Brian Kelly welcomed a special guest for his final radio show of the 2011 season — Manti Te'o.
The junior linebacker earned applause from the crowd after announcing his intentions to retun to Notre Dame two days ago, and Kelly said you cannot quantify what a player like Te'o means to the program.
"He's a six-star, maybe even a nine-star," Kelly said of the kind of recruit Te'o is.
In his first public appearance since Charley Molnar took the Massachusetts head-coaching job, Kelly said he was happy for his former offensive coordinator as well.
"We're really happy for Charley and excited for him and his family; he's got a beautiful family," Kelly said, adding. "I'll take some more leadership on the offensive side of the ball, and we're all gonna pitch in — Ed Warinner, Tim Hinton, Chuck Martin."
Speaking of family, Kelly's parents, Paul and Regina, were also in attendance.
Kelly was also asked about the punt return game, which averaged a nation-worst 0.3 yards per return.
"We've actually begun to study on a lot of these things and it really has a lot to do with the punters in college football," Kelly said. "They're scholarship players; they're not walk-ons. They understand their impact in the game is immense. BC, their punter controlled the flow of the game with our starting position.
"And secondly, if there's a kick that has 4.2 seconds of hangtime and you have an average coverage scheme, you're gonna put that return guy in a position where he's gonna have to be like Tyrann Mathieu of LSU. He's gonna have to make three or four or five guys miss. So your punt return guy has to be a gamebreaker."
When recapping the regular season, Kelly deemed it a "woulda, coulda, shoulda" campaign that will require some tightening up across the board.
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