Welcome.

And Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly to SportsCenter.

Uh, coach, my producer told me in my ear, while that pieces rolling that you were watching it intently.

What were you thinking while you were watching it?

I hadn't seen it before.

I think it was an eight.

Um, you know, a good, uh, retrospective of the season itself.

You know, you get so caught up day in the year and you're you know, you're on this treadmill of just next day and, uh, the next test day eso sites to kind of, you know, take a few minutes just to look back on the year.

Your next test.

College football playoff.

Congrats on making that.

What does that accomplishment mean for your program?

Well, two out of three years in the national playoffs, I think it says a lot about the stability of the program and the ability toe be one of the top teams in the country.

Certainly.

Uh, you know, we wanna win the thing.

Um, but we played a 50 games were 43 7, so that consistency of winning football games, um, we've done that.

Now, we we wanna win a couple of the big ones that we've got in front of us.

One of those seven was the other night against Clemson.

What's your biggest take away from that loss against Clemson Saturday night?

That's hard to beat somebody twice, especially, uh, when you have, You know, elite teams.

Um, and certainly Clemson is one of those elite teams to beat him twice in the same year when they knew that their playoff, you know, opportunities could be over if they didn't win the game.

They played, uh, with a a sense of urgency that that we lacked at times.

And like I said, we didn't match that intensity and we came up on the short end, Uh, great lesson for us, and, uh, as we continue to move forward and playing these kinds of games weekend we go.

Clemson's Q B Trevor Lawrence.

He didn't play in the first meeting.

How much difference did his experience?

Maybe that intensity you were talking about making the rematch?

Well, look, he's an outstanding football player, Andi.

He made place.

There's no doubt about it, but they weren't place that we weren't expecting.

Um and certainly for us, I think The disappointed part for us is that we did not play to the level that we need to.

Now this takes nothing away from Clemson.

Trevor Lawrence kind of players.

They are the program that dabble has, um, we'll get a second opportunity against Alabama to play much better That Rose Bowl between you and Alabama moved from California, Texas, uh, in parts of players and families can attend something that you said before the change of venue might cause your team not to play.

Why did you feel the need to take that stand?

Well, it just seemed like nothing was moving on, but I think that, you know, look, it wasn't gonna be my decision.

Our players make those calls.

Um, I was using my platform to make it known that I think it was an important decision that needed to be vetted.

Uh, I think it needed to be out there nationally to be talked about because having the student athletes parents at the games in this unique year where they've made so many sacrifices, it was a big deal.

And I'm glad that the College Football Playoff Committee and the Rose Bowl on all those other parties that are involved were able to get together and make a great decision.

Coach, you're a big underdog against number one Alabama before I let you go.

Notre Dame Alum and my usual co anchor, Hannah Storm.

She's not here today, but she wanted me to tell you.

Merry Christmas.

And she wanted me to ask you What do you think about the game?

Huge point spread.

Oh, look, if I If I looked at point spreads, I'd have been out of this a long time ago.

I'd be I'd be in Las Vegas.

Um, you know, doing that.

Look, here's what we know.

We're in a situation where we get a chance of one of only four teams.

Um, we don't have to play Alabama 10 times.

We just got a plan once and be the best team in the stadium at four o'clock on January 1st on.

Do we have Ah, really good football team.

We have to play to a style, and if we do that, we've got a great chance of winning the football game.

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