Notre Dame Notebook: Brian Kelly Talks Beating North Carolina

Notes from Brian Kelly's post-game press conference after the 44-34 win over North Carolina

Notes from Brian Kelly's post-game press conference after the 44-34 win over North Carolina.

On the 91-yard run by Kyren Williams

“Heck with the play. It's about players over plays. We were running duo, double team on the play side. They ran a swarm to the front side and he bounced it back and just made something out of nothing. That's gonna be a net-zero gain and he turns it into a 91-yard run. Just an incredible individual effort. We got some really smart guys downfield. Avery makes the smart decision not to make a block, but get in the way of a defender. Mike Mayer rolls a guy down the field, so great blocking down the field too.”

On what Kyren Williams brings to the team with his attitude

"It's pervasive. It's not only the offense, it's the defense. It's everybody that watches him play. I'm not going to tell you that he stands in front of the room and talks to the team about leadership techniques. But his leadership by the way he does things puts him in a role as a captain, and you saw that tonight with the way he handles things.

On how Notre Dame was able to score against North Carolina

"I felt if you have six drives of 75 yards, I don't know that they got us as much as we went to something else when they wanted to take it away. We had more answers than they had tonight in that respect. We had not had those answers before. Spreading the formations, getting the ball out on the perimeter, throwing the ball in the seams, and then allowing that to set up runs were some of the answers that Tommy was finding while they were trying to take something away... We took away all their RPOs. There were no RPOs. The one RPO they threw, we picked it off. But you're playing three down and you better be absolutely correct on every gap fit or they ran power and we got pinned down and we couldn't get over the top. They had a big play run. We had a couple of miscommunications on some man coverage situations that got to get cleaned up. I think personally, we have to coach it better and put our players in a better position. We're going to lean on ourselves as coaches to help our kids get in better position.

On the secondary play without Kyle Hamilton

"They did pretty well. We got good play out of DJ. DJ played really well. Houston and Pryor, all three of those guys working together, I thought played well. I thought our communication was pretty good. It's got to get better. We got into some stack alignments. One guy's making a call, it's getting trumped. It's just we got to coach it better. Our kids should not be put in that position. We got to do a better job."

On the size of the playbook

“He (Tommy Rees) does have a lot of answers going for him right now. We got over the top on a flat-foot safety, we didn't make the catch. I can give you a lot of different examples of whether it's quarter coverage, man coverage, one on one situations, you load the box, the ball is going out on the perimeter, we have a lot of answers for us right now that are being executed. But we were doing it with two quarterbacks too because we need Buchner. Buchner made some really good plays. The third-down play where he holds the ball and flips it over the top to get it to Mayer. He's making some really good plays, too. So the combination of the two quarterbacks really makes that an expensive playbook.”

On Jack Coan’s play

"He has never played in this type of offense, so this is new for him. He's got a shiny new toy that he really likes. We've worked hard with his footwork. His footwork has been so much better. The poor throw that he makes, he gets flat foot, he puts the ball in the ground to Mike (Mayer), where he's wide open. He knows exactly what he needs to do to be accurate and be on time and a lot of it stems from the waist below. He is such a smart kid. He is such a good quarterback from that position. He did not make one mistake in identifying the fronts and checks and things of that nature. They were blitzing the back, we had to cross-read the back in protections and he was setting all that. He had a lot on his plate, but what he's seeing is that he can really ascend in the offense right now... We were dumb. Look, we were trying to figure out what he could do and we were using a lot of the skills that he had, but we have found obviously a niche where he feels really comfortable... The epiphany for us was the Virginia Tech game where we put him back in after he had not had a very good start to the game. We get him in the two minute again and now he looks great and now we're like, Okay, we got this figured out now. Let's shorten his drop. Let's get these feet moving quickly. Let's get him through his progressions. The ball comes out faster. Quicker decisions. Look, he never throws, we call it a bubble throw, the perimeter bubble, he didn't throw those before. But he's accurate and the ball comes out quickly and you can see what happens when you get it into those skill guy's hands, they turn those into big plays."

On whether Jack Coan or Kyren Williams’ TD run was more impressive

"No question, Jack Coan's. He is right now thinking that he touched 19 on the GPS. I'm calling liar on that. But he's feeling pretty good about himself right now.”

On Braden Lenzy’s injury

“He went into the concussion protocol. But look, I'm not a medical doctor but we talked about the Gettysburg Address and he was able to recite it back to me," said jokingly. "I'm not sure he knows what Gettysburg is. And I'm not trying to make light of it. He's feeling really good. He's feeling really good after practice. Obviously our medical people, I don't want to make light of a potentially serious situation, but he feels good. He'll go obviously be evaluated but we're feeling like we had a good conversation."

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