Watching live, I was disgusted. Watching the game again, ND didn't play as bad as I thought. Two INTs, both when ND was in FG range and the kick return touchdown were what kept Pitt in the game. I don't mean to downplay those 3 plays and kudos to Pitt for generating the 3 plays, but outside of those three horrible lapses, ND played pretty well IMO.
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And the conversation is reduced and positive. What gets lost in all the meaningless banter is that ND played well on both sides of the ball except for the online.
But no team plays football without at least a blunder or two. It’s all about the players understanding the dedication and focus to avoid blunders at all costs.
Particularly, my respect for this group grew a great deal stronger as the offense never quit and the defense became a brick wall and both almost penalty free while behind most of the game. That shows the heart of a champion and the will to win. It is easy to strut when all goes your way and tough to stay focused and perform when not. I really like this team.
Our inability to adjust to what they were doing and create a running game is very troubling. Great teams can run the football.
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Q: The first three or four games of the season, the offense would come out, first possession, score a touchdown. Defense comes out and they would, you know, hold the team and not score. The last couple weeks, you guys have faced a little bit of adversity in those areas. Can you talk about how the adversity is going to help this team down the road?
HEAD COACH BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, you know, I just think it's the duration of a season, right. There's ebbs and flows. There's ups and downs. I think you just experience it. I think our guys learned a lot from today's game in terms of, you know, hanging in there and having patience and finding ways to overcome some adversity. You know, very rarely do you give up a kickoff return for a touchdown, throw a pick, do some of the things we did today, and still find a way to win the football game.
A lot of good things that we can take from it. We obviously can't play like this week-in and week-out and feel like we're going to win every game we play.
But you're going to have some of these, and you've got to -- you've got to grow from them, and I really like our football team. They will grow from this. They will learn from it and we'll be better because of it.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
Link: http://www.asapsports.com/show_conference.php?id=144756
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