Goodbye Purdue. Hello Air Force.
Brian Kelly met with the assembled media today and talked about wrapping up Purdue, prepping for Air Force, and getting ready for head coach Troy Calhoun and his very dangerous quarterback Tim Jefferson.
If you’re curious what Kelly thinks about Jefferson and what he does to a defense, this quote should do it:
“It’s just a nightmare,” Kelly said. “He throws the ball so well that, again, you’re put in so many conflicts dealing with this offensive structure, and it starts with Jefferson’s ability to throw the football.”
Here’s some video highlights from this afternoon’s press conference. As usual, I’ll fill in some thoughts after:
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If you’re looking for a main storyline this week, it’s how well can Bob Diaco and the Irish defensive staff put together a gameplan that’ll shutdown Air Force’s option-based offense. After having their scheme rightfully cross-examined after the bludgeoning it took against Navy, Kelly talked about how the experiences playing against Navy and Army helped as they prepare for Air Force’s offensive attack.
“We have to play the way we play,” Kelly said. “We cannot become so out of character in stopping the option that we forget about the things that we teach every day. That is playing physical, flying to the football, great tackling. I think you’ve got to be careful because sometimes option, you get this sense of, Hey, it’s option. But we have to do what we do. That is, we’ve got to play physical at the line of scrimmage and we’ve got to tackle well as understanding the option being the most important principle.”
Kelly hits on, to me, what is one of the more interesting developments of the Brian Kelly era. While Kelly was known as an offensive mastermind before coming to South Bend, what we’ve actually seen is a guy that doesn’t really plan to out-scheme you, but simply beat you by finding a core competency and have his team excel doing just that.
If you’re looking for a reason to be confident against Air Force, it’s that Kelly believes that the strength and physicality of this defense is good enough that it simply needs to do what it does. Sure they’ll gameplan and make tweaks because of the option, but they’ll do that inside the framework of the defense’s principles -- a unit that’s developed pretty impressively in a short time under Kelly and Diaco.
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After spraining an ankle early against Purdue, Kelly is still unable to figure out where Ethan Johnson is in his progress toward seeing the field this weekend.
“He is still in that walking boot. He will be until about Thursday. We’ll take it off. We’ll have to see how he moves around on Thursday,” Kelly said. “When you immobilize for 48, you’re hoping for great results. We’ve been very aggressive in the treatment, but we’ll have to really see on Thursday. He’ll be involved in all of our drills, our walk-throughs. He’s going to be an inside guy for us, so he’s just got to be physical at the point of attack. It’s not like he’s going to have a lot of different things going on. We hope he’ll be able to answer the bell.”
I don’t expect to see Johnson this weekend, only because I think the coaching staff thinks that they can get by without using him on Saturday and give him two full weeks to get ready for USC. That said, Kelly pointed to an interesting personnel decision, choosing to use Johnson as an inside guy -- likely in the mix with Louis Nix and Sean Cwynar, not necessarily at defensive end.
Kelly made it clear that both freshman, Aaron Lynch and Stephon Tuitt, will play this weekend against Air Force, giving the youngsters a chance to team with Kapron Lewis-Moore, who has had some productive Saturdays against option teams in the past. I’d also expect to see Darius Fleming with his hand on the ground, giving way to Steve Filer or Ishaq Williams outside at linebacker.
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Kelly had one of the better lines of the press conference when talking about the continued development of sophomore quarterback Tommy Rees.
“He’s been in some big games and some very difficult environments. He’s developing that scar tissue that you need to play quarterback with me as well, and that is he’s constantly being challenged to be better. He’s taken very well to that. I think all of our players have a great trust in him.”
The term “scar tissue” really resonates with me and is a great way to describe the evolution of a quarterback. Thinking back to the past few quarterbacks at Notre Dame, there were certainly cuts and scrapes along the way that aided in the development of these players.
Brady Quinn isn’t who he is without a few very tough football game in his freshman and sophomore seasons. Same for Jimmy Clausen. You’re seeing that Kelly believes that Rees is a guy that understands the offense and will only continue to get better, helping to refute the growing narrative that Rees has a low ceiling.
Kelly then talked about the decision to stick with Tommy against Pitt, even when it seemed like Dayne Crist might have been a better option.
“Even though he probably didn’t have his best game against Pittsburgh, there were many people asking why we didn’t go back to Dayne,” Kelly said. “I think Dayne is extremely capable of running our offense, being successful, but we wanted consistency and continuity, and we felt Tommy was going to give us that.”
I’m starting to think it might make sense to put together a up-tempo scheme for Crist, something that allows him to use his under-appreciated running ability and also get him on the field against Air Force. Sure, sophomore Andrew Hendrix or freshman Everett Golson might be better in a true dual-threat capacity, but neither have the command of the offense that Crist has.
Crist hasn’t shown the ability to stay healthy, but he has shown himself to be a pretty decent runner, something Tommy just doesn’t have in his arsenal.
