Notre Dame Head Coach Brian Kelly: "This Football Team Played Really Hard."

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are heading to Orlando to take on the LSU Tigers in the Citrus Bowl on January 1. After a week of speculation as to where the Irish might land, the College Football Playoff committee did not rank the Irish inside the top 12, so a "New Year's Six" game was out of the question.

After that, it came down to what bowl games filled out with what teams - and in the end, Notre Dame got one of the better non NY6 games in the Citrus Bowl against an SEC opponent.

Brian Kelly addressed the media about the bowl selection, as well as some other program specific topics. When asked about the "disappointing" end to the season, Kelly had this response:

No, because I think, if you really look at it, we were up 41-16 to Wake Forest, playing really well. Navy is a tough opponent no matter which way you look at it. We had to go all the way across the country to play a really good Stanford team. Had it in the fourth quarter. Turned the ball over.

So if you really look at it, this football team played really hard. We probably got a little tired at the end with the six weeks in a row of really tough, quality competition. It was a long year for our football team, starting back in January.

So I feel really good about what they accomplished. I don't think it was anything disappointing, other than the fact that everybody has higher goals. Wish we didn't turn the football over late and made a couple plays on defense. Other than that, I don't think there is any narrative that would let me use the word "disappointing."

You can watch the full press conference in the video below.