Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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and we were kind of messing around with a play. "I ran it when I was at Central Mich- igan, to Joe Staley, who's a pretty good offensive tackle for the 49ers, and we had some pretty good success with it. So I said, well, let's put it in. It was a forward lateral, though. They just didn't throw the flag. It had to be a backward lateral, but I told them we haven't repped it enough so it's prob- ably not going to be a backward lat- eral, just don't throw the flag because I don't want to have to run it again." On the first snap of the second half, the Blue team ran a fan-submitted play call. Golson received a pitch from junior running back Tarean Folston and chucked a deep pass to Zaire. Ju- nior safety Max Redfield, however, intercepted the pass and returned it 85 yards for a touchdown to start the comeback. Briefly after picking it off, Redfield stood over Zaire to boast. "I don't feel comfortable sharing that," Redfield replied when asked af- ter the game what he said to the quar- terback turned wide receiver. One of the more revealing moments of the afternoon came in Kelly's post- game press conference, when he essen- tially confirmed what everyone had expected: he would be calling plays in 2015. "[New offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Mike Sanford's] focus right now is we've got two very, very good quarterbacks," Kelly said. "His focus is on our quarterbacks right now and learning the offense, and that's job one. The next job will be obviously continue to grow and learn the offense, so there's play-call- ing opportunities there. "Mike Denbrock right now is run- From The Locker Room Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly … On the offense: "The zone read game was strong. The decisions [the quarter- backs] made were excellent, so really pleased with them in the first half. "It was pretty clear that we've got a very good offensive line. They're going to be able to control the line of scrimmage in most instances and we'll continue to go to our strength, which we believe is up front." On the defense: "Max Redfield continues to show why he's going to be a big player for us. Jaylon [Smith] did what we wanted him to do early on, was all over the field. Nice to see Jarrett Grace out there making plays." On the high numbers along the offensive and defensive lines: "What I thought was different about this spring was the depth on the offensive line and defensive line that allowed us to do a lot more things together — nine-on-seven, inside drills, 11 on 11, run, play-action work that we hadn't been able to do since I've been here. "[It] gives us a clear evaluation of our football team and who we are, and that