Yesterday afternoon, Brian Kelly addressed the media to discuss things other than Kyle Rudolph’s season ending injury. Specifically, Kelly talked Bill Cubit’s Western Michigan Broncos.
Here’s a slice of what he said, courtesy of the video guys:
A few observations:
It’s amazing how candid Kelly is when dealing with the media. I think back to the injury of Jimmy Clausen last year and it felt like Fort Knox when trying to get information. Losing Rudolph is a true blow, but Kelly seems to actually live his “Next Man In” philosophy, something that has to help the morale of the team, especially guys like Tyler Eifert and Mike Ragone.
You’ve got to think the injury helps the odds of Rudolph returning to Notre Dame for his senior year, but Rudolph wouldn’t address it yesterday.
"For me all my thoughts have been dedicated to figuring out when I’m going to have surgery and where I’m going to have surgery. Just getting that done as soon as possible,” Rudolph said. “My focus is all on getting my leg to 100 percent and the first step in that is surgery as soon as possible and getting that taken care of and going from there, starting my rehab and getting on the right track to getting healthy.”
I’m not in the business of interpreting quotes, but if I had to guess it was pretty clear that Rudolph was gone after this season if he stayed healthy.
*****As much as people are calling the Western Michigan game a week off, I think Kelly’s time in the MAC conference is a huge benefit for the Irish. Kelly was quick to dismiss any comparison between the Broncos and some of the I-AA opponents that dot the schedules of other college football powers.
”
Well, I think there’s two things. One, you know, playing I-AA opponents is one thing. This is a MAC opponent. And so that’s a little bit different,” Kelly said.He talked about the mindset he had at Central Michigan when they played major opponents from BCS conferences.
“It’s a free shot. Doesn’t cost anything and you pick up the check at the end of the game no matter what happens. This is an opportunity to go to Notre Dame, and obviously, get a great victory,” Kelly said.
“So, you know, we had our football team, we had every trick play in the book, we had every fake and punt and kickoff and we just told our kids to go after it and play hard and enjoy themselves.”
*****
Not to pat myself on the back too much, but last week I made the analogy of Dayne Crist having to learn a different language when comparing the transition from Charlie Weis’ offense to Brian Kelly’s spread attack.
Yesterday, BK made me sound smart:
“I think the best way to describe it is that he’s learning a new language,” Kelly said about his quarterback Crist’s development. “He started with French and we are teaching him Spanish. That development of understanding the nuances, is ongoing. I like where he’s going with it. He’s developing a sense of the quarterback position as seen through the eyes of a spread quarterback. And those are some different -- there are some clear differences there.”
During the Pregame 12 Pack, I’ll breakdown the first six starts of Dayne Crist’s career. While his play has been a little streaky, it’s clear that Dayne bought a Rosetta Stone or something.
*****
While Rudolph’s injury news was front and center, the prognosis on Taylor Dever was certainly better.
“There’s some things that he does right now that you would not even know he has an injury,” Kelly said. “Getting off the ball, firing off and that kind of had us believing last week he would be fine. And then he got into some pass sets, didn’t feel quite as comfortable and then pregame, he felt, you know, really, he was hindered a bit. That’s when we made the move.”
After a sack on the opening play, Zack Martin acquitted himself quite nicely at right tackle, his first game there in his career. And Kelly had nothing but good things to say about Martin’s replacement, Matt Romine.
Good for Romine -- a highly regarded recruit that put in the work and now gets a chance to start. I wouldn’t be surprised if Kelly kept Dever out of Saturday’s game, allowing him an opportunity to heal up for one more week, and Romine to gain more confidence on the edge.
*****
Predictably, after six games somebody of course brought up the subject of bowl games, when asking for the definition of success in year one of the Kelly era. Not surprisingly, BK didn’t take the bait.
“Success for us is winning football games. There’s no two ways about it. As I see it through my eyes, that’s success. And winning games is how we are going to talk about success as a football team,” Kelly said.
“There are also other things that I’m looking for which I said from the very beginning is that I want to be a better football team in November than I was in September. So those will be pretty clear to you, to everybody in this room and to myself, because they are going to keep track of the wins and you are going to keep watching our football team. I think we are all going to be able to say, this is a successful year based upon, this is a better football team in November, and, they have won some football games.”
All that being said, don’t expect the Irish to turn down a bowl game this year, as Kelly made it clear he’d be incredibly disappointed if the Irish didn’t make it to one.
“If that means that we didn’t win enough games, that would be disappointing, absolutely,” Kelly said.
An extra month of practice will be absolutely essential for an Irish football team that could have a ton of weapons coming back in 2011.