Brian Kelly is earning a reputation at Notre Dame of tackling problems head on.

The South Bend Tribune notes that some Charlie Weis holdovers were bad mouthing Kelly soon after he arrived.

"I think it's like anything else," Kelly told the paper,

"You go from being the substitute teacher to, 'This is really my teacher now!' You know it was a process of, 'What can we get away with here? What are the guidelines? What is he really about?' Questioning the new guy is natural.

"I think when they saw there was consistency from my end, they adapted to it. 'You're going to have to have your room cleaned every night, son. It's not just tonight.' Once you provide the consistency, most people are going to say, 'I've got to change, because he's certainly not going to.' "

Kelly has made clear he is not Weis, and that the two men are fundamentally different

"Philosophically, we just come from different backgrounds," he said. "I'm not better. He's not worse. I think what I pointed out is we're going through a paradigm shift within our program. It's just a different philosophy of getting things done."


"Look, Charlie had a big ring," Kelly said. "I don't have one of those Super Bowl rings. He's managed a pro football environment. I've never been in that. I don't know how to do that. So I would think the differences are going to be pretty stark, just with Charlie being Charlie and Brian being Brian."

"I don't know that I see myself as the guy as much as I know what I want to do and how I'm going to do it," he said. "I have a clear plan for how we're going to do things here, and it's been successful everywhere I've been. Yes, the stadium's bigger and this place has unbelievable name recognition, but the kids are the same.

"I don't sit around going. 'I'm the one.' But I know what I want to do."