The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are bad at footballing so far this season.
Things pretty much hit rock bottom when they lost 38-35 to the Duke Blue Devils on Saturday in South Bend — as three-touchdown favorites — to fall to 1-3 (and 1-5 dating back to last year). The NBC cameras caught Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly asking his junior quarterback DeShone Kizer, “What are you doing?”, after Kizer threw a fourth-quarter interception that led to Duke’s game-winning points.
So, it was hardly surprising that Kelly wasn’t in the best mood and had a lot of things to complain about in Saturday’s postgame press conference.
First, Kelly went off about how none of his starting players should feel safe about their jobs… except for the long snapper!
Every position. All 22 of ’em will be evaluated. Each and every position. There is no position that is untouchable on this football team. That’s the quarterback, all the way down to… maybe the long snapper’s okay. We’re not gonna touch him. Everybody else is vulnerable.
Kelly was fairly calm in showing his anger there, but he was a bit more fired up later in the press conference. “You better have some damn fire and energy in you.”
So if you want to play for me moving forward, I don’t care what your résumé says, I don’t care if you’re a five-star, if you had 100 tackles, or 80 receptions, or 30 touchdown passes. You better have some damn fire and energy in you. We lack it. We lack it severely.
Notre Dame’s defense has been particularly bad, as they’ve allowed at least 36 points in all three of their losses. Their very first sack of the season came in the third quarter of Saturday’s game. Yes, their first sack did not come until the third quarter of the fourth game of the season.
And with the Nyles Morgan sack, Notre Dame becomes the 128th and final FBS team to record one this season.
— Eric Hansen (@EHansenNDI) September 24, 2016
Next up for the Fighting Irish will be a home game against Syracuse, and it will be interesting to see if Kelly has chosen some new starters for that game. We know the long snapper’s job is safe though!
[ESPN 2]
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