CULVER — The grass at Notre Dame Stadium was recently replaced with field turf, but the Fighting Irish football team’s first 2014 experience with the surface came at Culver Academies Monday afternoon. After holding training camp in Marion a year ago, fifth-year Notre Dame football coach Brian Kelly opted to take the show on the road once again, this time to Culver Academies and its recently installed field turf. South Bend isn’t exactly the hub of late night entertainment or too many distractions, but in the small town of Culver, the players will have no choice but to interact. “Ideally, you want this opportunity to bring your team together,” Kelly said after Monday’s first practice of the fall season. “Some of the great teams I’ve had, and continue to succeed, developed toughness – mental and physical. Certainly we’re working on the fundamentals of football, but we’ve got to come together too. This is an opportunity where you have a lot of time on this campus to come together. There’s activities that can bring our football team together. Leadership is going to come, but this gets your team to come together. That’s what I’m trying to get by going off campus and coming here.” Once finished with practice, the guys retreated to lunch, but according to Kelly, they won’t just be sitting in the academy dorm rooms. “We’re going to do some archery, so everyone’s going to get their ‘Robin Hood’ on,” Kelly said. “So, we’re going to do a little archery and they have a very expansive ropes course here. We’re going to be a doing a lot of things on Tuesday and Thursday on the ropes course, with a mix of the offensive and defensive personnel.” On the field, Kelly’s got the job of choosing between senior quarterback Everett Golson and sophomore Malik Zaire. As a sophomore, Golson led the Irish to a 12-1 record, which ended with a 42-14 loss to Alabama in the BCS National Championship game. During that season, Golson had a 58.8 passing percentage, throwing for 2,405 yards, 12 touchdowns and six interceptions, while also rushing for 298 yards and six scores. Despite the loss in the national championship game, expectations were high for 2013, but those were derailed after Golson was suspended for the fall semester over what he told Sports Illustrated was “poor judgment on a test.” Instead of transferring from the university, Golson stuck with Notre Dame and was re-admitted last December. However, instead of automatically reclaiming the reins of the team, after it went 9-4 under the direction of fifth-year quarterback Tommy Rees in 2013, he’s now competing with Zaire. A four-star recruit out of Archbishop Alter in Kettering, Ohio, Zaire didn’t play a down last year, but looked sharp in the spring’s Blue-Gold Game, making coaches take notice. Throughout the spring game and the opening fall practice, Zaire had more zip and less loft to his passes than Golson, but it will be hard to wrestle the job from a senior that led the team to the championship game a year-and-a-half ago. According to Kelly, what can separate Golson is an ability to stare down tough situations. “You’re either fearful or fearless,” he said. “I think there was a time when he was a little fearful at the quarterback position. I want to get him fearless. If we can get him to that level, where he’s fearless – and I’m starting to see that – that’s where we want to get him.” Regardless of the quarterback, the offense should be fine with plenty of returnees, but the same can’t be said for the defense, which had four players drafted in May’s NFL draft, including star defensive linemen Louis Nix and Stephon Tuitt. Along with those two and drafted linebacker Prince Shembo, Notre Dame also graduated linebackers Carlo Calabrese and Dan Fox, opening up five holes in the front seven. Kona Schwenke also started seven games for the Irish on the defensive line, delivering another blow to their depth. On top of losing its top two tacklers from a year ago in Fox and Calabrese, Notre Dame also returns just three of the team's 21 sacks. The secondary should be fine, with senior safety Mathias Farly, fifth-year senior safety Austin Collinsworth and junior cornerback KeiVarae Russell bringing starting experience, and junior Sheldon Day also returns after eight starts on the line. Of all the defensive starters, it’s sophomore Jaylon Smith who will be the team’s most important piece on that side of the ball. Coming into Notre Dame as Rivals.com’s top-ranked linebacker out of Fort Wayne Bishop Luers, Smith made an immediate impact as a freshman, starting all 13 games, finishing third on the team with 67 tackles, 6.5 for loss, and an interception. This year, Kelly sees Smith’s role expanding and isn’t counting him out as a possible captain, despite his age. “He’s going to be asked to do a lot more, not only as a specific player but as a leader on our defense,” he said. “He’s one of the more respected players on our team, even though he is only a sophomore. We’re going to ask him to play some inside linebacker and be an edge player for us. He’s going to be seen in a different role than last year, because we think he can impact the game for us.” By the time Notre Dame begins its season at home against Rice on Aug. 30, Kelly will need to find his definitive No. 1 quarterback, as well as pieces to put around Smith, Day, Russell, Collinsworth and Farley . But on the first day of practice, Kelly was just looking to get his guys in uniform, despite no pads, and looking crisp. “It wasn’t line up and run two or three plays,” he said. “It was installation of a lot of plays. Good tempo for two hours and it was fairly hot. We haven’t had a hot summer. So, all in all, we got a lot of work in and we’ll have a lot of time with our guys to watch film and have a really good teaching day. “What I was looking for on the first day was some retention (from the spring), and I certainly saw a lot of retention,” he added. And whether the practice was in Culver or South Bend, Kelly was just happy to put the whistle back around his neck. “You put in the time and the effort to get to these days,” he said. “This is the most exciting time of the year for me. This is what gets the blood pumping.”
