Sloppy! Run It Again!

B&G has a good article summing up a recent PC with Coach K (happy Kermit?) about the State of the ND Union.

Like this article, most folks have tended to focus on 2 areas of his recent interview - the position changes and the fitness/injury stuff. But to be honest, what was most interesting to me was Kelly's continued focus on the fact that ND players have been sloppy. In this article, , once again Kelly harps on a sloppiness inherent in the team...

"Their attention to detail is not where it needs to be. Their discipline is not where it needs to be," Kelly said. "They need to care about themselves and their football players a lot more. I'm tired of hearing about the next NFL player coming out of Notre Dame, quite frankly. They need to understand who we are. We're the Fighting Irish. We're creating, really, an atmosphere that's a little bit different than what they're used to. So we've got those things to work on."

Kelly's been quoted around this idea a few times since taking over (think about the 'how to arrange your locker' quote), and apparently the lessons havent yet been learned.

But it's a very interesting statement about the difference between BK and CW. It's obvious that Charlie Weis focused a bunch on his stars - Tate, Clausen - and their development. It's also obvious that he focused a lot on the X's and O's. But it's not obvious that he spent a lot of time molding the players to be the type of Team he needed them to be to win. It's almost as if he didnt have a plan for the overall makeup of the team - the forest through the trees and all that kind of crap.

Or, maybe he did, and it was just the wrong kind of plan.

Regardless, it didn't work. And Kelly is clearly addressing this head-on, in public, to try to get the message across. To get the players all on the same page that this is not about their individual ego, their individual performance, or the way they want it to be. It's about winning. And in Kelly's mind, winning means attention to detail, and doing your job, and deeply caring about yourself, the way you do things, and your teammates, and the way they do things.

I don't know if this is a winning approach - but you can't argue that it hasnt worked for him in the past, and you cant argue that Weis' approach did work.

Now some will question Kelly on the NFL quote..."Wait, so Kelly doesn't want to help players get to the pros?". It's a foolish thing to say, but easily addressable.

1) It's not Kelly's job to get kids in the pros. It's his job to win while graduating players. That appears to be his focus, as it should be.

2) By getting this team to be as good as it can be, and by making the players as good as they can be, and by WINNING, players will end up in the Pros. So it ends up being a by-product of winning. But it's clearly not the mandate of his job. With Weis, it almost seemed like that's what he was selling - come to ND and I'll get you in the Pros. And it was a good pitch, from an NFL guy. And it worked in recruiting.

Seems like Kelly is selling Win. I prefer that.