Notre Dame's Brian Kelly Scouts Duke

"We've got our hands full with Duke"

Brian Kelly has high expectations for Notre Dame this season, but the coach is not overlooking a Duke team expected to finish far lower in the ACC.

“We’ve got a really well-coached and solid fundamental football team in Duke, led by Coach (David) Cutcliffe, who I have a great deal of respect for as person and a man and certainly as an established head football coach,” Kelly said. “We’re going to play a team that, first and foremost, we know they handled this pandemic extremely well, because they’re so similar (to Notre Dame), in terms of the kind of players they have at Duke—disciplined, organized, committed with a purpose to be great student athletes. We understand that, so our preparation needed to be at that level as well. If you look at this football team, seven starters on both sides of the ball. Defensively, arguably I think could be one of best defensive backfields, best tandem of corners maybe that we could see all year. Certainly, off the edge. You may not find as good a pass rushing combination that we’re going to see with this group. They’re very dynamic off the edges. They have corners that can be extremely disruptive, and then and offensive that’s very creative. They run everything from no back to wishbone. So you’ve got to be, in an opener, prepared for virtually everything. And again, with Coach Cutcliffe calling the offense, with the level of accomplished he is as a playcaller and managing games. So, we’ve got our hands full with Duke.