Brian Kelly Talks Shutting Out Michigan

Brian Kelly was obviously a very happy many last night after his Fighting Irish became the first team in Notre Dame history to shut out a Michigan team. Here’s what Kelly had to say after the game along with some notes.

• 19 first year players play against Michigan.  Not only does that say a ton of the performance last night but it also shows how bright the future of this team is.
• Elijah Shumate and Max Redfield knew it was there time to step up and shine last year with Austin Collinsworth out again according to Kelly.  He mentioned that they needed to step outside their comfort zone a bit to do so because they aren’t particularly strong communicators.
• Kelly talked about Michigan’s defensive strategy of loading the box and why the Irish threw as much as they did.
• “It feels great that we are the first team in the history of Notre Dame football to shut out a Michigan team.”  I can read that quote over and over and over.
• “I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel great shutting out Michigan 31 to nothing.”  I could read that over and over too.
• Kelly credited the defense’s ability to keep the Michigan running in check as the reason for the defense being so successful.
• Notre Dame is now 10 for 10 in the redzone this year with 8 of those scores coming via touchdown.
• Kelly was impressed with Amir Carlisle last night calling it a statement game for him.
• Kelly said he wasn’t too concerned about burning through time outs in the first half because to him they are not that important to him in the first half.  He said that they were not in the right tempo early on and the moment might have been a little big for them so they used those early timeouts to get the offense on track.
• Kelly said that Notre Dame’s defensive game plan was all focused on getting Devin Gardner into third and long situations.
• Kelly wouldn’t take any bait about Everett Golson’s name getting tossed into Heisman consideration.

I’m sure Kelly will have a lot more to say about the game at his weekly Sunday presser later today as well.