Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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in the trenches andrew owens Zaire's case, an honest mistake. Kelly addressed his philosophy on players' social media usage last spring and said he has a specific policy he enforces. "We try to educate our players on a day-to-day basis," he said. "We're going into the same area that we've already been in. It's on a day-to-day basis that we have to talk to our players like a parent has to talk to their kids with reinforcement, decision making and making sure they're held accountable on a day-to-day basis. "It's easy to just say I'm going to take your phone away, but that doesn't help in the learning process. At Notre Dame, we're about the kids, and we're going to continue to develop our kids, continue to educate them. And we think by and large our kids are going to make good decisions with that education." Some major programs, including South Carolina, Nebraska and Boise State, have banned their players from using Twitter, but Kelly said he looks at social media as a learning tool for developing young men. The week following Notre Dame's 31‑17 defeat to USC in 2011, a minor Twitter controversy erupted after Kelly made some pointed remarks about the difference between players he recruited and those brought in by former coach Charlie Weis. "You can see the players that I recruited here," Kelly said. "You know who they are. We've had one class … that I've had my hand on. The other guys here are coming along. But it's a process. It can't happen overnight. They're getting there. We're making good progress." Then-junior linebacker Manti Te'o tweeted, "Playin for my bros and that's it!!!!" and guard Trevor Robinson and defensive end Kapron Lewis-Moore both added their own thoughts on Kelly's comment, with the latter calling it "awful." Outside of some temporary hard feelings, Kelly's comments did not seem to cause much lasting damage. The tweets were removed a day later, Notre Dame blew out Navy 56‑14 the following Saturday and Kelly apologized for his remarks in the postgame press conference. Months after Te'o's pointed tweet, he decided to return for his senior year and play for Kelly one more season. Overall, there has been little social media drama at Notre Dame under Kelly's tenure compared to some of the other programs across the nation. Although an extreme case, Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel learned the pitfalls of Twitter when he vented over a parking ticket this summer and said he "can't wait to leave College Station." A media circus ensued and Manziel eventually backtracked from his statement to try and calm the news cycle. Kelly knows tweets like Zaire's will pop up from time to time, and he is willing to live with that reality in the interest of players using social media as a tool to grow and mature. ✦ Andrew Owens has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since August 2013. He can be reached at aowens@blueandgold.com