Notre Dame HC Brian Kelly | "I Think We’re Going To Play"

Brian Kelly doesn’t have all of the answers, but he’s certainly informed.

The Notre Dame head football coach won’t be making the decisions, but he’s certainly in touch with those who will.

So, his opinions matter.

And the opinions he shared on The Rich Eisen Show on Wednesday afternoon where among the most optimistic he’s shared since the start of the COVID-19 crisis.

“I think we’re going to play,” Kelly said flat out at the start of the interview. “I don’t have the definitive, 100 percent, but obviously things are trending that way, we’re moving in that direction. We want to play in the fall.”

“At the end of the day, those decisions are going to be made by our President and our Board of Trustees, not the football coach at Notre Dame, so let’s get that straight. We’re moving in that direction, we’re preparing for those eventualities. From that perspective, I can say we are prepared.”

Kelly acknowledged that there will undoubtedly be challenges along the way.

“There’s probably going to be setbacks,” he said. “As long as we’re all aware of what those are and how to deal with them, I think we’re ready to play football in the fall.”

Communicating with his players without clear answers has been one of the most difficult things for Kelly over the last several weeks.

“As we’re planning on ‘No Salad Bars’ and spacing in the locker room and the weight room and some of these really important issues so you can in fact avoid a hot spot or the potential of what the worst case scenario could be, Rich, and that is you start and have to shut down,” said Kelly. “The players want to know dates and times. They want to be in a position where they can put on the calendar, ‘Hey, what’s the date?’

“The problem is we can’t give them that because everything is staged in terms of the states and the universities. They want to wait as long as they can because they want to get better testing, they want to get better tracing, they want to get where are we going to quarantine. Those things take more time.”

Kelly said he’s in meeting on a daily basis to put together protocols to make it work.

“But on the other hand, I’m trying to talk to my players every day and they’re like, ‘Coach, what do you got for us?’” he said. “I know it’s frustrating for them, but they know that we’re doing all of the planning necessary.”

In addition to his players, Kelly has recognized the importance of communicating with their parents.

“If it’s my kid, I’m not putting him on a plane to South Bend, Ind.,” he said. “I better know exactly what’s in place for my son when he gets there that he’s not going to get sick.

“We have to lay out exactly what we’re doing. Are we testing daily? Are we doing antibody testing? Are we doing once a week? Are we putting them in pods, where they stay in those pods and they’re not going to be disrupted from those areas?”

Kelly said he’s been trying to take in all of the information and ideas and trying to figure out what’s doable.

“There are a lot of moving pieces here that we’re trying to get our heads around to find out what’s realistic to be able to do,” he said.

But he was confident throughout that they will be able to get it done.

“We’re better than we were maybe even two weeks ago. We have a document that’s getting closer and closer because we’re getting more answers. It seems as though we’re getting closer to figuring out what kind of capacity we’ll have for testing.

“Those are the things that really, unfortunately, have been holding this up a little bit.”