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UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 27, 2018

Brian Kelly

San Diego, California

Navy - 22, Notre Dame - 44

BRIAN KELLY: I\'m glad this game\'s over. Any time we play Navy, it is a chore for preparation. They\'re very difficult to prepare for because you\'re dealing with the most efficient and effective operation relative to the triple option in all of football.

I just don\'t like this week, preparing for Ken\'s teams. I\'m just excited to move on to the next week with a victory.

They play hard. They never give in. You saw that. We were up big on them. That doesn\'t faze the Midshipmen. They come right back at you in the second half as if nothing happened in the first half. Doesn\'t faze them.

Glad to get out of here with a victory, with a lot of good things to build off of going into the last month.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. How much have you looked at the Navy series in your time here as sort of a one-off versus there are bits and pieces that may be indicative of where you\'re going, where you can build?
BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, no, I don\'t think you can just pooh-pooh it and say that\'s just one game, let\'s get out of it. There are pieces there that would definitely bring up a red flag relative to your team, be exposed further down the road.

I think what I\'m referring to more so is the preparation and how different it is, how difficult and taxing that is relative to their preparation.

Our football team always can take things from these games. What we did very well is we got off to a great start, which is important against any team you play. We got off to a great start today. That was huge.

What we learned today is getting off to a great start is one thing, but if you don\'t play with the same physicality for four quarters, you\'re going to be in trouble. So we learned a lot from today.

Q. Drue Tranquill, take me through your mindset as you\'re standing over him on the field.
BRIAN KELLY: So I\'ve been in this a long time. When confronted with injuries, I always take the tack of he\'s going to be fine. My doctors are the most negative people in the world. Broken leg, broken arm. It\'s always the worst-case scenario. So I don\'t like talking to them. I just wait for the x-ray.

It came back clean. He was out of the boot by the time he got out of the locker room today.

Q. Prognosis for return?
BRIAN KELLY: It\'s Drue Tranquill. He may be jogging when we get back to the hotel. He\'s just a unique individual. I wouldn\'t count him out.

Q. For Northwestern?
BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, I wouldn\'t count him out for Northwestern.

Q. Drew White came in, a kid who hasn\'t played a defensive snap in his career. Assess him stepping into that role.
BRIAN KELLY: I brought him up in our postgame. Really proud of players that persevere within the program when at times it looks like their place has not been defined, right? It\'s almost not delayed gratification, they can\'t see the end in sight for them.

But yet he continued to work through injury, dedicated himself to get bigger, faster and stronger. He found his opening in special teams. He found his niche this week with the triple option.

He went in there and did a nice job for us. You lose arguably one of your best defensive players in the first series against Navy, it harkens back for me when we lost Joe Schmidt. Things can go awry quickly. They did not from that position. Drew went in there and did a really nice job.

Q. You made some changes on your offensive line this week. Ran for 254 yards, the second most Navy has given up this year. Assess how you felt that group performed tonight outside of the numbers.
BRIAN KELLY: Mezza-mezza.

I think we did some decent things. We pass protected very well today. I want to exert our will at any time, and we\'re not there yet. We have to be able to be more effective at running the ball when teams know we\'re going to run the football. We\'re not there yet.

We did some better things, but this next month we\'re going to play teams that we\'re going to have to exert our will. We\'re not there yet.

Q. At runningback, Dexter had 169 yards, did most of his damage on the ground. Jafar finished with 116 yards. His big play came through the air. Is that how you envisioned that duo?
BRIAN KELLY: I think what\'s starting to come clearer to us is that Dexter is clearly becoming that top back, if you will. But he\'s becoming a complete back. He has not been that for us. He got the game ball because of his blocking tonight. He was outstanding. Picked up a blitz, took care of the blitz, came back around, picked up another player. Caught the ball coming out of the backfield. That was not part of his identity as a back. I think he\'s rounding into that complete back.

Jafar is coming back after a month off. He\'s not there yet as the runner that we want him to be. But, boy, can he catch the football. So they\'re kind of identifying themselves as to who they are right now. But I think we\'re going to get more out of Jafar as we continue to play.

Q. After the Pittsburgh game, at the end, when Justin Yoon kicked off, he flinched, grimaced. Was he pretty much down for the last two weeks?
BRIAN KELLY: We gave him 10 days off. We kicked him again on Wednesday, Thursday, and pregame today. He was pretty good. I think in a pinch he could have kicked.

So I think it was twofold. One, I wanted to get Doerer in there. I think we need to see him continue to grow. Two, this was not going to be a field goal game. As you saw the way the game was called, what we were doing, we were going for it on fourth down. It was late in the game, we were in an easy field goal situation where we did kick the one field goal. But this was not going to be a situation.

He\'s capable of kicking off and kicking extra points. So I thought it was a good week for us to get Yoon 100% healthy.

Q. After Doerer\'s first kick, there\'s nowhere to go but up. That\'s what he did after that, right?
BRIAN KELLY: Brian and I spent a lot of time with him this week directly, hands on with him. By midweek, I was convinced that he could do it. We were going to have to let him grow into it.

I think we had to let him make a mistake and grow through it. So nobody said anything to him. He worked his way through it, calmed down, got back to it. I think we\'re going to see a kid that continues to grow.

Q. As it relates to defending the triple option, how much carryover was there from the way Mike Elko approached it to Clark Lea?
BRIAN KELLY: Zero.

Q. So he had a fresh idea on how he wanted to attack it?
BRIAN KELLY: No, it was a collaborative approach in terms of what we wanted to do. Mike Elston, myself and Clark agreed we wanted to play it much like we did against Army a few years back, much more aggressive approach. I think we need to take a look at the film in the second half. We got into some zone coverage. We got out of our man coverage in the second half because we were up.

Might not have been the best decision.

Q. Couldn\'t have played any better than you did in the first half?
BRIAN KELLY: We played it very, very well. We liked our plan. We thought it was comprehensive in what we wanted to do.

They came out in the second half and did exactly what we thought they would do. Had a guy unblocked twice that did not make a play. They made some adjustments that we needed to adjust to. We got out of man coverage, got into zone, because we were up pretty big.

We\'re going to look at that not tomorrow, but in the off-season. We\'re done with Navy. We\'re going to work on Northwestern. We\'re probably going to have to make some adjustments.

Q. Troy Pride, less than 100% or just missed tackles?
BRIAN KELLY: You\'d have to ask him.

Q. You talked about Dexter\'s well-roundedness this season. He\'s juggling a lot. What has impressed you most about his performance?
BRIAN KELLY: Just his dedication to wanting to be the best player he can be. Not worried about a million other things other than being the best version of Dexter Williams. That\'s hard to do sometimes when you\'re at his stage of being a fifth-year player, not playing in the first four weeks.

He is so focused on being the best version of Dexter Williams, it\'s fun to coach him right now.

Q. The defense kept Navy to two of 12 on third down, the offense out-possessed (indiscernible). What did you see about your defense being able to get off the field, put the offense in good positions?
BRIAN KELLY: First of all, getting up on them, right? Getting the lead put them in some predictable situations. A lot of that third down that you mentioned was first half. Second half, we got them behind D and D if they didn\'t score. A lot of that was Julian Okwara was outstanding.

What really stood out to me on third down was his effort was outstanding in the fourth quarter getting after it. Having elite players that got after it late in the game was the difference.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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