Notre Dame Coach Brian Kelly allowed media full access to a practice session on Saturday for the first time this spring.

After an intense training session where his team had a scrimmage game, the head coach fielded some questions from assembled press.

When he asked is his defense was progressing better than his offense, Kelly replied:

“As the head coach if I go through a practice and I’m happy, that’s not a good day for me. Something’s got to be lagging one way or the other,” he said.

“I think today our defense did a great job taking the ball away. Offensively, our issues are really about consistency. We can probably put three or four plays together and then we’ll put two or three awful plays together.

“Defensively, I like the consistency on the back end. We’re going and getting the football. We’re aggressively getting after it from that standpoint. Although on the other side, I was pleased with the offensive line today. Their pass pro was much better than last Saturday.

“Saturday it was ‘Throw it and duck.’ We did a better job up front. I thought we saw some improvement there. Give and take and, again at the end of the day, I’ve always got something that’s not going the right way and today our defense did a nice job."

Tight end Kyle Rudolph was kept out of the scrimmage as he is still recovering from shoulder surgery and he went through some one–on-one drills instead.

The players will meet head to head in earnest in next weekend’s Blue and Gold game, where new and existing players will get the chance to really make an impression on their new leader.