Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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www.BLUEANDGOLD.com OCT. 3, 2016 31 Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly … On putting senior quarterback Malik Zaire in as a wide receiver: "We have got some plays [for Zaire], but that's short-lived now, too. After him taking the ball and not throwing it away after we sprint out and moved the pocket for the specific reason that if there's any kind of pressure, you can throw the ball away — you won't see that again." Notre Dame junior quarterback DeShone Kizer … On taking some blame for the loss: "Coach Kelly has given me the keys. He's definitely given me the offense and let me run with it. To go 1-3 and not come up with some big drives at the end of games, that all falls on me as the commander of this offense. "It is my job to execute it every time I touch the ball, and I haven't done that well lately. I have to play com- plete games and be more consistent if we're going to win games from here on out. We're going to have to make good adjustments this week to find some consistency." On everyone's job being up for grabs: "I'm in a com- petition every time I step on that practice field. There's a great quarterback behind me. My job is up for grabs every day I step on that field, and I'm going to continue to grind out the way that I've been grinding out since the day I got here when there was two guys in front of me. "There's a great guy behind me, and I know I have to go out and make myself better. If I can be a better guy than I was this week, next week, I'm sure I'll be on the field." Notre Dame sophomore running back Josh Adams … On how the team got out of rhythm: "It's something that Coach Kelly preached about all week in practice: paying attention to little details, details that you tend to forget sometimes, details that make the difference between a long play and a short play and no play. "That's mainly what caused us to get out of rhythm, and a lot of that is on us as running backs. We have to do a better job of leading and running hard." Notre Dame senior offensive tackle Mike Mc- Glinchey … On who to turn to and how to lead the team going forward: "The answers are within our football team. There's no turning to a specific source or anything like that. [We have to] come together collectively as a team and figure out what we can do better and what we need to work on. We have to change our attitudes and get ourselves ready to win football games. "I don't think we can look for any magical answers. We have the character in our locker room to make the changes that are needed. It comes right from within the individual and then collectively from the team." Duke head coach David Cutcliffe … On not kicking a field goal early in the fourth quar- ter: "I thought we would make the first down and you don't ever do that unless you think you're going to make the first down. I didn't think a field goal would win the game. "And I love to go for it on fourth down. I didn't do a very good job of having us ready on that play. You don't get do-overs in our business. I wouldn't have kicked the field goal. I would have done a different thing of- fensively, and that all falls on me in that circumstance. "But I have confidence, and [freshman kicker] AJ [Reed] had a great week. We did make a change in our holder to Danny Stirt. He is a non-scholarship player who is also a placekicker and a punter for us, and he just had a great week. It built confidence in AJ, our guys believed in him and he's got a lot of talent." On Reed's game-winning field goal: "There was no doubt in my mind he was going to make it. But I just felt like we needed a touchdown to win." Duke senior cornerback Breon Borders … On Duke's mentality in the second half: "It's all about motivating each other, and our coaches do it. We did a great job staying positive. Leadership on this team is critical, and we came out on the positive side of things." — David McKinney FROM THE LOCKER ROOM Prior to the game, Duke head coach David Cutcliffe said that a victory over Brian Kelly's Fighting Irish would be the biggest win for his program since he took over nine years ago. PHOTO BY BILL PANZICA