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Hitting The Links: Brian Kelly's Jacket

The media assembled at Notre Dame on Tuesday for the football team's Media Day. The biggest question from the journalists - where did Brian Kelly get that jacket? We kid, we kid. There were many questions about the team, recent injuries, and how everything is shaping up for the Irish in 2015. First we are going to focus on the jacket.

By John!

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As I've mentioned in regards to Dan Mullen and his shoes (hope you reserved a pair of the black Boost 350s on the Adidas Confirmed app , Dan!), coaches are often lame when it comes to non-coaching things. No one gets more mileage out of university issued gear than coaches. Since they don't have to think about what to wear each morning, they can just focus on footballs, blitzes, combo routes, and hustle.

Sometimes coaches do have to dress up. They dress up for award dinners, for media appearances, and for special press conferences. Notre Dame's media day was Brian Kelly's opportunity to dress to impress. And did his blazer ever make an impression.

The difference between saying your jacket is European and saying you got your jacket in Europe is that the latter shows drive and initiative. Transatlantic journeys for clothing are more impressive than importing goods, of course.

I am no fashion authority (Though I have seen The Devil Wears Prada many times, because it is a good movie  & Meryl Streep is a treasure), but I think Kelly's jacket is nice. It is sort of bold and proclaims he is the head football coach at Notre Dame. Lots of people are scared of plaid blazers at first, but then they give into the allure. I went to an all-boys Catholic high school that had a dress code of dress pants, dress shirt, tie, and jacket. Freshman year started with kids wearing standard navy, black, or gray blazers. One day, around November, a kid came in with a plaid blazer. It was a game changer. "Where did you get such a piece of clothing?" we all asked at once. Our sartorial worlds exploded into a world of possibilities. Later that year, we realized this kid only wore that one jacket from November until the end of the school year. By May, he smelled like a Tartan zombie.

Kelly's presser wasn't notable just for his jacket. There was also news about KeiVarae Russell (officially reinstated. yay!) and general team updates. Later in the week, Kelly would inform the world that Shaun Crawford suffered a torn ACL. Today it is all tidbits, injuries, and men's outerwear. In two weeks, it is football.

NATIONAL LINKS

Texas Monthly ran an investigation into a sexual assault case at Baylor centering on a football player transfer that has since resulted in a conviction and sentencing. Since the piece was published, there have been questions of information and semantics regarding what was communicated between Baylor and Boise State when the player involved, Sam Ukwuachu, transferred to Baylor. Spencer Hall weighs in on this specific case, but much of what he writes applies to the large problem of sexual assault on college campuses.

Robert Mays, a writer for Grantland, takes a look at the recent trend of college offensive tackles moving inside at the pro level. Our old buddy Zack Martin is discussed briefly.

Paul Myerberg and Bill Connelly released their respective countdowns of all 128 teams in college football. Honest to goodness, I could not name all 128 teams without aid of a computer or scratch pad. That's a lot of teams!

Notre Dame ranks in the early twenties of both countdowns, which is lower than their projected F+ ranking. Speaking of F+, the Solid Verbal are counting down the top forty teams in that statistic for their preview. Here is the second edition. If you want to check out Dan and Ty's take on Notre Dame, I would come back for part four of their preview, since Notre Dame is at 16 in F+ predictions for 2015.

Here's a look at how some championship contenders stack up in non-conference strength of schedule. As the article notes, Notre Dame's non-ACC games would give them the second toughest schedule after Stanford. So pick another issue to yell about, coaches at media days.

ICYMI ON OFD

As mentioned briefly, Shaun Crawford has torn an ACL and will miss this season. Ban knees. Get well soon, Mr. Crawford.

This seems like news from long ago, but it only was announced last week - Jarron Jones also suffered a knee injury. My opinion on knees and banning them stands. Get well soon, Mr. Jones.

Following the announcement of Jones' injury, we had a practice report from August 15th. Yesterday, fall camp concluded in the stadium. There will be more on fall camp later today, but here is our practice report from Friday. It looks like Devin Butler will be seeing a significant role in the nickel package.

Speaking of practices, whose stock is rising and falling coming out of fall camp? Find out here! I would add DeShone Kizer to the stock rising list given how he seems to have secured the QB2 job. The only amendments I have for falling stocks are the contents of my investment portfolio. Just kidding. I keep all my cash and assets buried in a trunk in my backyard.

There were not just Irish practice recaps. We also had previews on the B1G and teams in the Group of Five leagues. I would like to supplement any B1G talk with a link to CATLAB's masterpiece of a video.

Eric revisits his Rebuilding Notre Dame Football series and takes a look at six guides and how Notre Dame has done in those since his article originally ran.

What's going on in the mailbag? Optimism, nostalgia, and Clemson. Unfortunately, those strange Howard's Rock hats are not discussed.

Five Wide Fullbacks takes a look at Western Michigan's unis honoring a catchphrase, Jim Mora doing Jim Mora things, and New Mexico's future.

IRISH LINKS OF NOTE

As mentioned above, any college football writer who is anybody was at Notre Dame this week for media day. Many of them filed some great takes

Bruce Feldman runs down some of the big Irish storylines at Fox Sports. He also took a deeper look at Jaylon Smith. In that article, Malik Zaire says playing with Smith is like playing with LeBron James. That's all well and good, but um, LeBron does not play football. Just kidding. I know that Malik meant that Jaylon was also in a movie with Amy Schumer and Bill Hader this summer.

Even though there were some good national takes on this week of practices, here is Inside the Irish's Keith Arnold paying close attention to the things that stood out to him at practice.

Holly Anderson filed Grantland's Notre Dame preview on Tuesday, but it is still undefeated and wearing the Headline Championship belt.

Nick Martin is counting down a reader top-25 at Deadspin. He thinks Notre Dame will be just okay this season.

You might remember Johnathan Franklin as a running back for UCLA or the Green Bay Packers. Since he experienced a football career-ending injury in the NFL, Franklin has joined Notre Dame as the Community Relations Coordinator for Student-Athlete Welfare and Development. Laura Thomas talked to Franklin for the Notre Dame Athletics blog.

How much do you know about Mike Sanford? Well, get to know a little more courtesy of Ralph Russo. They do not cover how many times Sanford has seen The Devil Wears Prada unfortunately.

Here is ESPN's Playoff hype video. There are a lot of great parts. Most relevant to One Foot Down is the part where people are getting their heads spray-painted gold before entering a stadium. It reminds me of the war boys painting their mouths chrome to prepare for Valhalla in Mad Max: Fury Road. You guys want to talk about how good that movie was?

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