Brian Kelly opened the 2019 football season with a Noon press conference from campus today. It was on the shorter side and pretty lean in terms of juicy details on the team but we are here to do our best recapping everything that was mentioned.

#1 The Infirmary is Empty

As expected, the news on the injured players was nearly all positive across the board. That includes most importantly starting left guard Aaron Banks who has apparently been ready to go for a few weeks. I don’t know what kind of foot surgery only need less than a month to heal but apparently Banks is 100% for camp which is great.

Full health for Trevor Ruhland (brought up several times by Kelly as impressing) and Shaun Crawford were two more key points of the press conference. The only bad news is that Chase Claypool had ankle surgery and won’t be at 100% when camp opens. Kelly mentioned they haven’t made Claypool cut at full speed yet and will ease him back into the groove after a handful of practices.

#2 Leadership Overflow

How many captains will there be for 2019? Probably more than expected, according to Kelly. It was a strong off-season for leadership and we’re likely to see as many as 5 or 6 captains (I predicted 6 in my fall camp preview). When asked about Ian Book’s growth it was interesting that Kelly really only focused on his quarterbacks’ leadership abilities.

Will we see the first quarterback captain of the Kelly era?

#3 Not Messing Around

If you take Brian Kelly at his word it was Phil Jurkovec who was trying to change his throwing motion in the spring, to mixed results to put it kindly. The Irish head coach said they only try to work on confidence and footwork while he’s had poor results trying to tweak throwing motions over the years and stays away from it. Now, it appears Jurkovec has gone back to his ‘normal’ motion since the end of spring.

Kelly did have a lot nice things to say about his young quarterback, admitting Jurkovec lost some confidence in the spring but he’s done a lot of good things during the summer and he anticipates the media being impressed with him during camp as he has a lot of tools to be a very good college quarterback.

#4 Positional Battles

If you want to use this press conference as evidence of where the program knows it needs to improve look no further than linebacker, safety, and corner. Yes, things do look pretty set on offense ahead of Kelly’s 10th fall camp.

Specifically, linebackers were brought up a bunch of times by the media although Kelly punted on the chance to bring up specific players or anything of that nature. All he mentioned was that fall camp would be a big focus of sorting through the linebackers–I got the sense they want to do it quickly but that was just reading body language.

Kelly was asked about Troy Pride playing boundary or field and it seems as though that’s yet to be determined although leaning toward boundary where “things come at you a lot more” in terms of having to be more physical.

Establishing backups at the safety position was mentioned as Jalen Elliott and Alohi Gilman will need to come off the field at some point. This also opens the door to a certain true freshman, of course.

#5 Cold Water

If you were looking for a positive update on Kevin Austin this wasn’t the place. Kelly said he’s “still on the team but it’s a day-to-day process.” Of course, as Austin is facing a 4-game suspension that isn’t the worst quote in the world but still.

Additionally, Kelly had many good things to say about freshman punter Jay Bramblett while praising his mental make-up but he did say that kicker Jonathan Doerer is still working on his confidence. He probably didn’t mean too much about that and still it does worry me and I’m sure many others.

FRESHMEN CLASS HEIGHTS/WEIGHTS

POSITION NAME HEIGHT WEIGHT
QB Brendon Clark 6’1″ 217
RB Kyren Williams 5’9″ 205
WR Cam Hart 6’2″ 208
WR Kendall Abdur-Rahman 5’11” 189
OL Zeke Correll 6’3″ 270
OL Quinn Caroll 6’6″ 304
OL Andrew Kristofic 6’5″ 280
OL John Olmstead 6’4″ 280
DE NaNa Osafo-Mensah 6’3″ 241
DE Isaiah Foskey 6’4″ 250
DT Jacob Lacey 6’1″ 293
DT Hunter Spears 6’3″ 303
DT Howard Cross 6’0″ 269
LB Osi Ekwonu 6’0″ 230
LB JD Bertrand 6’1″ 226
LB Marist Liufau 6’2″ 213
LB Jack Kiser 6’1″ 221
CB K.J. Wallace 5’10” 191
CB Isaiah Rutherford 6’0″ 188
S Kyle Hamilton 6’4″ 210
S Litchfield Ajavon 6’0″ 192
P Jay Bramblett 6’1″ 188

Here are some things catching my eye as we see the entire freshmen class specs for the first time together:

  • Clark is a touch lighter than he was rumored to be a couple weeks ago.
  • Kyren Williams dropped 4 pounds from the spring.
  • I was expecting Hart to be 6’3″ and a touch heavier but that’s still good size.
  • Correll has dropped 5 pounds from the spring and I’m not sure what is going on there he is seriously under-weight for someone who has been with the program for 7 full months.
  • Carroll has put on 19 pounds and dropped down an inch. That’s a big, young kid.
  • NaNa has added 6 pounds.
  • Lacey is listed at 6’1″ now instead of 6’2″ in the spring.
  • Spears is up 8 pounds from spring and the idea that he was ever going to play defensive end seems like it was years ago.
  • Lea wasn’t kidding when he recently mentioned Cross having a chip on his shoulder due to size. He is one of the more interesting players in recent memory when it comes to his height and weight.
  • That’s nice size for the inside linebackers Ekwonu and Betrand. A recent Irish Illustrated podcast mentioned Liufau will begin camp at Buck linebacker which seems crazy at his size and with all the other bodies fighting for reps.
  • I’m trying not to get too excited about Kyle Hamilton. It’s not going well.

Fall Camp Practice Schedule