Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1179920
www.BLUEANDGOLD.com NOV. 2, 2019 29 NOTRE DAME HEAD COACH BRIAN KELLY … On the loss to Michigan: "I don't have great in-depth [answers] for you to give you the reasons why. That's not our identity, but that's what we showed tonight." On when he realized the game was going to go south: "We had talked about getting off to a fast start for about two weeks, and we didn't get off to a fast start. That was concerning. "Obviously, big momentum piece was the fumble off the blocked punt. You're trying to gain momentum when you're on the road." On the weather limiting the passing game: "Yeah, it was going to be difficult, but that defense is set up with a very aggressive tilt toward making it difficult to run the football. You still have to find ways to throw the football. "We just weren't effective in doing so. When we had chances, we weren't able to execute." On how soon the players need to start evaluating their play: "We've got a two-and-a-half-hour bus ride. I told them you need to start thinking about it. Then we'll have some individual meetings. "We'll have some unit meetings, and we'll figure out what went wrong here and we'll fix it." On senior right guard Tommy Kraemer's injury status: "He's got a knee sprain. He'll have an MRI on Monday. We don't believe there's a torn ACL or MCL." On the defense giving them a chance in the third quar- ter before the Wolverines broke it open: "We had three or four opportunities offensively before we were able to cash in. The plan was obviously to kick and take the wind in the third quarter. I told our guys we got to cut it in half in the third quarter, and we just weren't able to do it. "At that point, 17-7, it just felt again like we weren't up to the task tonight, and they broke it open with that late score." On what Michigan did to take away junior tight end Cole Kmet: "They doubled. They bracketed him. He was kind of the [USC wide receiver] Michael Pittman treatment that we gave him. He wasn't going to get the football." On if players were confused on the blocked punt: "There's no confusion. It's what happens in the moment, there seems to have an effect on somebody's judgment at that time. "Everybody knows what they're supposed to do at that time, but that's where you have to over-communicate and over-coach." NOTRE DAME JUNIOR RIGHT TACKLE ROBERT HAINSEY … On the offense's plan of attack against Michigan: "We knew the weather was going to be a factor. We knew we had to establish a ground game, and we didn't do that." On what he saw from senior quarterback Ian Book on the sidelines: "Pretty calm. We just did our best to com- municate what was going on, what we saw, communicate to him what we had to get checked in and out of. "It wasn't necessarily that they threw anything that we weren't ready for. Like I said, we just didn't hit our stan- dard as an offense." On if they tried to adapt the game plan: "You've got to adapt and when you get down early, playing from behind is a different ball game. You can't do all the same things you wanted to do. "You've got to make plays, and we didn't make them out there today." NOTRE DAME SENIOR SAFETY ALOHI GILMAN … On the mood in the locker room: "We obviously … we got beat. They were a better team than us. It's not a good feeling, but we're going to learn from this. "Guys like me and Robert are going to take accountabil- ity of what we've got to do to be a better team and play to our standard and to our true identity." On why the team performed poorly: "We just didn't do what we were supposed to do. We didn't execute right, and it's not to the standard of our defense. That's on me and the other captains. "We've got to fix that and so we're going to work on that going forward, watch the film, be critical of ourselves and move forward." On if he was surprised to see Michigan run the ball as much as it did: "No, I think we anticipated it, especially with the weather conditions. They came out and ran the ball well. We didn't execute as we were supposed to." — Andrew Mentock and Vince DeDario FROM THE LOCKER ROOM Notre Dame captain Alohi Gilman (far left) finished the game with five tack- les. The Irish defense had no answers for Michigan's offensive attack. PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL