How Notre Dame Football Can Overcome Injuries to Remain a Playoff Contender

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Notre Dame football head coach Brian Kelly walked into his standard Tuesday press conference donning a white-and-blue polka-dot tie beneath a blue-and-yellow plaid sport coat.

He stopped on his way down the stairs to the podium, joked and shook hands with three members of the assembled media before strutting to the microphone.

It’s no funeral at Notre Dame.

No, Kelly walked past the same 2015 schedule listing a College Football Playoff Semifinal and a Jan. 11 national championship game as the final two tests at the end of an already-challenging regular-season slate.

The sixth-year head coach spoke to the media for 41 minutes, just hours after he visited quarterback Malik Zaire in Notre Dame’s on-campus health center and watched film of Saturday’s win over Virginia, a game in which Zaire suffered a season-ending fractured ankle.

Before his press conference, Kelly—who somehow shook the misfortune of the football health gods and overcame his own chest cold—announced that tight end Durham Smythe is out for the season after suffering a torn right MCL on Saturday and undergoing knee and shoulder surgeries on Tuesday morning.

Smythe became Notre Dame’s fourth starter—and fifth key contributor—to suffer a season-ending injury in a 30-day span.

Kelly emitted the standard coachspeak after yet another surgery. What else can he do? He’s looked at each injury and found two non-contact injuries and another pair where the Irish player got rolled up on.

“Any team looks at it and says, ‘Boy, why us?’ But as I told our team, no one really cares,” Kelly said on Tuesday. “And certainly those that do are happy that you have more injuries because they’re in it for their own teams.

“Just no excuses. Let’s go play. We’ve got players that will step up and we’ll get through it. Everybody’s gotta deal with some adversity. This is our end of it.”

It’s a hefty portion of early-season adversity, but Kelly’s exactly right. The season continues. Zaire will tend to his ankle, while Smythe, defensive tackle Jarron Jones, running back Tarean Folston and cornerback Shaun Crawford will rehab their knees and the rest of the team will prepare for No. 14 Georgia Tech on Saturday.

So if the Irish are to stay on course and chase a playoff berth—an admittedly even taller task at this point—what must happen?

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Most notably, new starting quarterback DeShone Kizer must keep Notre Dame’s offense moving. Kizer, of course, completed eight of 12 passes for 92 yards and two scores—including the game-winning 39-yard heave to Will Fuller—in the win over the Cavaliers.

While Kizer doesn’t bring the same rushing component to the offense as Zaire does, Kelly said he will run the ball.

“With quarterbacks that are gonna go out there for the first time, you’re really going to play to their strengths and what they do well,” Kelly said of Kizer’s first career start. “So everything that we do will be part of the system. We recruited DeShone Kizer because he can run the system of offense that I like to run. We’re gonna run our system. That’s what we do.”

The offense can rely on Fuller, who’s off to a torrid start in 2015 to follow up his sterling sophomore season, and new top running back C.J. Prosise, who didn’t look anything like a converted slot receiver making his first career start in the backfield when he gashed Virginia for 155 yards and a score on just 17 carries (9.1 yards per attempt).

“DeShone is surrounded with some good players,” Kelly said on Sunday. “We saw that on Saturday. He managed the game very well for us, made some key plays and I think we can continue to do that this year with DeShone.”

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While perhaps not as noteworthy nationally as the change behind center, Notre Dame’s defense may be the biggest key over the remainder of the season.

A veteran group with talented upperclassmen such as defensive linemen Sheldon Day and Isaac Rochell, linebackers Jaylon Smith and Joe Schmidt and cornerback KeiVarae Russell carried high expectations into 2015 and played up to them with a stifling performance against Texas in the opener.

But Virginia, yes, Virginia, piled up 416 yards of total offense on Saturday and sent the Irish defense scrambling—even into one another—before the snap.

With a first-time starter at quarterback, Notre Dame needs a defense it can lean on, just as it did in 2012 when then-redshirt freshman Everett Golson “rode the bus” to Miami for the national championship.

The road is now decidedly tougher for the Irish, with narrower lanes and more potholes of inexperience all over.

Kelly has touted this 2015 team’s depth and his “next man in” philosophy. It will all get put to the test—with an even slimmer margin for error—the rest of the way.

All quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.

Mike Monaco is the lead Notre Dame writer for Bleacher Report. Follow @MikeMonaco_ on Twitter.