Griffiths: Brian Kelly, Notre Dame oozing with confidence

By DOUG GRIFFITHS
ISL Assistant Editor

When Brian Kelly held his first formal press conference of the 2013 season, it was blatantly obvious just how confident the fourth-year Fighting Irish boss was.

Doug Griffiths
Doug Griffiths

Shouldn’t he be?

After all, he has re-energized a program that saw its usual sky-high confidence brought down to earth before his arrival in South Bend.

Kelly’s first two Notre Dame teams posted 8-5 records. Last year, however, the Irish returned to greatness. They went 12-0 in the regular season before being humbled by Alabama in the BCS National Championship Game.

Even after that humbling experience back in January in Miami, Notre Dame’s No. 1 goal this season is to return to the pinnacle of the college football mountaintop.

Wishful thinking?

Perhaps, considering Notre Dame will have to replace key personnel like Manti Te’o, Tyler Eifert and Everett Golson.

-We’ve worked hard to put ourselves in a position to be back in the national spotlight,” Kelly said. -We have no intention of giving that up.”

Even without Te’o and Co., the Irish are a confident bunch and thanks to posting the program’s first undefeated regular season since 1988, they seem to have their swagger back.

Some think a reality check awaits Notre Dame this season. It has some huge holes to fill and has to navigate through a schedule that includes road trips to Michigan and Stanford, along with dates against Michigan State, Oklahoma and USC in Notre Dame Stadium.

What’s scary is word out of Notre Dame’s early training camp is the Irish are more talented this year than they were a year ago.

Perhaps a return trip to the national championship game is realistic.

-Our focus since our last game has been to get back to the top of the mountain,” said Kelly, who addressed the media assembled in the Guglielmino Athletics Complex. Interestingly enough posted on one of those walls in the Gug is Notre Dame’s 2013 schedule, which has its last game listed as Jan. 6, 2014 – the date of the BCS National Championship Game in Pasadena, Calif.

If that’s not a sign that this program is oozing with confidence, what is?

The belief in and around the Notre Dame camp is the Irish are back and not going anywhere.

Returning to the promise land, though, won’t be easy.

-It takes a lot of work,” Kelly said. “There’s a lot of work to be done.”

As Kelly says, there is a lot of work to do, maybe a ton of it. He is fully aware his program has a ways to go before it can claim to be the best in the land. Kelly doesn’t have to be reminded of how Alabama manhandled his Irish last January.

Kelly is a man on a mission. Nothing other than returning to the national championship game and this time winning it will suffice this season.

-There’s not a man that sat in this seat when we met as an entire team, that is not committed to that end,” Kelly admitted. -That’s why they’re here. That’s why there’s such great excitement and anticipation.

-It’s pretty clear that our players are committed to one goal, and that is to get back to a national championship, just as every other BCS school on Media Day is expecting the same thing.”

Also:

Notre Dame vs. Oklahoma, 2012

Notre Dame vs. Pitt, 2012

Notre Dame vs. Stanford, 2012

Notre Dame in 3 of ISL’s Top 10 games of 2012

Three Notre Dame athletes among ISL’s Top 10 Indiana athletes of 2012

Video: Manti Te’o speaks at the NFL Combine

Follow Doug Griffiths on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ISLgriffiths.

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