After two straight last-minute losses, Brian Kelly addressed the media as his team prepared to play Jim Harbaugh’s Stanford Cardinal.
Here’s some video from the fine folks back at home base:
A couple brief observations:
Kelly may be mispronouncing his name, but Cierre Wood (Kelly adds an ‘s’ at the end) should take his coach’s comments seriously. Since the opener against Purdue, Wood seems to have lost his mojo, tip-toeing his way through the line and becoming a far less aggressive runner than senior Armando Allen.
Sitting in the pressbox against Purdue, I chatted with a longtime writer that’s covered the Irish and as we watched Cierre take his first carries, we were pretty certain that there was a dogfight for the No. 1 tailback job. That hasn’t been the case, and Wood has even been tentative on kick returns as well.
Kelly does a good job of getting his player’s attention through his comments in the media (see Gary Gray), and for the Irish’s sake, Cierre Wood better get the message come 3:30 Saturday.
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On the weekly depth chart, Jamoris Slaughter was listed one of the starting safeties, being backed up by Zeke Motta. That’s a welcome sight with the Cardinal offense coming to town, and Kelly seems to think that Slaughter’s recovered enough from his ankle sprain to be at full-speed this weekend.
“It looks like that’s goig to happen,” Kelly said. “We’ll have a great feeling after practice today. But we really liked the fact that when we needed somebody to go in at safety, Zeke had an equipment problem, Jamoris ran in the game without anybody putting him in the game. He’s anxious to get back out there, he’s moving much better yesterday, and when we get out there and move around a little bit, we don’t do a lot, but the observation is that he’s going to be able to start for us.”
As we discussed earlier today, pass-first safeties are at a premium on the Irish roster, and Slaughter might represent the only one on the team.
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Kelly did his best to steer clear any talk of penalties, especially two controversial calls -- the late clipping call on Lo Wood where there wasn’t much (if any) contact, and the force out called on Darrin Walls on the touchdown pass.
“We fumbled the ball twice and were lucky to get it back, so those breaks even out as far as I see,” Kelly said. “When you look at it in its totality, over 20 years of coaching, some of those go against you. It’s not bad luck, it’s not the curse, just one of those things that if Lowe is in a little bit better position, it doesn’t even become a question. I’d rather coach putting Lo Wood in a better position than anything else.”
Kelly walked away from the question after he was asked for a “rules interpretation.”
“For me to get into the specifics about that, I get myself into enough trouble, so I’m going to pass on that one,” Kelly said.
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Dayne Crist played solid football Saturday night, showing poise and handling his first road start well. But if there’s one thing missing from Crist’s repertoire, it’s his ability to make the high-percentage passes needed in Kelly’s spread attack.
“The areas of his improvement, which will be publicly stated, and he knows it, and we’re not hiding anything, his ball control throws,” Kelly said. “He had 13 incomplete passes that were all ball control throws. That’s the area of -- when we clean that up, he will possess the things necessary to lead our football team as far as we can go, and that’s the area in his maturation. He is making the big throws. He is making the big field throws, the vertical throws, the dig routes. He’s doing a great job on his progression reads now. It’s the ball control throws that we have to make, and those are the ones that consequently can end up winning the game for you.”
Crist struggled rolling to his left, skipping two short throws to open receivers. “Ball-control throws” are similar to the passing plays that Charlie Weis categorized as part of the running game. Part of why this offense runs so hot and cold is Dayne’s inability to make these shorter throws, passes that move the chains and keep the offense rolling.
Crist has hardly been a disappointment, but you can tell this offense is based on short throws completed with great accuracy. And that’s where Dayne can make real strides in his improvement.