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UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEDecember 19, 2018Brian KellySouth Bend, Indiana COACH BRIAN KELLY: What we can control is our evaluation of him and we really, really love the way he played the game. Since that time, he's, you know, obviously had a great senior year. Terry Joseph did a great job in the process of watching him play other sports and basketball really loved his ability to move on the floor. So we have a lot of information that really, that we really felt that he was the right guy for us and the rest kind of happened on its own. Q. You've talked a little bit about early -- curious how it's changed and how maybe since year one when you took over, how has it kind of developed, I guess, as you've done it more and more? COACH BRIAN KELLY: Well, it's developed inside-out from a university perspective where there's a targeted and intentional focus on that transition from our Murrow (ph) classes that help with that transition to a focused orientation for these guys. I just think that it's -- you know, it's gone from do you really think he should be here to we will embrace him because we've had such great success. So when I say inside out, the university has really embraced it and taken the time to be so much more concerned with that transition where we've built classes and we've built transition for now, the mid-year enrollees. Q. There was a report about Hawaiian players or I guess players in general, and I think Hawai'i had the 7th best per capita talent or power five talent of any other state,7th best. I want to just see your thoughts on how Brian Polian has done there, how important it was to get him back, and work in there and get a guy like Marist Liufau. COACH BRIAN KELLY: Well, certainly, you know, Brian's got a great connection out there and -- and it would make no sense for him to be on our staff for him not to continue to cultivate those relationships that he's built over, you know, his career. So you know, we want to continue to do that, and Marist is -- again, here is another young man that just fits our university, and we love his upside. He's a guy that's going to develop. He's not ready to come in and start, but he is a guy that is going to develop into a great player here. Can't wait for him to begin his time here. So yeah, utilizing Brian's past relationships there, just as a smart allocation of your resources, and then knowing full well that you're going -- we've had really good success with everybody that has come from the islands here and been really good players for us. So why wouldn't we continue to move in that direction. Now, if you could stay out there for four or five days, I would take over Hawai'i, but you've got to go on that long trip and do that evaluation and a long way back. It's a long trip but Brian does a good job with it. Q. Curious what makes him separate himself from other coaches that recruit in Hawai'i? What do you think makes him a little bit different? COACH BRIAN KELLY: It's hard. You have to grind, you have to get on a plane for eight hours to get over there, get over there, get on the plane, fly eight hours back. It's hard. It's not easy. You don't get three or four days off to catch your breath; you've got to get down to San Diego or up to Sacramento. I think it's a commitment and it's just one where you have to grind and he grinds that one out. It's a tough one and does a really good job with it. Q. One more thing about the mid year, and you talked about the cooperation, I guess, that you may not have had from university early on, do you -- how does the process begin? Do you initiate the conversation or do you usually allow the player and family themselves to initiate it? COACH BRIAN KELLY: It starts with -- it starts with the geographical recruiter and then begins to take shape because it wouldn't come to me until later in the process, so it then would go to Dave Peloquin. Dave would then vet that through the proper channels, through admissions, and through their Counselor to see if it's even a viable opportunity. So there's a lot of work that's done. Look, there are some schools that -- and a lot of the private schools won't even go down this road of mid year enrollment, so I think this year, there's a case or two where it's the first ever that they have had a student that has a mid year enrollee, so Dave does a lot of that work after the position coach or the geographical recruiter has given us a heads-up and then Dave kind of digs in. He's talking to the school. He's talking to our admissions people, making sure that they have all the classes necessary to even consider it. Q. You talked about the versatility of the defensive linemen that signed. Can you speak to the tenacity of the offensive linemen that you signed? COACH BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, I mean, where do you want to start? I mean, they all have an edge to them. Look, I mean, we were pretty clear about the kind of guy that we were looking for and they fit that model. The length, the ability to develop physically. There weren't guys that we were looking to plug-and-play right away. They were all going to develop, but they had to finish. They all had to have an edge to them and I think that that's the common theme to all of these guys is that they fit in well. Look, all these guys, they got to spend time with our offensive linemen and I'm not kidding you, they give a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down on them. That is a close and tight group of guys. You either fit with those guys or you don't. And so, they are like-minded in so many ways and one area was that we wanted physical guys that finished and that was the prevailing thing. Q. I don't know if you're prepared to say where each one of those four offensive linemen line up, Kristofic is a tackle -- COACH BRIAN KELLY: Kristofic and Carroll are tackles. You know, Zeke is going to play inside. Could he play center? You know, we'll take a look at that. He's a guy that we think might be able to play that position. Who am I missing? Q. Olmstead. COACH BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, you know, obviously he's a guy that we feel physically is probably best suited at the guard position. We like his physicality. You're talking about a couple inside guys, a couple outside-guys. Q. You talk about the defensive line being an emphasis, I'm sure that's cyclical -- COACH BRIAN KELLY: Yeah. Q. When you recruit a group like this, especially coming off two seasons of a combined 22 victories, just how that helps continue the foundation that you've built here the last couple years? COACH BRIAN KELLY: Well, I think, you know, where it starts, I think is that you know, they are coming -- when they come on campus, they are talking and taking overnight visits. They are talking to players that are talking about winning and being in a winning culture. So you're starting there; that these guys are serious about what they are doing. They are signing up for getting a degree and winning a National Championship. These are not silly guys. These are guys that are really focused on coming here to win a National Championship. Being average or mediocre, none of these guys have that in their body -- that bone in their body. These guys are at their school, superstars. So that kind of wears off when they come here and spend time around our players. That's what it begets on a day-to-day basis. Q. And you talked about Coach Quinn as a recruiter and again, focusing on the trenches on both sides of the ball, could you speak to Coach Elston and the job he does as a recruiter and what makes him a good recruiter? COACH BRIAN KELLY: Well, first of all, a great deal of experience recruiting over 20-plus years in the business. You know, again, what is recruiting? The recruiting part of it is communication and how do you best communicate with 18, 19-year-olds. So you've got to find out how they are communicating and you know, how to do that. So that constant communication, that line of communication has to be one that you're building with them. And then they have got to see you face-to-face as genuine and real. They have got to be able to trust you because there has to be a little bit of trust in this process, too. It can't be you're selling used cars, because those kids, they get that. There's a chance that some guys get away with it but I think our guys do a great job of when they are with those kids one-on-one, they build a strong relationship. Mike does a really good job with that. Q. What was the team's reaction this morning when you landed Jay Bromley out of Tuscaloosa? That's a pretty big grab. He could have gone there but chose the University of Notre Dame. COACH BRIAN KELLY: Pretty exciting. Pretty accomplished football player. We were obviously, you know, not in the recruiting process for him for a long time. But when we did get in it, you know, we were pretty excited. We just think he's got all the traits necessary to be, you know, the right kind of player for us, somebody that's going to be rough and tumble, physical, moves well, very good student. Plays great football. I mean, comes from real good conference. We're going to get a guys that a seasoned college football player, high school player, coming into college, so we're pretty excited about that get. Q. From 1 to 21, do you feel like this is probably one of your best classes in terms of guys that fit Notre Dame well? COACH BRIAN KELLY: I think that what we've done really well is our support staff, our recruiting, our evaluation, is really -- really working well together. So you know, Bill Reiss is doing a great job we valuations and Aaron Carney is doing a great job on the day-to-day operations, and the evaluations there. Dave Peloquin is doing an incredible job of making sure the fit -- I think all those pieces of working really well together; that is giving us at the end result, both as a student and an athlete. My long answer to that is I have not seen all our operation work as efficiently in this process as it has with these 21. Q. And why do you think you're sort of peaking in terms of efficiency right now? COACH BRIAN KELLY: I think the weekly communication as to everybody's role. I think we've done a much better job of making sure that everybody knows exactly what their job is and how to do their job. People staying in their lanes, doing their job on a day-to-day basis and also working together to make sure that gets done. Mirroring, you know, what we're doing with our players, it's really kind of been the same thing with our support staff. Q. How much more space do you feel comfortable going to in this cycle? COACH BRIAN KELLY: We have some more room. We have some more room. So before February signing is complete, we've created some more room to add to this list. Q. One? Two? Three? COACH BRIAN KELLY: I think I'd like to stay a little bit more general. We'll get to 85 before we kick it off. Q. Looking at other running backs who could move to that position, what are you selling specifically about this offense where you can achieve that -- COACH BRIAN KELLY: Well, first of all, that it exists; that that versatility exists in a sense that we can use you in a number of different roles. But if you're Earl Campbell, we can go that route, too, or Marcus Allen. My point being is that we're not going out there and saying, come to Notre Dame and be Jack-of-All-Trades running back. We're still out in the market for the guy that wants to line up behind the quarterback and we'll just hand it to you. But we do have within our offense the ability to entice a wider net, if you will, of running backs, and that being one that there's some versatility to this offense that really fits what you do, as well. Q. How does he fit -- COACH BRIAN KELLY: He's a guy that can do a lot of things. You've seen him on both sides of the ball. Plays great defense, offensively, catches the ball, runs between the tackles, outside. He's got a lot of those characteristics and he's a winner. Q. The showmanship aspect -- COACH BRIAN KELLY: So that only takes you so far, though, right. So you can only do that so long where you have to say, look, look under the hood. Here's who we are. It's a competitive academic environment here, okay. You've got to be able to grind. You've got to be able to go to class every day. We've got an overall 2.9 GPA with 109 players in there. You've got to hang. You've got to come and play for a National Championship. There's no conference championship. There's no second place here. So after you get the glitz and you get the fight club and you get that, you've got to open up the hood and you've got to really talk real and that's where the line ends for us is that that transparency has to happen and that realization, we can't just keep talking about the niceties of it. We've got to get real with our guys. 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