An offseason dedicated to establishing better leadership and internal motivation seems to have taken hold.
Last offseason, you wondered who would be worthy of being named a captain. This summer, it’s hard not to come up with ten names.
Returning captains Nick Martin and Sheldon Day will once again lead their respective units. Kelly called Joe Schmidt one of the best leaders he’s had, and he appears to be the singular leader of the defense. Kelly ticked off name after name after name, players you’d expect—Jarrett Grace, KeiVarae Russell, Ronnie Stanley and Matthias Farley—and some you wouldn’t.
Among that second group is safety Max Redfield. While Kelly acknowledged that just about everybody has a great offseason, he sounded genuine when he talked about the leap forward that his junior safety took.
“I think Max has realized how important football is to him,” Kelly said. “Academics is very important to him. It’s always been important to him. I think he’s seeing how important football is to him as well.”
Kelly praised Redfield for his ability to lead from the front as a vocal communicator, shown these past few days as the Irish completed some unorthodox workouts, including some military training exercises aimed at team building and leadership training.
“He has a gift,” Kelly said of Redfield. “That gift is he’s a great communicator, if given the chance. We gave him a chance the last couple of days to lead and get in front of his peers, and it was well received.”
I find this part (this one of the "five things we learned" from Keith Arnold, of monumental significance.
Everything Kelly has done to reach a National Championship has pointed to it, and everything done in restructuring the program since last season promotes it.
I listen to the stories about Kelly, at his past stops and in South Bend, and no matter how outrageous, or believable, they all points to his coaching shortcomings, principle among them, his micromanaging his teams at every level.
I wonder if the "military training exercises" were conducted by spec ops of the Naval Special Warfare Command? I think Northwestern conducted a similar program a few years ago.
So that is all about leadership (out front) and team building.
A remarkable departure from past examples :
- Last year, the team captains were just plain wrong.
- Too many years the coaches only picked the captains.
- The story about Bob Diaco calling Sheldon Day, the Mayor, smacks of everything wrong with a coach-player relationship.
- Is this even the same coach that had a player insurrection in2011?
- No purple face yesterday!
I think this more than health of individual players, schemes, position moves, medical hardships, and academic suspensions, indicates the potential of this team, as well of its chances at fulfilling that ability.
Any time you get a group strengthening the weakest link, by being responsible for two, opening accountability to all, (and BK was very openly accountable yesterday, more so than ever before) you have a much better chance to meet your goals. That is my overwhelming experience.
The second most intriguing point, in my opinion was the overall strength and conditioning gains of the players, included worthy of note is Hodge, Brent, Watkins, Weishar, Shumate, Blankenship, Byrne, Matuska, Onwualu, Randolph, but most significantly, Joe Schmidt, and Nick Martin. It is one thing for some of the younger guys to make significant gains, but for fifth year grad students to explode on the bench press or with other metrics? And the comment that Kelly made about Martin, a Captain from last year? Plus fourteen pounds, and an entirely different player? That is major!
I didn't include Boykin in that group, because he was an incoming freshman, and technically those gains were from before he came into the program; but, it is a clear indicator at how tightly maintained the metrics for player performance are being kept!
All this above, and Mokwuah and Drew-Treadway, Mustipher, and Monteleus' weight is down! Sounds like things are becoming very focused within the Irish program!
PS.
You are right Beau. As of spring it was Nelson. But Bars was going to see significant time, and Kelly alluded at the time, much may be at tackle. Yesterday Kelly alluded that Mustipher, as well as Bars needed to find a place to get significant second team snaps.