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UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 16, 2019

Brian Kelly

South Bend, Indiana

Notre Dame, 52 - Navy, 20

BRIAN KELLY: I'm just so pleased for our players, our staff, for just all the work that they put in to see it come to the kind of results today is just so pleasing as a coach, to watch our players play at such a high level for them to execute a great game plan.

That's what we do. I mean, you talk about success. It doesn't have to have, you know, a quantitative bowl game or championship. It has to do with days like today where you see it all come together. You see your guys excited, happy, fulfilled. Just an exciting day to watch our football team have so much enjoyment by execution through an outstanding game plan.

So a fun day. Fun day for everybody associated with Notre Dame. Certainly probably not so on the other side, but we have a great deal of respect for Navy. It was our day today.

Open up to questions.

Q. Brian, when Ian and Chase kind of get rolling like that early, do you call plays specifically, Hey, let's get Chase the ball more often and stuff like that?
BRIAN KELLY: Well, I mean, Chase is an important part of our offense so he's going to get the football. Probably got it a couple times when the ball needed to go somewhere else today actually. That didn't happen very often. I think Ian was 14 for 20.

He's an integral part. He got the game ball. He's a guy that is difficult to defend because he can catch on drive route and score a touchdown. He can catch a ball on the sideline. He can catch a vertical route in the seam. A fade.

He's virtually a guy that has all of the weapons, so why wouldn't you throw him the football in those situations?

Q. Were you salivating at the mouth when a linebacker lined up on Chase on that second drive?
BRIAN KELLY: There were some -- obviously within our plan we felt like we had a really good plan against them and there were going to be some matchups we thought were advantageous.

Q. Lat one. Defense played four forced turnovers. Especially those first two on drives when Navy kind of had the ball moving, how key were those?
BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, any time you get Navy to turn the football over they're going to be huge for you. Yeah, we were active. We were fast. We were physical. They hadn't played a team quite like that all year. It's difficult. We talk so much about our inability to map the speed of the triple option.

Well, they can't map the speed of our defense. So it worked well for us today that we played fast and physical.

Q. One more on Chase. He has a knack for having big games in November. Is there anything about the end of the season where he seems to be clicking more and maybe the quarterbacks trust him more?
BRIAN KELLY: No, I think last year was a maturation process for him in terms of him and Ian being on the same page. This has been Ian coming into his own and Ian playing at such a high level that the ball is going where it should be going.

So I don't think there is anything more to November other than last year I think Chase was finding himself as a receiver; this year Ian is playing at a high level right now. Ten touchdown passes in the last two weeks.

Q. Another great throw from Ian was the throw to Braden Lenzy. How much does that do for Braden's confidence, but also Ian to throw deep and trust him?
BRIAN KELLY: I mean, he can throw the ball deep, so we can take that one off the list of many. It's a beautiful throw. He's capable of making all the throws. Good to have some speed back there, Lenzy being able to give us that stretch vertically. It was a beautiful throw, and nice to see those plays hit.

We had kind of missed some of those early in the season, and good to see those come together.

Q. Javon was out today in a boot. What is his status moving forward?
BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, I think he's coming along. He has a mid-sprain of the foot and -- mid-foot sprain. I knew I was going to get it right. Thank you. My medical work is not up to snuff.

He's made good progress. We want to keep the boot on him because we want to run him on Monday and start to get him back in the action.

Q. Happen in practice this week?
BRIAN KELLY: No, happened in the game against Duke.

Q. Troy really showed some great saving speed saving the touchdown on Perry. Where does he rank among the fastest guys on the team, and what else do you see as the best parts of his game?
BRIAN KELLY: Speed is No. 1; No. 2 I think Troy, you know, he's a player that is in coverage. I think there have been times this year that we wanted him to find the ball a little bit more, but he's on body and he's got great makeup speed. He's going to be in position most of the time. I think there were some balls that -- look, there were some plays at Georgia where they were back shouldering him a little bit, and he got into this mindset that he was going to play behind the throws a little bit too much.

It got him in a position where he wasn't finding the ball. He's back to finding the ball. He played at a high level today. There was the one time where he slipped on a will route, but played sound football for us. Very good speed. He is probably the fastest guy to answer your question. I'm sorry. He's up there probably with Lenzy, himself, those are the two fastest guys.

Q. Anyone that saw Malcolm Perry leading up that game could understand your concern about defending him. Is there a better way to defend him than to win the point of attack, line of scrimmage, with your defensive line?
BRIAN KELLY: Yeah. I mean, that's one. That's not going to get it done specifically, because as you saw, they ran speed option to get out on the perimeter. They ran him I think in the first two series, tried to get him outside with much more quarterback lead, quarterback speed. They knew we were in zero.

You know, tactically we had to get off some blocks and get over the top. The Mike linebacker was really good in doing so. The will linebacker was really good. Asmar played very well. Both backers were really good in getting off blocks.

But at the end of the day, yeah, you've got to win at the point of attack and you've got to defeat some blocks to get to him as well.

Q. Ian Book at the end of Virginia Tech, Ian Book last week at Duke, Ian Book today. Is this now the quarterback that you expected or knew that you would see after some bobbles along the way?
BRIAN KELLY: I mean, I knew what we had. I knew what he was going to give us. I mean, if it's Major League Baseball he had a little slump. I knew what he was capable of. We maintained confidence in him. The only thing I ever said to him is, Don't lose confidence in yourself. Stay confident in yourself.

He works so hard. He does all the right things. It was just a matter of there was too much noise and he had to find a mechanism as the quarterback at Notre Dame to eliminate all the noise that comes with. Has and found it and he's in a great spot, and he's going to continue to progress.

Q. Back on the defense, Moala, basically a hometown kid.
BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, he was awesome today.

Q. Comes up with what they're calling it a fumble, but taking from the pitch and scoring. What does that say for him and his future here?
BRIAN KELLY: Oh, he's a really good football player. I mean, we got to find a place to get him on the field because Owusu is a really good player, too. Paul is smart, he's savvy, he's athletic. The play he made on the halfback pass was even better.

I know the ball went into his hands and he scored a touchdown and that's kind of a highlight, but the play he made on the reverse pass was as good as it gets.

He's a really good player. Trusted. He's going to play a lot of football for us. It's great that he's a local player, too.

Q. Different teams hit their strides at different times. Why do you think yours is hitting theirs right now?
BRIAN KELLY: They've found out how to be present. They've found out how to avoid listening to all the expectations and the noise and just play football.

They play fast, free. I could tell in pre-game that Navy was in trouble. They really were. And that's just the maturation of a group of guys that needed to figure out how to go from preparation phase to playing phase.

They learned that at Michigan. They learned that it's not just about preparation. You can work as hard as you want, but you have to flip the switch. They didn't at Michigan, and they learned how to do that in that game, that you have to flip the switch.

Since that time, they've learned how to do it. They're going to be tough to beat down the stretch.

Q. Something you suspected they had to learn? Obviously you don't want to learn it that way, but as you get a read on this team...
BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, they carry a lot with them. They care so much. They listen to everything. They just care too much at times. Now they've gone to, You know what, whatever they say, we really just need to focus on us, playing the game, playing the game the right way, and that's served them well.

Q. Brian, you kind of said this over the last two and a half games, you guys appear to be playing your best football right now.
BRIAN KELLY: Uh-huh.

Q. Wherever the rest of the season takes you, how dangerous do you think this team can be?
BRIAN KELLY: It's a good football team. It's a good team playing without four really good players. Really good players. Teams that lose four players like that, two of them captains, usually crumble in November. They're playing at a higher level, and we're going to get a few of those guys back next year, which is even better.

Because it's making the other guys that are stepping up better football players. Liam Eichenberg is playing lights outright now. That's only making him a better player for next year. The residual is going to help us down the road. They're in the present. These guys, all they care about, all they talk about, is guys we got three more games together. Doesn't matter who we play. It's just how we play for the next three games.

Q. Coach, did you know Chase Claypool had ten touchdowns in a game in 8th grade?
BRIAN KELLY: It wouldn't surprise me. No disrespect to the level of football that he played, but the level of football he played may be one that when I watched film we needed to go up there and watch him play basketball too. Then I watched the basketball and that didn't do much for me either.

Q. Did you sense the Virginia Tech, when you guys engineered that winning drive, that it could be a galvanizing moment? What have you learned about your team, and specifically the leadership and the culture within the past two weeks?
BRIAN KELLY: Well, the culture was already built. It was a matter of gaining some confidence within, certainly with the quarterback. It was both drives, and him feeling as though no matter what slings and arrows are out there, that he can do this job as the quarterback at Notre Dame regardless.

You know, you just have to develop a thick skin. He has, and now he can go play football and be the quarterback that he wants to be. That was a big moment for him. As a football team, I think they learned an incredible lesson that the Michigan game taught them, and they just needed to get through the Virginia Tech game.

But I saw it coming in their preparation leading into Virginia Tech. We just carried a lot of that with us into the Tech game, so once we got out of it and were on the other side of it, it was, Let's just go play and play fast and free, and they have.

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