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UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 20, 2018Brian KellySouth Bend, Indiana BRIAN KELLY: A quick look back on Syracuse. What we did well, our kids were highly spirited, they played fast, they played free and finished. That was something that we really talked quite a bit about in terms of playing in New York and playing in a game against a ranked opponent. We didn't want to play tentative. We wanted to play fast. I thought they handled that very well. They came out and really exerted kind of a presence right away against their opponent. Having said that, I think when we look at the film, I think what we'd like to be better at is controlling the line of scrimmage a little bit better, more physicality within what we're doing. I thought our sense of urgency was good. Thought the emotion of our football team was excellent. But I want to be more physical at the point of attack on both offensive line and defensive line. I think what our team has learned is in November, if they take care of themselves, the right rest, the right kind of recovery, that they can play really fast. We had 21 players run 19 miles per hour or faster. Just to put that in perspective for those that care, we had 16 run 19 miles per hour or faster against Michigan. Guys are moving, guys are moving fast. Those are some of the takeaways from the Syracuse game. Moving on now to USC. A very dangerous football team, especially on the offensive side of the ball. When you look at the skill players that they have, Vaughns, Pittman, St. Brown, Jones. In the backfield Ware's has been really good. J.T. Daniels, a freshman who has incredible arm talent, very smart quarterback. So it's a big-play-potential offense. They can make plays all over the field. They had a great win over Washington State, one of the top teams in the country. Then defensively, I think I have a lot of respect for Clancy Pendergast. He knows defense, has been in this business. He knows how to get his guys in good position structurally. Cam Smith is a tough, hard-nosed, physical kid. He's been around a while, battled through injuries, keeps coming back. I have a lot of respect for him. Marshall in the backfield. Highly recruited players that are really good football players. Playing there is never easy, so we have to go across the country and play a team that obviously has a lot of potential. Our guys will stick with what they've been doing. We'll spend time on our preparation this week, working on some things particularly that we have to be better at. I mentioned the physicality, we have to clean up some of the penalties, have to be a little bit better in our white zone. Clearly we have things that we've got to work on as we prepare for this rivalry game, traveling trophy for the Shillelagh, something that our guys certainly want to keep, as well. With that, we'll open it up for questions. Q. I know a lot of people have asked you about Tommy Rees's relationship with Book, his development. What about the Chip Long-Ian Book connection? What has that been like? How have they helped each other this year? BRIAN KELLY: I think it's been really good. Chip interacts well with the quarterbacks. He wants their input in terms of the things they'd like within the offensive structure and system. I think that's been really productive this year in terms of just his growth, his overall growth being in a leadership position. I think he took a great step forward there this year in communicating effectively with the quarterbacks, Brandon and Ian, this year, to structure game plans around their strengths. I'd say it's gone very well. Q. If I remember right in 2015, with Kizer, you were able to give him a little bit more each week, seemed like he was able to handle more. Is that the way it's gone with Ian in terms of more playbooks, reads, sophistication with his game? BRIAN KELLY: I think there's been two things. One, protections, his ability to get us in the right protections, really good on Saturday, change protections, get us into the right looks. He's working really well with Sam. Sam has a big role in terms of how Coach Quinn operates those guys up front. Sam takes a big role in that. Those two are working really well together. I think that's one piece of it in terms of how that's evolving. I think the other piece is the run RPOs, the ability to see things and get the ball out. I think that's something that he continues to grow. As he gets better at that, we can add more within the running game. Q. Asking about Myron looking ahead. Do you feel like you're going to get a good sense of where he is this week? Does that lift his teammates, seeing him back on the field? BRIAN KELLY: Oh, yeah, he's a great personality. Guys love Myron. He's a good football player. 11 weeks now, it's a long time out. The conditioning element is really important as we begin that phase of it. Then he'll have minimum three weeks to work on it to get into game-ready shape. We're excited that he can get back into football conditioning. I know our players obviously want to see him back out there. He's a good player. Q. Is your routine different this week because of the holiday, because of the travel? Are you sticking to the same kind of practice schedule as all the other weeks? BRIAN KELLY: Wednesday we got a little bit more time with the team because there's no classes. They go to class today and tomorrow. We get a little bit more time with them. We'll have breakfast. We'll weight train, some meetings, lunch, then practice. A little bit more time than we normally have on Wednesday. It gives them more rest and recovery time, as well. Thursday will be fairly traditional in terms of a normal Thursday in terms of exposure with them. We'll have Thanksgiving Day dinner with them, and get on a plane for the West Coast. Q. Thursday night? BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, we'll leave Thursday. I like to get them out there Thursday to the West Coast, get the clock open Pacific standard time. You can do that when you leave on Thursday. Q. You're awfully busy. Your 2012 players probably recognize that. Do any of them reach out to you at this time of year or during the season? Do they know how locked in you are? BRIAN KELLY: Nobody has reached out. I've had a number of guys reach out to me from the 2012 team congratulating us for the season. Nobody has brought up anything about similarities or differences between '12. A number of guys have sent well wishes, keep it up, text messages, been on campus. We keep in pretty good contact. I think during the year the number of guys that have come back from that '12 team have been nice to see. But, no, no specific references to where we're at right now. Q. What is your first memory of Notre Dame-USC? When did you first become aware of it as the rivalry, what it meant? When you came here, did you have any discussions with Ara or Lou about taking teams to the West Coast? Did they give you any suggestions? BRIAN KELLY: Memories would have been going back all the way to O.J. Simpson playing in the game, Notre Dame-USC on TV right around Thanksgiving. Obviously it was Oklahoma-Nebraska, USC-Notre Dame were the games we were looking forward to watching over the holiday weekend. It goes back quite some time. In terms of talking to Ara and to Lou, nothing in terms of travel or logistics as much as just the rivalry game itself. Ara wasn't much for giving advice. You have to be careful about what you ask Lou because it's not necessarily the advice that you get, it's the information. Both of them have been really good at talking in terms of the history of the game and recognizing for me the great history of the game. Q. Drue Tranquill, what he's meant to the team this year, what he's meant to this program. Where does he stand among the players that have played for you, on and off the field? BRIAN KELLY: So Drue was certainly a guy that if you look at his career here has played in so many different roles. He's played safety, rover, inside linebacker, a force on special teams, great student, accomplished student, a student-athlete that's up for the highest award in the country. Those are all well-chronicled, if you will. If you followed Notre Dame from afar, you probably would even recognize those things. I think what people don't recognize more than anything else is that his growth as a teammate from last year to this year has been amazing. I point out simply this. He's a captain, a leader, but he was hard to follow in a sense because the bar for him is so high, and almost sometimes for other players it's hard to imagine being Drue Tranquill. A 4.0 engineering student, a great player, a great citizen, great in the community, spiritually. He was almost too hard to imagine and almost too hard to mirror. This year he's still that, but he's so close to his teammates because I think just the believability of who he is on a day-to-day basis. They see the same guy every day. He comes in, he works out, he trains, he fights through injuries. They don't see all those other things. They see a guy that is so committed to being successful that they can mirror that. What he's meant to our team this year, even though his status hasn't changed in a sense in terms of being a captain, he's impacted our team so much differently. Q. Todd Lyght, curious if you could expand on how he has sort of grown as a coach over the past couple years, where you see his fingerprints on what the defensive backfield is doing? BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, I think it's been a growth process for Todd. He certainly came here with all the right things in the sense that recognizes the uniqueness and the distinctions of Notre Dame from a recruiting perspective, but yet had to be able to take that into homes and articulate that. I think he's grown in that role over the past year. Then he had to take his football résumé, being a national champion, a Super Bowl champion, and be able to take that knowledge and experience and articulate that. The growth has been transferring all of that knowledge through communication and teaching. So when you talk about Todd Lyght, he's become a better teacher. That's where the growth has come with him. Q. Is there anything about this secondary that you would point to, I can see where Todd's influence has struck? BRIAN KELLY: I think more than anything else is their ability to move on to the next play. Todd has a great way about him. He doesn't get caught up on one thing. He moves on quickly to the next. I think that's a little bit about his pedigree as a player. I think that spills over to our corners in particular. They don't get too lost. He's been really good for Troy, in particular, to grow in that regard. Then to be able to get a freshman on the field this year and not feel the pressures of being on the field as a freshman. Q. When you watched USC this year, do you see any similarities to where you guys were two years ago? BRIAN KELLY: Not really. I mean, they have a freshman quarterback who is really talented. But there's some growth that goes along with that. I mean, when you're starting a true freshman quarterback, there's some growth there. He's incredibly talented. But Sam Darnold, he's playing in the NFL. So there's a difference between those two quarterbacks. I think Daniel, one day, he's going to be playing in the NFL, too. There's a little bit of a difference there. I think the only similarity that I would see with this team is maybe the 2014 team in terms of injuries on the defensive side of the ball. They've been ravaged by injuries defensively. You have a lot of injuries on defense, then a really young quarterback who's going to be really, really good. Those two things, you know, they've been in really some close games, haven't been able to turn them their way. Q. Kevin Austin, his status for this weekend? BRIAN KELLY: He's cleared to play. He was cleared to play last week, too. It was a coach's decision not to bring him. Q. Drue has been injured obviously, various injuries this year, but still goes back out there and played for you all season. Do guys feed off that when they see their leader showing resiliency and not giving up? BRIAN KELLY: Oh, absolutely. Broken hand during the game. He's playing with a broken hand. The ankle. I mean, it's not just him. It's Cole Kmet, Jafar Armstrong, Daelin Hayes. Eichenberg played with a high ankle sprain. Our guys are gritty. Drue personifies that, there's no question, because he's a leader. We haven't missed a lot of man-hours unless we absolutely have to. I think maybe Drue certainly becomes for us as a team maybe that bar that everybody wants to meet. Q. For USC, they're 5-6, they have to win to be bowl eligible. It's a rivalry game. People would see this as their 'Super Bowl' of the season. Do you do anything extra to prepare for that seeing they might give more than 100% to win this game? BRIAN KELLY: We'll do what we've done each and every week. All that sounds really intimidating and imposing, but we'll focus on what we need to do to prepare our football team. As I mentioned at the outset, we have some things we need to work on. That will be our focus this week, what we need to do to be successful this weekend. Q. We were talking about Drue Tranquill, dealing with injuries, who are the toughest players on this team? BRIAN KELLY: You have to put Drue Tranquill up there as a real tough guy. I think guys that handle themselves when confronted with injuries. We've got some guys that are pretty tough. Cole Kmet, I mean, he had a pretty tough ankle injury. For him to fight through that one, I think he's just close to being 100% this week after that injury. Q. Khalid? BRIAN KELLY: Khalid, every week he's fighting through a little bit of ankle. I think Ian Book, you have to put him in there. That dude, he didn't drop his eyes once in the pocket on Saturday. We don't have guys that we would say don't want to go back out there and compete because they're nicked up. If they can't go, they're going to give you 100% of their 80. They're going to give you 100% of their 70. That's a good thing that we've been able to instill. Q. How accurately can you gauge that during the recruiting process of these players? BRIAN KELLY: Well, the whole process, as you know, is about who loves to play, who loves to get recruited. That's the whole deal. So you try to find windows in there through their medical history and what they've fought through. Those are important questions that are asked throughout this process of who's playing through injury and who's playing through those kinds of scenarios. With the transparency in the process today, what you can do, you got to find guys that love to play, not just love to get recruited. Q. Could you address the impact of Chris Finke. He didn't play a real significant role last year. As this season continues to progress, obviously not only as a slot receiver but a punt returner for you. BRIAN KELLY: Significant. I think if you look at the balance of your offense, you're always looking for a slot receiver that you can hit a reverse with, you can certainly pick up some key first downs on some quick routes. He's hit some big home run passes for us, too, down the field. The Michigan game comes to mind where he takes the ball away from a key defender. He's been more than what we could have hoped for coming into the season, to balance out with the two big guys on the perimeter. Obviously very good tight ends, it gives us a really good balance at the wide receiver position. Q. As a punt returner? BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, no doubt. Fearless back there. Really confident in what he's doing right now. Love watching him perform back there at this time. Q. You had some false starts on Saturday, obviously a tough day for Hainsey. The typical reaction of any coach is immediately that player did something wrong. Are there other factors that contribute to the false starts? BRIAN KELLY: Absolutely. Q. What would they be? BRIAN KELLY: Well, timing, right? If you're in a rhythm and you're always getting that sense and feel that when you put your hand on the ground, that's when the ball is going to be snapped, you get into a rhythm. We play fast. We like to be in a rhythm. That's no excuse for him flinching. But we got out of rhythm on a few plays because we had to move some people around that weren't in the right position. It slowed things down, got us out of rhythm. Having said that, he still has to be able to be controlled and know we're not always going to be snapping it 3.6 seconds, it could be 5.6. Q. Tempo contributes to it? BRIAN KELLY: Tempo definitely contributes to it. Q. USC has faced 369 passes and three interceptions. How do you justify that? BRIAN KELLY: They have a ton of PBUs. They may have more PBUs than maybe anybody in the country. Q. (Indiscernible.) BRIAN KELLY: Our analytics, I think they have them first in the country. They defend. I mean, they defend. They haven't gotten the ball in their hands, but they're going to defend the ball in the air, there's no doubt. Q. You used the word 'infectious' to describe Alohi Gilman. You had a lot of leaders. What has Alohi brought that has made the defense have maybe swagger, there's just a confidence element that he's added? BRIAN KELLY: Well, I mean, many people use the term when you walk in a room, right, you know a person kind of has that charisma because he can light up the room. He lights up the room when he walks in the room because he's got a personality. He doesn't do it when he walks into a locker room, he does it when he walks onto a football field. Alohi is sometimes a bit dismissive when praise is heaped on him by teammates. He kind of shies away from it a little bit. In the locker room, even at times he'll not keep to himself, but he's not the loudest guy. When you put him on that football field, it's a different guy. That's his office. That's where he goes to work. So when he crosses that line, it's a different person. So when I say 'infectious,' when he's on the football field, his personality comes out, his love for the game, his energy, his passion starts to affect others who may not be that same personality on the field, but maybe that in the locker room. That's what I meant by his infectious personality, it's when he steps on that field. Q. Have you seen it have an effect than others? BRIAN KELLY: Jalen Elliott would be the first guy. Jalen in the locker room is high energy, but he wasn't playing fast, he wasn't playing with great energy. You team him up with him, like having two really good defenseman, like hockey, team him up with the right guy, they look good together. That pair really works well together. Alohi brings a lot of energy. Jalen is playing so much faster and so much more free out there. It's kind of interesting because Jalen is the guy that's making a lot of the calls back there now. He's influenced Jalen quite a bit. Q. There have been a number of stories this year of high-profile individuals leaving schools after an injury or losing his position. When you have a Brandon Wimbush who starts last season, a Nick Coleman, guys staying around coaching, what is it that you try to instill in the culture here that keeps them? BRIAN KELLY: Well, we take care of them, right? We take care of them. That's why Louis Nix is back here. Louis is back here because he knows he's taken care of when they come here. We care about our players, we care about them as players. It's not just you come and play for Notre Dame, it's a transactional relationship. It's transformational as the relationship. That's the difference. So it keeps guys coming back and wanting to be around the program. Notre Dame obviously has a lot to do with that, too, in terms of why they decide to come here. The program is one of the things, one of the elements, but the other element is Notre Dame, being here and getting their degree. I think both of those work together. Q. You've often said 'shopping down a different aisle'. Is that one of the primary objectives you look for? BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, because when you choose here, you can't really just recruit somebody to Notre Dame, they have to make a choice that this is the right place. When they make a choice that this is their right place, there's much more staying power. They're here because they want to be here. Q. Last week you made a telling comment about the success of the defense when you said the same 11 guys who start against Michigan are going to start in New York. You might have made another statement, the success of the team after the game, you gave out a game ball for the 11th time to not the same guy. Phenomenal group effort the entire season? BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, I think I mentioned it a couple times, the sum is greater than any one of the parts. That synergy has carried this football team up until this week, and it continues. I think each one of our players here recognizes their value in the program. Each one of them knows they have a role, and it's valued. That's why it's a group that has played consistently. They know exactly what's expected of them. They know from a week-in, week-out basis they all can contribute and have success each and every week. Q. Past years there's been an attitude among team members when they're heading out to Southern Cal, it's going to be nice. This team seems focused on the next object to take care of is Southern Cal, then more work to do. Doesn't look like they're looking for vacation. BRIAN KELLY: They want to hang out with their teammates. They're looking forward to Wednesday and Thursday, the flight, being there on Friday. They're more interested in hanging out with their teammates. That's important to them. They really enjoy being around their teammates. Then they love to play on Saturdays. You add those two things up, yeah, they're sure going to enjoy warmer weather, but I think more than anything else they really enjoy being around their teammates, and they love playing together on Saturday. Q. You mentioned a few weeks ago Jerry Tillery's impact as a leader has elevated this season. Is there an example you can give that illustrates that? BRIAN KELLY: Jerry has been a consistent worker. I would say just his consistency and approach day to day. He's here every day. Jerry does not miss anything. He's not a guy that is a high-profile player. He does all the little things the right way. It's amazing. He doesn't take a day off. He doesn't ask for a day off. He practices every day. When your best players are putting in the kind of work that he puts in every single day, it sets for a pretty good precedent. Q. How has that elevated the defensive line as a whole? BRIAN KELLY: That's my point. It's elevated all of the players across the board. You're seeing Kurt Hinish play his best football right now. You're seeing Daelin Hayes play his best football right now in November. Some of that is competition, but it's also a standard that's been set that the best players are the most reliable, as well. Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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