UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 7, 2020

Brian Kelly

Press Conference

Notre Dame, 47 - Clemson, 40

BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, just for me, just watching our team handle themselves in the fourth quarter, handle themselves when there was adversity, as a coach, those are the special moments. Yeah, we won the football game and I'm certainly excited about that, but more so, when you watch your players exhibit resolve and exhibit grit and refuse to lose a football game against the No. 1 team in the country that by the way hadn't lost in 36 regular season games, that's the special part about coaching these guys at Notre Dame.

You have the man under the jersey that's pretty special. So that's my takeaway. I know you guys want to talk about players and what this means to the program and I'm not really interested in all that stuff, but I'll be more than willing to answer all of those questions.

As a coach you commit your vocation to this because you love seeing your players overcome what amounts to be sometimes difficult odds. That was fun to watch those guys. So with that, open up to questions.

Q. Coach, can you hear me okay?

BRIAN KELLY: I sure can.

Q. Okay. First of all, just a couple things. One is did you think about going for two either at the end of regulation or at the first overtime? The second thing is your defense found this huge burst in the second overtime. Where did that come from?

BRIAN KELLY: Again, I think it's part and parcel to what I mentioned earlier. Let me answer some of the questions that were asked there. I thought about it briefly. We had a two-point play that was, we felt, a really good one. I thought about it. We had just worked too hard to get back into the game, and so it just didn't feel right to go for two there.

But I did think about it. Just felt like we overcame so much to get back in the game, so I did not choose to go down that road. Never did I think about going for two because you're going for two in the third. It's just not a wise decision from that perspective.

And then that energy, it came from scoring and then obviously the big first down TFL got them a lot of momentum, and I think they were riding that. Again, they have a short memory, that group. That's kind of what I was referring to earlier. They just keep playing.

Q. What if anything did you tell Ian and the offense before that final drive?

BRIAN KELLY: In the final drive we said that we had -- the way we managed the clock, and they quite frankly gave us a little help going out of bounds. We declined the penalty because we wanted the downs on that last drive where they had the football. It allowed me to save the two timeouts, so all I said was that we had plenty of time, we could throw -- I told Tommy we could throw a run or two in the mix, and we were able to run the ball a couple times which gave us some easy looks because they were in Tampa two. And just said, Ian you're going to win the football game. I told him that a couple times, and kept reiterating it to him on the sideline that he was going to win the game for us. And he did.

Q. I want to ask you about Ian coming back from the fumble in terms of what you were looking to see from him and when you felt like, okay, he's coming through this? Obviously that was a pretty big moment.

BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, you know, I went up to him right away. I aid, Listen, we're going to need you to win this game for us. It will come down on your shoulders and you're going to win the game. I just stayed positive with him. Obviously he's struggling to get in the end zone and obviously it was a big play, but I knew there would be other opportunities for him. He's shown it before, that he makes big plays down the stretch to win games.

I just felt like if we gave him enough time he would do it again. He did; he did it again. Also threw for over 300 yards and again ran our offense. Just staying positive with him, and I saw it in his eyes. He looked good, he looked ready, and was throwing the ball pretty good for us.

Q. Just describe the emotion of 25% full stadium, you guys beat No. 1 for the first time in 27 years, and one of the biggest Notre Dame traditions, storming the field. Nothing is going to stop that. Were you able to drink that in at all?

BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, a little bit. You know, I felt like the environment, our students, were awesome. They made it feel like a true game, even though there was only less than 15,000 in the stadium. They did their best to give us that feeling. When they stormed the field you got to sense of a special moment at Notre Dame. I know our players did as well. I think what made it even more special was what I had alluded to earlier, just the resolve.

And then I told our team -- and, again, I'm doing a lot of things I probably shouldn't be doing -- but I told our team in our walk-through today, listen, I want you to know when we win this thing the fans are going to storm the field, and with COVID being as it is, we got to get off the field and get to the tunnel. Now I beat them all to the tunnel, so that didn't go over so good.

But they reminded me that I did tell them that, so my skills of prognostication was pretty good today.

Q. Some people watching that game might say that those were two playoff teams. What do you think?

BRIAN KELLY: You know, I mean, we got so much more work to do and. Look, BC is going to be a challenge for us. I've got to get this football team back up, emotionally ready to play, and BC -- we've got a target on our backs now. There are so many more things on my plate relative to what I have to do than really concern myself with playoffs and who is in and who is not in.

There are other people that will do that, because the real challenge now is to keep this football team accelerating. We've got a lot of things to work on that we saw today, and that will be my focus moving forward, to get this football team ready for BC.

Q. You have to give up something defensively with all these playmakers Clemson has, but Etienne 27, 28 yards and limiting to 57 through the air. Was he A, B, and C in your plan to not let him get going?

BRIAN KELLY: Obviously. We put a lot of emphasis on him not wrecking the game. But DJ is a special player. You know, Trevor Lawrence is a special player, too. Boy, I would like to have Dabo's problems with those two guys. I mean, he is outstanding. His ability to throw the football today was pretty special. I think we would -- if we played them again we would have to do some things a little bit differently because he is so explosive as a quarterback.

Q. Brian, I know you've already talked about next week already and going to want to get your guys to bounce back and be ready. Is there a sense of accomplishment or excitement that you're feeling tonight that you can share?

BRIAN KELLY: Oh, yeah, we're extremely excited about the victory and beating Clemson. Look, all the narratives that are out there and whatever is said, you know, talked about, that doesn't help you win this game. What we're excited about and what we're celebrating is that we played with an incredible focus and resolve. Those are things that we work on to try to be successful and win football games.

That's what we're celebrating, because you have to keep playing and you have to show an incredible focus and determination. That's worth celebrating when you come back and win a football game the way we did in double overtime. So we're not celebrating because we showed the world or we changed the narrative or did this because they were the No. 1 team in the country. We did it because we proved something to ourselves, and that's really satisfying and that's what we're celebrating.

Q. You already discussed a bit the post-game chaos, storming the field. Like to ask you the favor of any other year, most of us would've been down there on the sideline as you head to overtime. What was the feeling, the tension, the mood on the sideline and the first overtime after a dramatic last minute?

BRIAN KELLY: It was I thought it was very controlled. We had lost Javon so we were making some adjustments, trying to -- he was in the tent being evaluated for a head injury, so trying to communicate with our medical staff. They did a great job getting information and letting us know he wasn't available. So we had to make some adjustments with some formations and move people around.

As you know, he was our go-to guy down there in particular in the red zone. And then just constant communication with everybody on the sideline, the coordinators, as to how we were going to attack things. As you know, we ran the ball pretty effectively in overtime. I didn't want to be become pass happy down there.

Then we made a couple of -- the last overtime we made an adjustment on our alignments, taking away the inside slant. So just making some adjustments, doing our job really, and our guys were calm and pretty confident.

Q. Brian, you were really able to hold up on both fronts tonight. When you're measuring like from excellent teams to the elite, elite, those fronts are obviously the key points there. Does that give you some confidence going forward that you can really go toe to toe in the trenches with one of the programs that's that standard?

BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, I mean, we ran the ball for over 200 yards. You know, I don't know the last time a team has given up 200 yards rushing. You know, we threw the ball effectively. Threw it for 300, so when you rush for 200 and throw for 300 you're doing some pretty good things offensively. Yeah, we would like to play a little bit better defensively in some situations.

When you look at it, college football has put so much pressure on defenses that I think it's the ability to really be who you are. As I've said, we're not going to shy away from the fact that we have to stop the run and run the football if we're going to win these kinds of games. That's what we did today.

Q. I know you guys huddled extensively tonight, and I think Ian had a wrist band going as well. Was that just to keep your pre-snap information secure?

BRIAN KELLY: That's exactly correct. We wanted to make sure that -- we had about 150 to 175 plays that we wanted to make sure that we didn't signal in. Then we played fast, so there was no signalling.

And, again, I think from our perspective it'll be the way that we continue to play against Clemson.

Q. Brian, want to ask about the -- you can't beat Clemson with field goals. That was the case for much of the night. What allowed you guys to just keep that belief that you could eventually reach the end zone when you needed to and in overtime to get this win?

BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, you know, I just think -- well, couple things. We kept them to field goals, too. If we were trading our field goals for their touchdowns then this is a moot point. I think a little bit of both where both defenses got really stingy in the short fields. Then when we got to overtime and we just felt like we got into a pretty good rhythm.

We knew that we could run the football after having a multitude of different looks. We kind of zeroed in on some things that we liked in the run game that set up our first downs much better. Had a pretty good inventory of plays, and then Ian, as you know, was able to use his legs to open up some things for us as well.

I just think there was a confidence there, and Tommy was confident that we had a pretty good inventory left if we were able to run the ball effectively on first down which in fact we did.