Saturday’s comeback victory against Purdue was keyed by a second half recovery after a slow start by both sides of the ball. And while it felt like a frustrating slog for most of the game, it didn’t feel like a great escape or death-defying act. And that’s a product of the team understanding what it takes to win a football game.
Brian Kelly stopped by SiriusXM’s College Football Playbook this week and talked about the evolution of his team with Jack Arute and Gino Torretta. And winning games like this has become habit forming.
“I think it’s a culmination of winning 25 of our last 30 regular season games,” Kelly said of his team’s battle back. “That has to have a positive effect on you. When I came in at half time, I said, ‘Listen, we’ve been down this road before.’ We’re going to have to play better, we’re going to have to make some plays. Plays that we didn’t make against Michigan. And I was confident we would.”
There were plenty of interesting morsels that came out of Kelly’s weekly stop, but perhaps the largest was the evolution of Tommy Rees as the offense’s leader. Sure Zack Martin and TJ Jones are the guys with the C on their jersey, but Kelly made it clear that Saturday night, Rees finally became the rightful leader of this offense.
“Tommy Rees finally took this team over,” Kelly said. “He took them on the bench and surrounded himself with everybody and started talking to them like it’s his team. He’s been the quarterback, but now it’s his team. It was a huge moment in the second half where he said, ‘Listen, this is my team and we’re going to win this football game.’”
Kelly also talked about the changes on the defense that’s started out a little bit slower than many expected. Getting ready to take part in a smash-mouth game this weekend, the Irish head coach referenced a few tweaks to Bob Diaco’s troops that he hopes will help straighten out a few of the deficiencies.
“We’re getting closer. We’re not there yet,” Kelly said. “We still have to develop a few key positions on defense that are not there yet. And we’ve addressed that and moving forward we think we have some answers there that you’ll see this weekend.”