Tranquill Believes Irish Made Spring Strides

As Notre Dame ended spring practice with the Blue-Gold Game last Saturday, captain Drue Tranquill saw a different Irish secondary throughout the first 15 practices of 2017.

“Everyone is playing faster and more confident,” Tranquill stated. “We aren’t necessarily worried about checks, and we are more worried about what our job is on this play and how to help the team.”

While Tranquill is adjusting to a new position at Rover this spring, he wasn’t frustrated with growing pains, and in fact, the Fort Wayne (Ind.) native found the love for the game.

“It’s fun,” Tranquill said of spring ball. “I got away from that last year. In years past it felt like a job a little bit. I am finding that passion and love I had as a little kid. I think it’s the same for a lot of guys in the locker room as well. Guys are finding their love for the game.”

With a new coaching staff, Tranquill has found a new mindset to go along with his love for playing football. A new attitude from the coaching staff has translated down to the team in just three months.

“It’s just about buying into what they are preaching, and that’s our five traits of excellence,” explained Tranquill.  “We have to trust the process and each day they ask us to be attentive to those five details. They ask to give our best, and they will give their best.

“It’s a delayed gratification to sacrifice now, and it will pay off later.”  

The Irish are focused on attention to detail, attitude, grit, smarts, and laser focus, which are the five traits of excellence, but Tranquill doesn’t believe they have moved into daily actions just yet.

“I don’t think they are habits yet, but the spring has been a great opportunity to develop and turn them into habits,” he said. “It’s a consistent process of trying to develop daily.”

The changes have been talked about over and over this spring, but Tranquill believes change was coming to South Bend regardless of the 4-8 record of 2016.

“You go 4-8, and something has to change,” Tranquill stated. “If you go 8-4 some things might have gotten masked. At Notre Dame, 8-4 isn’t acceptable or tolerated. I think those things within our culture would have been noticed if we were 10-3 or 4-8, but the media criticism gave it a lot more hype and juice.

“We could feel it in the program in the past three years that certain things needed to change. Those things were finally brought to light, and it happened to be in a 4-8 season. I don’t think necessarily 4-8 was the reason all this change happened.”

Tranquill has also noticed and felt a steady change in head coach Brian Kelly over the last three months. It’s a change that hasn’t been in personality, but more towards the way he goes about coaching the team.  

“I’ve seen him be a lot more personable with guys and focus more on the daily development of guys,” said Tranquill. “He said to us early in the winter ‘You know I love you guys, by getting things done for you guys.’ That was kind of like a businessman approach, but I have seen him tailor off of that a little bit and become a more personal guy.

“Younger guys were like ‘I haven’t really had a conversation with Coach Kelly.’ Guys are starting to feel that and starting to put their necks out on the table for him and want to play for him.”