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While the 42-14 drubbing from Alabama was painful, head coach Brian Kelly said it makes it easier to teach his team of how much work needs to be done. photo by lon horwedel pionship." Swarbrick said he and Kelly had not discussed the coach's future at Notre Dame at all while the team was preparing for Alabama when news broke about Kelly as a potential NFL coaching candidate. 'Springboard' For 2013 Not all was lost for the Irish in Alabama's 42-14 drubbing of Notre Dame in the BCS National Championship . Even before the game, head coach Brian Kelly said regardless of the outcome he expected his team to gain valuable experience in Miami to use in future years. Kelly, who coached in back-to-back championship games while building a program at Division II Grand Valley State, said a trip to a title game sets the bar high for everyone involved with a team. He expects the attitude that led to success this year will continue moving forward. "Playing in this game is an incredible springboard into next season," Kelly said a day before playing Alabama for his first BCS-level championship. "You set a bar. They've already been here. You come back the next year, and it's unacceptable for a standard to be any less than being back here again." The Irish were able to leap to that new level this year thanks in large part, Kelly said, to leadership from his 29 senior players. They helped Notre Dame arrive at the top of the sport at least a year earlier than most, including athletics director Jack Swarbrick, anticipated. Kelly said it's impossible to predict if that same dynamic will survive next season. "You come back with a new football team every year. We'll be ranked high after this game, and next year we'll have high expectations," he said. "We hope this experience and how important it is to have that has helped shape the next group of leaders that we'll have next year." Injury Updates The Notre Dame career of fifth-year senior Kapron Lewis-Moore ended two quarters earlier than planned. The defensive end left the game late in the first half with what head coach Brian Kelly later described as a "significant knee injury." "I don't know what's going on with it, but obviously it's not good." Lewis-Moore said while propped up on crutches in the Notre Dame locker room after the game. "I have no idea what it is. I need to probably get an MRI on it, and we'll see whatever from there." Lewis-Moore missed the final six games of the 2011 season after detaching the medial collateral ligament in the same knee against USC. If the injury is as bad as Kelly suspected, it will likely affect his ability to prepare for the NFL Draft in April.