Brian Kelly attends a press conference where he was named new football head coach at Notre Dame University on December 11, 2009 in South Bend, Indiana. Kelly most recently led the University of Cincinnati to two consecutive Bowl Championship Series appearances including a perfect 12-0 record this past season.Frank Polich/Getty Images
Notre Dame football coach Brian Kelly is feeling better about the Fighting Irish three practices after proclaiming: "We stink right now."
Kelly doesn't want to dwell on an overall assessment nearly midway through spring practice. He prefers to say the team is coming along.
"Last week we weren't very good. I think I made that pretty clear," he said Saturday. "This week I wanted to evaluate three practices and then make a decision. In all three practice we started better, we finished better and we made progress. We still have a long way to go."
Kelly is trying to revive a team that went 16-21 over the past three seasons under Charlie Weis. Kelly runs practices at a much quicker tempo and players have struggled at times with the pace. He also was upset at a lack motivation after at least one practice.
He says his players are starting to learn how he wants them to practice.
"That's really job one for us," he said. "I'd rather leave the spring knowing how we're going to compete and how we're going to come to work every day."
The Irish coaches set the tone in a meeting earlier in the week.
"We drew a line in the sand. We said, 'Listen, this is where we're going to be with this. If you don't want to jump on board then it's going to be addition by subtraction."'
The Irish ran more than 50 plays during Saturday's scrimmage, giving coaches a chance to see how players at new positions are doing. The Irish moved Trevor Robinson from guard to tackle and Zach Martin from tackle to guard.
"With this scrimmage I think we'll be able to make some final decisions on some personnel," Kelly said.
Former Notre Dame standouts Joe Montana and Mike Golic were on hand Saturday. Montana is father of walk-on quarterback Nate Montana, who has been running the second offense in practices. Golic has two sons on the team, Mike Jr. at center and Jake at tight end.
Kelly also talked about attending a visitation Friday evening for Matt James, a 17-year-old Notre Dame football recruit who died April 2 when he fell from a Florida hotel balcony while on spring break. Kelly said he, five members of his staff and tight end Kyle Rudolph, who knew James since the fourth grade, flew to Cincinnati to be with the family.
"This is a family that needs all the support right now, because yesterday was Matt's birthday as well. So it made for a very difficult time," he said. "But we were able to gain some closure with the James family."