Advertisement
football Edit

Brian Kelly Optimistic About Max Redfield’s Final Season For Irish

Kelly began his seventh spring at Notre Dame on Wednesday.
Kelly began his seventh spring at Notre Dame on Wednesday.

Senior safety Max Redfield has rarely lived up to the five-star billing he received prior to arriving at Notre Dame, but head coach Brian Kelly remains hopeful that the Mission Viejo, Calif., native can add a fruitful final chapter to his Irish career.

Redfield, who was sent home days prior to the Jan. 1 Fiesta Bowl loss to Ohio State due to a violation of team rules, is one of only five returning starters from a defense that struggled throughout a 10-3 season in 2015. An argument could be made that he is also the X-factor of that group.

“Max is an interesting young man,” Kelly said Wednesday after the program’s first practice of the spring. “Anytime you come in with a lot of hype and praise and five-stars, there’s a lot of expectations. I think the game for him is one that he’s had to learn a lot about the position that he’s playing.

“He’s playing a position that requires a lot of football knowledge. He didn’t have a lot at the position, and he’s gained a tremendous amount of football knowledge in a very short period of time. … The progress has been steady. It hasn’t been fast, but he’s at the cusp of really putting it all together for us.”

At times last season, Redfield shared the starting position with the departed Matthias Farley due to inconsistency. His best game came in a 14-tackle effort at Clemson in October, then viewed as a turning point in his career. In the ensuing weeks, however, he sometimes found himself back on the bench.

“We worked really hard on a couple fundamental things,” Kelly said. “One, we thought his pedal needed some work. From a fundamental standpoint, part of our job is to continually develop the skill of our players. We thought he was a little short in his pedal, which put him in sometimes too low to get over the top of some routes that we thought he should’ve been in position. So we worked hard on that.

“I thought he’s improved there. A bit sometimes in his running game he got a little mechanical. We loosened him up there. Some skill development work at his position and just continuing to grow from a knowledge base. Those are the most important things: developing the skill in his backpedal and just the knowledge base, continue to grow there.”

Quick Hits

• Kelly seems to be expecting senior Mike McGlinchey, junior Quenton Nelson and junior Sam Mustipher to earn the starting positions at left tackle, left guard and center, respectively, when Notre Dame heads to Texas on Labor Day weekend. The rest of the line continues to be wide open.

“I think you’re going to see at least with McGlinchey, Nelson and Mustipher; that’s going to be a pretty consistent thing,” he said. “On the right side, there’s really three guys competing for two positions.

“We’re going to have some really good consistency there. I think we’re going to come out of this with a really good rotation. Maybe four guys for two positions. They’ve been together for a while. I think you throw [sophomore Tristen] Hoge in the mix there where he’s the new guy, but he’s not that new to the group. I feel pretty good that three out of five guys know each other really well.”

• Kelly was pleased with the play of the three-headed quarterback duo of senior Malik Zaire, junior DeShone Kizer and sophomore Brandon Wimbush in the first look of the spring.

“They're all really good,” he said. “I thought Wimbush threw the ball extremely well. I thought Malik showed his ability to regain some accuracy after breaking an ankle. His base and balance were really good. DeShone Kizer is what he has been, just doing really steady.

“All three of them are really good quarterbacks.”

Advertisement