Brian Kelly was furious with his team after a 38-35 loss to Duke on Saturday and unloaded in his postgame news conference.
The Fighting Irish head coach put all of his players on notice, saying every single starter would “be evaluated.”
“Every position, all 22 of them, will be evaluated,” Kelly said at his postgame news conference, via ESPN. “Each and every position. There is no position that is untouchable on this football team. And that’s the quarterback, all the way down to — maybe the long snapper’s OK. We’re not going to touch him. But everybody else is vulnerable.”
Kelly was dissatisfied with the play of quarterback DeShone Kizer, who passed for 381 yards and two touchdowns while rushing for 60 yards and a score. Kizer committed two turnovers, leading Kelly to say his play was “unacceptable.”
“So, if you want to play for me moving forward, you better — I don’t care what your résumé says, I don’t care if you were a five-star [recruit], if you had 100 tackles or 80 receptions or 30 touchdown passes — you better have some damn fire and energy in you. We lack it. We lack it. Severely.”
Kelly’s reaction to the loss is completely understandable when you put it into context. Notre Dame is now 1-3 on the season following losses to Texas and Michigan State in addition to Duke. Their lone win came at home against Nevada.
The 1-3 start matches the worst under Kelly since the coach’s first year leading the program in 2010. Notre Dame has never been worse than 8-5 under Kelly.
