Brian Kelly introduced the new Irish staff today in his first press conference since the brutal USC post-mortem presser in November. While positive results on the field are the only thing that can truly erase the putrid taste the 2016 season left in our mouths, the change in vibe between that USC press conference and today’s was as stark as one could imagine. Gone were the morbid accoutrements of the final death throes of that star-crossed season, replaced with the optimism generated by a dramatic overhaul of the assistant coaching roster and significant adjustments to how the program will be run. In the midst of these updates on the state of the program, Kelly made a couple of very candid remarks about himself that stood out, and revealed a very surprising nugget about longtime friend and confidant Paul Longo. We’ll do our best to recap it all here.

Who Is The New Irish Staff, Anyway?

We’ve tried to keep you updated on all the staff changes this offseason, but given the sheer volume of them we wouldn’t blame you at all for losing track. We’ll run through the new folks and what the head man had to say about them today.

Mike Elko, Defensive Coordinator/Safeties: Elko was the first staff domino to fall, with his addition leaked in early December; given his reputation as one of the sharpest young defensive minds out there, that set the tone for all the offseason moves. Kelly had this to say about him today:

I had set my sights on hiring Mike. Got great support from our athletic director, Jack Swarbrick. And our president, President Jenkins, and we went out to that end, and we were able to get Mike Elko to join us here at Notre Dame. So very, very excited about Mike here.

Kelly touched on the “support” point later too; I believe the implication there is that he had a green light from the university to spend what he needed to spend to improve the team. In all likelihood there were multi-year guarantees attached to each coordinator position, so that green light is very significant. The admin might be a lot of things, but one thing they’re not is willing to settle for mediocrity. They could’ve spent a lot less money to get decent candidates, but instead they got some of the best available. By extension, I don’t think buyouts for anyone will be a hindrance if 2017 goes downhill.

Kelly got more into Elko’s coaching acumen in the Q&A portion of the conference:

Well, I think there’s two ways of looking at

[defensive complexity], right. One is, smart and intellectually as sophisticated, right. Brian VanGorder, you can line him up with the most intellectually sophisticated football coaches that I’ve ever met, but they have to be translated.

Mike Elko does a lot of things that are hard to decipher, but easily taught. And his experiences in college and coaching and teaching and communicating; and he does an incredibly efficient job at communicating what he’s teaching. And we’re teachers. He’s a really good teacher at the end of the day.

“His experiences in college.” I think that’s what VanGorder had really lost touch with – aside from one forgettable year at Auburn, he had been out of the college game for a decade before he came to Notre Dame. We’ve read multiple accounts that make the same point about Elko that Kelly did here, whether it’s coming from former players, colleagues, or opposing coaches. Really smart guy, really versatile and flexible defense, really good at getting kids to understand how it works. Let’s hope.

Also, as speculated here since he was hired, Kelly noted that Elko will indeed formally coach safeties. That in turn will free Todd Lyght up to work with the corners full time, which I love. Big things ahead for that group both based on their ability and Lyght’s opportunity to focus just on them.

Chip Long, Offensive Coordinator/Tight Ends: Right around the turn of the year Kelly tabbed former Memphis OC Chip Long to take the reins of the Irish offense. Long has an offensive vision that is similar to Kelly’s, but makes more use of two tight end sets and running backs. Kelly noted today that Long will also serve as the tight ends coach. Perhaps the most interesting comment related to Long was not about him specifically, but about why Kelly was looking for someone like him:

I was looking for, first and foremost, a play-caller… One of the things that was pretty consistent across the board [in his 1-to-1 player sessions] was that when I spent time on defense, our defensive personnel and players in particular really enjoyed having me part of that day-to-day schedule… So it really sent a message to me that I needed to be more involved in both sides, offense and defense, and special teams. The only way to do that is to have somebody calling plays.

There are a few things to deduce here. First, unless Kelly is pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes, including all his players, I think the concession of play-calling duties to Long is legitimate. Second, Kelly likely intended to call plays in 2017 until he talked to the players; I think it’s fascinating that he made such a substantial change in direction based on player feedback. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, he firmly stated here that he intends to be more involved in the day-to-day operations of all three phases going forward. I think defense and special teams clearly suffered at times in his first seven years as he over-delegated, so this move is very encouraging indeed.

Kelly also noted what he likes stylistically about Long’s approach:

Not only did he call offenses in a similar fashion, but I loved the way he called the game. He was able to use the running game late in games. Didn’t rely heavily on a passing game when he was forced to make up ground late in games. Utilized two tight ends, which was going to be a mode that we have to move towards with the great depth that we have at that position.

We’ll see how much actually changes about the offensive strategy. The positive to take from this right now is that Long, like former assistant Mike Sanford, is considered one of the top young offensive minds in the game, but unlike Sanford, he’ll be given full control of the offense.

Matt Balis, Strength & Conditioning Director: Balis is fresh off a stint at UConn, where he was purged along with Bob Diaco. Diaco gave Kelly a very strong recommendation, which was key, as did Balis’s previous work with Urban Meyer at Florida as an S&C assistant and Dan Mullen at Mississippi State as a director. It’s also worth noting that at UConn, Balis served as the S&C director for all sports, not just football. He’ll focus on football at Notre Dame. Kelly didn’t expand too much on changes to the program, but he noted that he expects Balis will be key to “developing that environment that is so crucial to all the elements that are needed: Strength, toughness, the ability to handle stress and mental fatigue moving forward.” Pretty standard stuff.

More interesting are the comments Kelly made about Paul Longo, first during the introduction portion:

Paul Longo had been a long-time member of my staff, and he just was not able to continue to follow through in that role. He is currently under a long-term disability right now, and he cannot fulfill the duties of this position.

And later, during the Q&A portion:

I won’t get into too much detail other than they really, really liked Coach Longo, but it was clear that he couldn’t function in the manner he could in the first few years. He couldn’t get down in the trenches with them. He couldn’t get in there and get after it the way he had the first few years.

It would seem that Longo was not able to engage physically in the role the way he used to and the way a strength coach typically does. Perhaps that led to sub-optimal changes in the program in an attempt to work around whatever the problem was, but ultimately, it looks like everyone took a long hard look at the program and made a realistic assessment of the best way to move forward.

The other very interesting thing Kelly said about the players’ workout routines last year was that they tried to juggle everything with individual academic schedules and it didn’t work out:

You know, they go over on that side of campus and they have got to use a lot of energy. They want to come over here and get after it and we were making accommodations for all their schedules, instead of saying, listen, forget about it. This is what time you need to be here; get over here and get after it.

We looked at it, carefully and we were making too many accommodations for their academic schedules and we needed to say, look, we’re going to go early in the morning… and get all of our weight training done before classes, so we weren’t making all of these accommodations late.

This might be what was behind the rumored personal gym memberships taken out by some team members because the weight room was closed when they wanted to lift. This caught my eye as it tips the student-athlete scale a bit more toward athlete, but in a way that I think is acceptable for the student side. We’ll see how it plays out in 2017.

Brian Polian, Special Teams Coordinator:

We were able to hit a home run here with Brian Polian… [I]t just upgrades and allows us to really think about excelling and gaining an advantage in that area. He’s also an outstanding recruiter. He’s able to recruit from coast to coast. And again, we’ll feel his effects, I believe, right away, in the recruiting and we hope to see that show itself here in the next 24 to 48 hours.

If you’re wondering about that last part, I’ll note here that Polian is the primary recruiter for WDE Jalen Harris and SDE Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa, who the Irish hope to land by National Signing Day on Wednesday. Kelly also said he’s looking forward to getting Polian’s “day-to-day” perspective as a former head coach.

DelVaughn Alexander, Wide Receivers:

You know, what I loved about DelVaughn is his organization skills and his ability to teach the wide receivers, as well as a veteran coach who has built great relationships with his players. So we’ve got a veteran wide receiver coach, well-established in his profession and in his interview was extremely detailed and organized in laying out what his role will be in developing our fairly young wide receiving corps.

Alexander is very respected as a position coach and recruiter, plus he worked with Long for several years at Arizona State. He’s a bit of a deceptive 45 years old as well, which makes him one of the more experienced guys on the staff now. While getting lots of sharp young minds in is a positive, it’s also nice to have a veteran element in there.

Clark Lea, Linebackers:

Knows [Elko] well. Knows the system which we’ll be employing defensively. Great experience. Again, worked with him at Bowling Green but also at Syracuse, UCLA. He’ll be coaching the linebackers. Eleven-year career. He’s been able to mentor a lot of all-conference players. Already done a really fine job in the recruiting efforts. Has built great relationships early on that have come to fruition for us in recruiting.

Kelly specifically mentioned recruiting ability with Polian, Alexander, and Lea. Not an accident. Lea was also a two-time All-SEC Academic pick as a fullback at Vanderbilt.

Tom Rees, Quarterbacks:

Some of you may know him as Tom Rees. You can call him whatever you like. I think he would answer to either Tom or Tommy. But what I like call him is our quarterbacks coach… [H]e is officially in a graduate assistant’s role, but he is fully empowered to coach them. He will have the room. He will coach those quarterbacks on a day-to-day basis, and I have great confidence in his ability to do so. There’s nobody better to be able to teach that position than somebody who has done it here at Notre Dame, and he’ll be able to mentor our quarterback group in a manner and fashion that nobody else in the country can.

Tom is undoubtedly Kelly’s most controversial offseason hire. His sideline work thus far has been well-reviewed, but there’s precious little of it – one year as a grad assistant at Northwestern, and one year as an offensive analyst with the San Diego Chargers. Is he a precocious future star, or is he being given too much, too soon? Hard to tell at this point, but if Kelly is heavily involved in coaching the quarterbacks, as is widely expected, this move is much easier to defend. Rees is very smart, relates to players well, and more than any other of his Irish quarterbacks understands what Kelly wants from the position.

David Ballou, Assistant Strength & Conditioning Coach: Ballou was hired from IMG Academy, the elite athletic prep school in Florida that churns out five-star talent on a regular basis. He had visited Notre Dame back in December along with IMG’s head of sports performance to meld minds with Duncan French, Notre Dame’s innovative Director of Performance Sciences, so he’s no stranger in South Bend. Kelly didn’t go into any detail on Ballou’s specific role, but the rumor floating around is that he’s a nutrition specialist and will partly be tasked with revamping the program’s approach to nutrition.

For anyone concerned about the impending NCAA rule that a program can’t recruit from a high school for two years after it hires someone from that high school, Kelly did note today that they got clarification from the NCAA that the rule would not be retroactive.

Odds & Ends

It wasn’t all about the new Irish staff, of course – Kelly touched on a number of other topics as well throughout the session. Here are some of our most notable highlights.

On holding spring practice at IMG:

We have since, because of the new legislation, we decided not to go to IMG for our spring training. I just feel like with that rule now officially on the books, it doesn’t make any sense for us to do something that they have now legislated out. I don’t want to be that team, you know, that jumps in there just before they change the legislation.

Somewhat interesting that Kelly didn’t want to push the envelope here but did with Ballou, but then again, Ballou potentially has a much greater and longer-lasting impact on the program than one spring practice stretch at IMG.

On the importance of finding a defensive scheme that fits the current and likely future roster:

We’re not going to get four guys to put their hand in the ground for three downs and have that kind of presence each and every down. We just don’t get that kind of defensive line. We get a guy that’s more of a hybrid. And so we needed to have the ability to play a defense that shaped it around the kids that we can recruit here to Notre Dame.

On simplifying and speeding up the offense:

Within our offensive system, we want to run more plays. We can’t do it right now because of over a period of time, we’ve layered just too much verbiage in the system to go as fast as we want… So there needs to be some retooling within the offensive nomenclature… when you’re in a little bit more of an exact offensive structure in terms of progressions, there’s a lot more for the quarterback there. When you’re going fast, there’s singular reads, the ball comes out faster, and consequently, it takes a little bit off the quarterback.

More words, yes, but promising for an offense with essentially a rookie quarterback starting next season.

Finally, this was a very interesting exchange near the end of the press conference:

Q. What did you and Jack discuss about your own job following the USC came?
BK: We didn’t. We didn’t discuss my job, as much as we discussed a blueprint for what we needed to do to be successful… We all know that we did not live up to the expectations. Our mission is a mission of excellence. It’s to win championships and to graduate our players. We fell short of that.

But we didn’t sit around talking about what we didn’t do. We spent all of our time thinking about what we needed to do to be successful, and… didn’t waste time on discussions that were not tangible or specific to how do we get better.

Q. And given the chance to reflect on last season, what was the most difficult part?
BK: I know I’m going to be reminded about the past. I’ve focused so much of my time [today] on the present, but if I answer this question one last time, which I will, I think that there are in my mind, as I reflect at it, there are no bad football teams. There’s just poorly-led football teams. And I think I led this team poorly. And I think that’s probably what I learned more than anything else.

Q. So how will you not lead it poorly?
BK: Well, I think there’s a number of things. We could spend hours on that; that you’ll see moving forward.

Q. So I guess that answers the question: What would you do differently?
BK: Yes, that would be [it].

Whoever the questioner was, those were pretty pointed. Very fair, but a little more aggressive than what you might usually see in this type of press conference. They were good questions to ask, and I think Kelly gave good answers. I’m sure some quarters will be very annoyed by the “didn’t waste time” comment, but so be it. The main takeaway here I think is painfully obvious: “There are no bad football teams. There’s just poorly-led football teams. And I think I led this team poorly. And I think that’s probably what I learned more than anything else.” That’s as clear a personal acceptance of responsibility as you could possibly ask for.

On that note… Whichever camp you’re in, it’s quite clear at this point that Brian Kelly will indeed lead the team out of the tunnel in the 2017 opener, as Swarbrick promised. With this press conference today and signing day on Wednesday, it’s mercifully time to close the book on 2016 and hope for the best in 2017. Did Jack make the right move? Ask me again in October.