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✦ NEWS & NOTES BY LOU SOMOGYI BRIAN KELLY STAYS OUT OF POLITICKING Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly was about 15 minutes late to his weekly Tuesday press conference while exercising his right to vote on Election Day. However, he remains steadfast about not going on the campaign trail when it comes to the college football polls. After last Saturday's 29-26 victory in triple overtime against unranked Pitt, Notre Dame dropped from No. 3 to No. 4 in the BCS rankings. It was leapfrogged by Oregon, which unleashed its blitzkrieg offense on USC in the Los Angeles Coli- seum, winning 62-51. Staying consistent is Kelly's foremost message to his players, and his weekly ritual with them centers on winning the next game rather than the long-term hypo- theticals over which they have no control. "That might be one reason," he said of not getting caught up in the politick- ing business when it comes to the weekly polls. "The other reason is it doesn't help. "If it helped, you know me, I could talk all day. If it really helped, I would be on the stump for it, but it doesn't do anything. The only thing that does is winning foot- ball games, so I try to spend all my time and energy focused on how we can get another win and get to 10." Three years ago, Kelly's 12-0 Cincinnati Bearcats were the proverbial red-haired stepchild in the BCS title game race, be- hind fellow unbeatens Alabama and Texas, two of the bluebloods in college football annals. He's not surprised at the current situa- tion — even if Notre Dame is a huge step up in college football history and tradition from Cincinnati. "If you told me that Alabama and Ore- gon were also undefeated as well as Notre Kelly is more concerned about his team winning its 10th game of the season on Saturday, rather then debating where Notre Dame fits into the BCS picture. ✦ PAGE 13 Dame, I'd say, 'Well, there's a chance,'" Kelly said when asked if he ever imagined an unbeaten Irish team being tagged as a championship third wheel when he took the job in 2010. "Those are teams that have been here and done that. Notre Dame hasn't done it in a while — and those teams are undefeated, too." Two years from now, the BCS will be- gin its four-team playoff format, which would put the Irish more in the catbird's seat now. "The way the BCS is set up right now, if you have more than two undefeated teams, you can't control it," Kelly said. "In two years, when you have four teams that can play, now you could control things a little bit more, and you may be talking more about your team," he said. "… Maybe in two years you'll find me talking a lot more about it." When asked if Notre Dame is "back" as a true player in college football, Kelly wouldn't give it an affirmative reply, but he wouldn't deny that the program is on the right path. "I think it's measured by everybody else in terms of wins and losses," he said in regards to his team's return to prominence. "Our players want to win as well, but it's not something that we really spend much time thinking about relative to we're back or we're not back. "We take care of how we play on Satur- days and then we let other people decide whether that's the case or not." After the pulsating victory versus Pitts- burgh last week in which it appeared sev- eral different times the Fighting Irish were on the cusp of defeat, Kelly met his team halfway regarding what defines champion- ship-level play. "I told the football team that they had PHOTO BY BILL PANZICA the heart of a champion," Kelly said. "But now that we understand that we will fight