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Brian Kelly, looking for "fire and energy," shakes up staff

By Anthony Gimino, The Sports Xchange
Notre Dame Head Coach Brian Kelly. UPI/Marc Serota
Notre Dame Head Coach Brian Kelly. UPI/Marc Serota | License Photo

Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly fumed Saturday about his players' lack of "some damn fire and energy" and promised that no starting position would be safe.

But there is only so much you can do about personnel in college football, so his first major move after a disappointing 1-3 start was to fire defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder on Sunday.

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"This is a difficult decision," Kelly said in a press release. "I have the utmost respect for Brian as both a person and football coach, but our defense simply isn't it where it should be and I believe this change is necessary for the best interest of our program and our student-athletes."

The Irish started the season ranked 10th in the AP poll, but they have lost all three of their games against Power 5 conference teams -- Texas, Michigan State and Duke. Notre Dame has allowed an average of 41.3 points in those losses.

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The defensive problems extend to last season, when the Irish finished by allowing 38 and 44 points in losses to Stanford and Ohio State, respectively.

The move came less than 24 hours after Kelly said he was OK with the defensive leadership -- "We did what I wanted today in terms of coaching," he said after the loss to Duke, which was a three-touchdown underdog -- but the status quo wasn't a great option.

Kelly will move defensive analyst Greg Hudson into VanGorder's role for the rest of the season. Hudson joined the program this summer after spending the past three seasons as the defensive coordinator at Purdue.

Hudson is a former player at Notre Dame and was an Irish graduate assistant in 1993. Before Purdue, he was Florida State's assistant head coach and linebackers coach from 2010 to 2012.

Notre Dame can't fully recover this season. There will be no run to the College Football Playoffs. The Irish have an NFL-caliber quarterback in DeShone Kizer, but they seem to be staring at maybe a seven-win regular season, which is not a good look for ND.

The Irish still have to play Stanford, Miami and Virginia Tech (although all in South Bend) and go to USC to end the regular season.

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Kelly, in his seventh season, is running out of helium from Notre Dame's undefeated and magical run to the 2012 national championship game. Including a lopsided loss to Alabama in that title game, Notre Dame has merely split its past 34 games against major conference teams.

Firing the defensive coordinator seems like a potential act of self-preservation for the guy who hired VanGorder in the first place.

Hudson will pay dividends if he can strike a match and light a fuse.

"There's no passion. There's no passion for it," Kelly said after Saturday's game.

"It looks like it's hard to play. Like we're pulling teeth. You're playing football for Notre Dame. It looks like it's work. Last I checked they were getting a scholarship to play this game. There's no fun, there's no enjoyment, there's no energy. We got to look for the guys that want to have fun and play this game with passion and energy. ...

"I must be doing a poor job. I've got to do a better job of finding out what those things are that are putting our football team in that position."

Changing his defensive coordinator was a start.

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