Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/476884
UNDER THE DOME MUFFET MCGRAW RECEIVES NEW JOB TITLE Former Notre Dame student-athletes and married couple Karen Robinson Keyes and Kevin Keyes this winter made a $5 million gift to their alma mater to endow a coaching position at Notre Dame for the first time in history. Karen Robinson Keyes was a standout guard on Notre Dame women's basketball head coach Muffet McGraw's first four teams from 1987-91. McGraw's position now will now carry the title Karen and Kevin Keyes Family Head Women's Basketball Coach. Her husband, Kevin, was a varsity tennis player for the Irish and is now the president and member of the board of directors of Annaly Capital Management. According to the university, this launches a new initiative at Notre Dame to endow coaching positions and student-athlete scholarships, and it will be used to underwrite the position's annual salary. Both Karen Robinson Keyes and Kevin Keyes also are members of Notre Dame's Student-Athlete Advisory Council. CHARTING THE IRISH RECEIVING A LIFT It's no secret that Notre Dame returns 19 of 22 starters from its 31-28 Music City Bowl victory over LSU — it was 20 prior to offensive lineman Matt Hegarty's announcement that he will use his fifth season of eligibility elsewhere — but wide receiver returns perhaps the most experience of any Irish position. Outside of tight end Ben Koyack's 317 receiving yards and running back Cam McDaniel's 76, Notre Dame brings back the players who accounted for the remaining 3,318 yards through the air in 2015. That percentage of returning receiving yards (89.4 percent) is the most during head coach Brian Kelly's Notre Dame tenure. A year ago, the sophomore-laden position, led by Will Fuller's 76 catches for 1,094 yards and 15 touchdowns, stepped up when only 27.2 percent of the previous year's pro- duction returned to Notre Dame. That figure accounted for the absence of DaVaris Daniels, who was set to return to the field last fall before the academic suspension sidelined him. Notre Dame could welcome the vast majority of its receiving production back in 2016 as well. Of the 12 wide receivers expected to be on the roster when Notre Dame kicks off the season against Texas Sept. 5, only two (Chris Brown and Amir Carlisle) will exhaust their eligibility in 2015. The Irish have even more youth at tight end, with three players having three more years of eligibility and two with four. PERCENTAGE OF RECEIVING YARDS RETURNING 2015 3,318 of 3,711 2014 902 of 3,313 2013 1,401 of 2,896 2012 2,089 of 3,284 2011 2,645 of 3,290 89.4% 48.3% 63.6% 80.3% 27.2%