Notre Dame's Kelly: Spring season feasible

Brian Kelly believes college football is in a more difficult situation to execute its upcoming season that its professional counterparts, but Notre Dame’s veteran coach thinks a college season can still be in the offing – even if means pushing back the calendar into the new year.

Appearing Wednesday on The Herd with Colin Cowherd, Kelly said the college game faces nuances that the National Football League does not.

“It’s a good question,” Kelly said, when asked by Cowherd where discussions stand on college football. “I think a lot of it is really centered around not just the game itself, it’s about how you bring students back.

“The NFL’s a lot easier because you could conceivably bring back the professional ranks and cut a deal with the players. Maybe there’s some lost revenue there on the players’ end that they have to agree to, and they could play without fans and people would buy that product and they could watch it on TV. It’s harder to do at the collegiate level without students, because one can’t really exist without the other.”

Further, Kelly believes – as many other college coaches and leaders have suggested in recent conversations – that college football must coincide with students’ returns to campus. Notre Dame hasn’t had students on campus for class since March 6, when the university was preparing for its spring break the following week.

After extending the break an additional week in March, Notre Dame, like virtually every major college and university throughout the country, then opted to transition to entirely online courses – the first time in school history to conduct online learning.

“This is really a comprehensive plan now where it has to be in lock-step,” Kelly said. “So many football programs have existed as their own model, and those that have existed as their own business model are struggling right now.

“Those that have been intertwined with the university are going to get through this a lot quicker. It’s really been more conversations about how do we interact to bring the students and the athletes back together in an integrated phase, so we can get the season going.”

With Cowherd later asking about the potential to play the next college football season after the first of the year, Kelly thinks it is a feasible proposition – but notes it merely is one among many currently under discussion.

“I think we could make it work,” Kelly said. “As long as it wasn’t … we can’t have an overlapping semester because then there’s eligibility questions, that I don’t know that we can really handle on the phone right now.

“So as long as there’s not an overlapping semester situation and we can get through the semesters and everybody can tie up fall from winter and spring from summer, I think we can do that. So, I think there’s enough models out there that we can get this season in.”

Kelly thinks some teams may not have anything remotely approaching a “normal” season, specifically referencing Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti saying on Tuesday that Garcetti believes his city may not host large events again in public domain until 2021. The Fighting Irish currently are scheduled to play rival USC in L.A. Memorial Coliseum on November 28.

“There may be some situations where, we heard the other day that the mayor (Garcetti) may not let anything happen in the city of L.A.; there may be some teams that have to play road games,” Kelly said. “And if that’s the case to play, and get your season in at different sites, there may have to be those kinds of alterations to get a season in. We’ll see what happens.

“Listen, it’s too far away for me to even venture guesses right now. I know everybody is trying to look at reasons to play.”