Notre Dame’s Kelly promises change in ’17
Team captains vacuum the Notre Dame locker room every night after workouts.
There’s no longer a need for janitors — 6-8, 315-pound left tackle Mike McGlinchey and 6-1, 235-pound linebacker Nyles Morgan got this.
Organized spaces and a clean carpet don’t necessarily equate a successful turnaround from a 4-8 season, but it’s a start and all part of Brian Kelly’s new vision heading into 2017 with a clean slate.
Every college football coach is energetic, positive and excited about his team to start the season. Kelly was, too, on Monday, sounding peppier than usual when he engaged the news media for nearly an hour ahead of the team’s first practice session of 2017.
But his reason for optimism is different: After last season ended and rumors floated that he might lose his job, Kelly made sweeping changes. He hired seven new coaches, including offensive, defensive and special-teams coordinators. He found a young, dynamic strength and conditioning coach who drastically has changed the culture of the weight room. He added a mental skills consultant and altered his own approach as well, which included internal (yoga) and external (changing up his schedule) adjustments.
With fall camp beginning Tuesday, Kelly didn’t get into depth chart competition or X’s and O’s — mainly because he doesn’t have those answers yet. Instead, he explained what he learned from last season and how that will affect this one.
“I can tell you we’re in a different place than we were,” Kelly said.
Last year he — and extension the team — was too focused on production and neglected the process, which in turn produced bad habits. Undisciplined at times, the Fighting Irish struggled to finish games, losing seven of eight contests by one possession.
One of Kelly’s first steps in getting his players to pay more attention to finer details, such as not jumping offside or being in position to create turnovers, is to reverse that trend from 2016. And he’s been upfront that it starts at the top.
“I let our football team down not focusing on those very important values,” he said.
At this time last year, Notre Dame was coming off a 10-3 season and a trip to the Fiesta Bowl, and Kelly received a six-year contract extension. He says now, though, he realized early on there were off-the-field issues. It started in fall camp when six players were arrested in two separate incidents two weeks before the season opener against Texas. The season spiraled from there. Kelly fired defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder after a shocking loss to Duke capped a 1-3 start. The Irish couldn’t fix their problems fast enough and ended the year 4-8.
Kelly said Monday that even if the team had won eight or nine games he still would have made changes.
“We had some things that I had done a poor job in developing our leadership, and the message was not clear within the program,” Kelly said. “So, yeah, we’d be at this same place regardless of whether we would have had a monsoon or went for a first down instead of kicking a field goal. Things would have been in the same place.”
The season opener against Temple is a month away, but he can see his players taking on more leadership roles — even if they aren’t captains — and ownership of the team. Not just when it comes to cleaning the locker room.
“I think the relationships that our players have developed over the past seven months is probably the strength of this football team, with players to players and coaches,” Kelly said. “There is a closeness with this group. And I think it’s a bigger, faster, stronger group as well.”
There’s no way of knowing if Kelly’s vision, mission or staff shakeup will turn four wins into bowl eligibility in a year. But looking big picture on the first day of fall camp, he has reason to at least be cautiously optimistic.
“Look, we haven’t played a game. We have a lot of work to do,” he said. “It’s going to be hard, but we’re in a different place.”
“Look, we haven’t played a game. We have a lot of work to do. It’s going to be hard, but we’re in a different place.” Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly