Notre Dame Fighting Irish

Brian Kelly says no starter is safe after Notre Dame falls to 1-3

Published Nov. 15, 2016 3:34 p.m. ET

share

facebookxredditlink

Kerouac Smith

Notre Dame entered the season ranked 10th in the AP poll.

Just over a month later, the Fighting Irish are 1-3 and looking for answers.

For coach Brian Kelly, those answers might very well come in the form of new starters. He ripped his team in the wake of Saturday's 38-35 loss to Duke, saying just about every position was up for grabs.

"Every position, all 22 of them, will be evaluated. 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 told reporters.

He did single out running back Dexter Williams for praise, while warning the rest of the team.

"We had one guy in the entire football team that had emotion and fire. That is Dexter Williams. He's the only one. He's the only one that I saw. One guy. 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, 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."

''I told our guys essentially that we're going in the wrong direction. We're not going to continue to go in this direction. We'll have to re-evaluate what we're doing, who we're doing it with, and how we're doing it,'' he said.

One of Kelly's key players, who might very well be in danger of losing his starting role, agreed with his coach.

''In order to move forward from here there's going to have to be some changes. What we're doing isn't working right now,'' said quarterback DeShone Kizer, who Kelly suggested could be replaced by sophomore Brandon Wimbush.

Stay tuned, it's going to be an interesting week in South Bend.

share

Get more from Notre Dame Fighting Irish Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more

in this topic

Notre Dame Fighting Irish