Notre Dame Football: Brian Kelly - “The Red Panic Button... Not Even Near My Desk”

Notre Dame Fighting Irish head football coach Brian Kelly got in front of the media on Tuesday, and it appears he is ready to move on from that sloppy win over the Ball State Cardinals. The focus (as it should be) is on beating the Vanderbilt Commodores.

Vandy is 2-0 and has won both of their games fairly easily (albeit against lesser competition). This is a quality opponent, and Brian Kelly knows that the Irish have to prepare better this week against the Commodores to win the game.

One of the areas that looked really bad last Saturday was along the offensive line. Regardless of the scheme that the Irish were going against, the size and athleticism of Notre Dame should have handled what was thrown at them a lot better.

Brian Kelly isn’t ready to freak out just yet.

“There’s work to be done. There’s no doubt about that. But I’ve been in it long enough to know where the red panic button is. It’s not even near my desk. But there’s work to be done. We have to build continuity, communication, a standard of how we practice, a standard of how we communicate on a day-to-day basis. There’s some work to be done, but I’m confident the unit is going to be really strong.”

Clearly Notre Dame underperformed last week and will have play a lot better on Saturday. Call it an early season “wake-up call” or whatever, the fact that it happened in week two is a little alarming.

Here is the full press conference: