Brian Kelly Talks Temple

Brian Kelly met with the media on Tuesday to talk about Notre Dame’s 2013 season opener this weekend at home against Temple.  Here is the full video along with some notes and highlights for those of you that don’t have 43 minutes to watch.

• Kelly said that the Irish will have to make some adjustments along the way because they don’t much about Temple given the new coaching staff in place for the Owls. 
• Chris Ault spent a couple of days at Notre Dame’s coaches clinic and Kelly mentioned that they will determine how much they will use the pistol from week to week depending on the situation.
• Ronnie Stanley practiced fully yesterday and is a full go.  Stanley won the right tackle job in camp with Christian Lombard moving inside to right guard where many feel he is better suited.  Kelly did say that it is a fluid situation stating that Steve Elmer could start at right tackle at some point.
• Austin Collinsworth won the starting safety position over Elijah Shumate but both will play.  This is a pretty big upset considering how much Shumate played as a freshman last year.
• With the loss of Tony Springmann, Tyler Stockton will be the 3rd reserve DL with Ishaq Williams and Kona Schwenke being the first two.
• TJ Jones will bet he punt return man for Notre Dame this year and really wants to do the job.
• Will Mahone is out this week due to injury.
• For freshman playing time, Kelly mentioned that defensive players who are going to play this year will likely see the field very early on special teams this year while offensive freshmen might not see the field til a little later in the year.  This could mean we won’t see much of Greg Bryant this weekend.
• Nick Martin and Kona Schwenke were the two players that Kelly mentioned as being the most improved from the start of camp until this week.  Kelly praised Martin’s improvement since the spring and cited his experience against Louis Nix as reason for his improvement.  On Schwenke, Kelly said that he could start for a number of teams and be an impact player.
• Kelly praised the freshman’s class ability to blend in with the rest of the team and leave any egos at the door despite how highly touted many of them were coming in.
• Kelly would not name the true freshmen who will be playing on special teams but said that we will see a number of the them on the field on Saturday.
• Kelly was vague about the split of carries among the running backs but said that we’ll see all of them at some point this year.
• Jaylon Smith will start game one because he has been consistent everyday in practice.  Kelly mentioned that Smith is in a much different position than Manti Te’o was as a freshman.  Smith has “not made the same mistake twice” so far in practice.  Smith passed Ben Councell on the depth chart after Danny Spond’s retirement.
• There are three early enrollees on the two-deep – Steve Elmer, James Onwaulu, and Corey Robinson.  All three of them will play early.
• On Chris Brown’s fall camp, Kelly said the he was just “OK” this summer.  The coaching staff wants to see more consistency out of him but they think he has a very, very high ceiling.  Kelly said he has flashes where you say “wow, what was that” but he hasn’t been able to do that on a consistent basis.
• On Ishaq Williams, “He’s done cooking.  He’s ready to go.” Kelly said that he is very excited to see him play this week and is expecting big things from him.
• On getting his other quarterbacks on the field, Kelly said that any time you can get your 2nd or 3rd QB in a situation where there isn’t an injury its a good thing, but they want to get off to a good start with Tommy Rees.  Translation – Rees is the QB unless he forces Kelly to go to the bullpen.
• Max Redfield will play on special teams on Saturday, but he is not in the rotation at safety just yet.