BK Notebook: 9/26

Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly will face off against Chuck Martin and the Miami Redhawks on Saturday. Kelly previewed the matchup and gave the latest on his blossoming team. 

On the missed targeting call on quarterback Brandon Wimbush: 
“We turned it in. We had it evaluated and obviously felt that they missed that call. You know, it's extremely frustrating as a head coach in this profession that you see -- where I really have a hard time with this whole targeting rule in itself is that young men don't get many opportunities to play this game. I think I was watching a game on the way back on the bus, and there was a young man thrown out of the game trying to make a tackle, just trying to make a tackle, and then we have this instance when this young man was not trying to make a tackle. 

“We can't seem to get that right, and we have a replay official that is supposed to be looking for that. That is extremely frustrating when somebody has to be thrown out of a game trying to make a tackle, somebody is still in the game, and he's not trying to make a tackle. It just needs to be fixed. It's right now not in a very good place and needs to get fixed.” 

On the process of turning in the play to the ACC:
“We had the consequence obviously last year against Texas when they missed the clear targeting against Torii Hunter Jr.; there were repercussions for that Big 12 replay crew, which was double secret until later in the year, obviously. I don't know what, if any, repercussions would be relative to the on-field crew for the ACC or for the Big Ten replay crew, which was supposed to be monitoring that situation. But it was egregious, and there's no other way to look at that kind of hit. That has no place in the game.”

On the Miami Redhawks:
“From here on out, we'll only play teams that have gone to bowl games, so another challenge for our football team in terms of quality opposition, a team that's won, and has an instilled sense of winning football games. Coach Martin has done a great job of doing that in a very short period of time. He's done that obviously at Miami and certainly did that in incredible fashion at Grand Valley. He'll do a great job in preparing his football team. He does a great job of handling these kinds of games, as well. You just need to look at the games where he's played on big stages. They do a great job of controlling the football. I think they average almost 34 and a half minutes time of possession offensively.

“So you have to be extremely efficient with the football offensively. They don't give up big plays defensively. So you're playing for a lot of -- for you folks that follow us, this is a lot like playing Navy in the sense that you've got to be extremely efficient on offense against them, and you've got to obviously keep the points down because they're going to do some really good things.”

On receiver Chase Claypool’s growth:
“I'm in between flashes and wanting to elevate. It's one game. We think he's capable of being a very nice piece to putting our wide receiver corps together. As you saw, he's big; he's athletic, he can catch the football, we can get some nice match-ups with him. But he's a young player that, quite frankly, the game is still evolving for him. But really like the way he ran and caught the football, made that initial defender miss, and got us the yards after the catch. Excited about Chase, love his work ethic during the week, and hope that it becomes elevated and it continues to grow.”

On freshman safety Jordan Genmark Heath:
“He's attached to Coach (Mike) Elko at the hip at practice, so he's learning the safety position. As he learns, we want to continue to keep him actively involved in what we're doing, and when I say what we're doing, you know, playing real football, getting him involved in our special teams and tackling and doing the things that can help our football team because he's a physical kid that can help us. 

“I'll go back to the game I saw the other night. You know, this one team had one safety thrown out of the game, another one was on the docket to be thrown out. You know, we have to continue to train Jordan to be prepared to play this year, so that training will continue, but as that training is going on, we want to keep playing because we think he's got some nice skill sets.”

On offensive lineman Quenton Nelson’s leadership:
“He's evolved and grown as a leader. And he's done it by his choice. You know, we've worked a lot together personally, he and I, on taking his strength as a leader, which as you can imagine, truth is his number one strength. He's very truthful, and you can take that any way you want it.

“And really worked hard on how he delivers that truth. It's been much more impactful across the board. He's a very effective leader because of that. And that's something that he's wanted to do.

“One of the reasons he came back was that he wanted to work on those skills, as well. Not only did he want to be a better and more complete football player, but he wanted to be a better leader, too, and he's worked really hard on that. I'm proud of him.” 

On grading the defensive line through four games:
“I'd give them an A-. You know, and I think the minus is probably lost a little bit of focus here and there at times, but their technique, their ability to use their hands, play with a much better discipline in terms of how they fit in our front seven is probably an A+, and then just, you know, maintaining that intensity, that endurance, that mental endurance that I talk about. That's the area that they have to continue to grow at. We're getting some pretty good edge pressure from our front four. We're getting batted balls, and we're getting the kind of integrity that front four needs relative to the run fits. Mike Elston has done a terrific job with that group.”

On Sam Mustipher’s game against Michigan State:
“I will tell you some inside information that I usually don't share, but we do a highlight video of our offensive linemen, and he was not in the clips last week, and that -- not that he didn't play great because he played pretty good. But there were some hellacious hits from some other players, and he took that personal. He is all over this week's highlight clips, and that's the kind of pride he has in his performance. And they were late. I mean, it was late in the game, and he was all over the place. Somebody that -- and you mentioned his physical endurance, his ability to pull, his ability to snap the ball effectively. He's made great strides in that area. He takes great pride in it. He was really impressive on Saturday.”

On offensive line continuing to punish Michigan State when the game was out of reach:
“It's certainly pleasing. In terms of -- you know, laying out the plan of what our total preparation needed to be, right, and I keep bringing this up, about our physical preparation, technical, tactical, and then the mental preparation, all of them have to come together in some fashion, all of them I've talked about in terms of how we needed to come out in this football game mentally. And now you're just having this conversation about the physical, right? We have to have a really good game plan, and then they have to execute the technique. So all of these things coming together is intentional. We've got to keep doing that every week.”

On cornerback Shaun Crawford’s recruitment:
“I knew what we had. I mean, I think I've said this a couple of times; I recruited him personally because of what I felt were his traits. We weren't unanimous on the recruiting of Shaun Crawford. That was a head coach take. And I'll take credit for it 100 percent. And I'm not here -- and I don't mean that in any other way -- I'm not trying to pat myself on the back. I'll take credit for it because there's more to this game than just, you know, looking at the size of one's stature. I mean, the kid plays the game in a manner that is so smart and savvy that I hadn't seen before. He had those traits that overcame two or three inches.

“You know, again, I'm just saying that when I was at Grand Valley State, we had to find Shaun Crawfords, because they weren't getting offered scholarships. He just proved that the other night with the punch-out and then staying with it right through the end. I love Shaun Crawford.”

On running backs, Josh Adams and Dexter Williams:
“He's (Dexter) a bit raw in the sense that we like to -- we don't like to cage him up a little bit. We like to let him go, let him run a little bit. I think Josh is a guy that can press the heels of a guard, be patient, three-way spoke it, front door, stay on it, cut it back. Sometimes you're just like, give the ball to Dexter and let him go. Maybe that's not fair to Dexter, but we don't want to hold him back. He's got great acceleration. We want to try to get him in open spaces as much as we can.”