SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Brandon Wimbush and Ian Book battled in Notre Dame’s Blue-Gold Game at Notre Dame Stadium on Saturday, but Brian Kelly answered a question that is frequently asked around the program. More
LOS ANGELES — Despite finishing with the school’s worst record in nearly a decade, Brian Kelly said he expects to be back as Notre Dame‘s head coach next season.
“Oh yeah, absolutely,” Kelly said. “There was some discussion as to why I’m coming back [to campus] early, and I don’t believe I’m coming back early because I’m getting fired. [Notre Dame athletic director] Jack [Swarbrick] and I always meet at the end of the year, and I wanted to do some exit interviews with our players because I hadn’t been able to do that.
“I always stay on the West Coast for the week and then we get into bowl practice, but obviously, we don’t have bowl practice, and then they get into exams, so I’m going to use next Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to do exit interviews so I can spend a little time and get feedback from our players in terms of some of the things we may need to adjust within our program.”
Notre Dame wrapped up a 4-8 regular season with a 45-27 loss to USC on Saturday. It was the Fighting Irish’s worst regular season since going 3-9 under Charlie Weis in 2007, and Kelly’s worst season since his first year at Central Michigan in 2004.
Kelly said he understands the talk about his job status after a subpar season despite leading his teams to bowl games in the 11 previous seasons.
“When you’ve been in this business a long time, you think you’ve got a track record of what you’ve done, but you’re also at a high-profile institution like Notre Dame, where the expectations are really high,” Kelly said. “You’re going to have to answer those questions when you have a year like this. One side of you says, ‘Look, this is my 25th year, I know what I’m doing,’ but the other side of you understands you can’t be surprised when you go 4-8. You’re going to get those questions asked.”
Kelly didn’t rule out making changes to his coaching staff in the…