one that has from a technical standpoint, the one that has snaps is Ruhland. So we start there. We know what he can do. In terms of physicality and size, we want to take a look at Banks at the left guard position as well. Lugg is a guy that would be also in that rotation, and he can play either side. We've played him at right and left guard. But right now we want to take a look at the left guard position with Ruhland and Banks. Q. Just three weeks ago there was lamentation about 97 plays against Ball State, which was a school record. Now you limit Stanford to 51. What would you attribute most to the defense being able to get off as it did against Wake Forest and continue to do against Wake Forest? Was there just a greater emphasis on maybe tightening up certain areas? BRIAN KELLY: No, it's everything. It's efficiency on offense. It's the trickle-down effect, right? If you're efficient and scoring points on offense, you're obviously putting other offenses in a predicament where they can't just ball control. They've got to be aggressive as well. So that's one thing. Obviously, against Stanford, they were only averaging 60 plays anyway. So we kept them 9-under what they were averaging. It was the second half where we -- I think the fourth quarter they had eight plays total, and that's just dominating the line of scrimmage. One, limiting plays has to do with offensive efficiency. There was a trickle down there, scoring points, two, controlling the line of scrimmage, and three, getting offenses in predictable down and distance situations so you can get them, obviously, off the field, and I think we've done that over the last few weeks. Q. You've been through a bunch of these Stanford games. Is that the best you've felt about your defensive line going into a game? BRIAN KELLY: No question. I felt like we were rebuilding in '10 and '11, you know, from a physicality standpoint they were ahead of us. I think '12, certainly they were, but we had such a great defense. Then since that time it's been -- these have been hard-fought, close battles, but they've always had a physicality to them. This year, I think we dominated both offensive line and defensive line for the first time in our match-up to the level where, you know, they had 51 plays. So this would probably be the first time this year. Q. I don't think anyone that you guys are recruiting or Stanford is recruiting is going to make a decision based off one game. But considering you guys are shopping from kind of a narrow aisle of programs, is there some real significance to this that you can feel like, hey, we have a game where we put it on them, that's a pretty good recruiting pitch for you guys with some of these kids? BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, you know what? I don't think it hurts certainly. But if you're going to Stanford and that's the kind of environment that you're looking for academically, it is different than Notre Dame. They're two great academic institutions, but there is a big difference between the curriculums of each institution. I know from firsthand in the recruiting process that the kids that we lose don't choose it because Stanford beat us a couple of times here. It's clearly location. It's clearly curriculum. But we can now trumpet a lot louder football tradition, success, 75, 80,000 people for every home game when you do win these games, no question. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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