After Notre Dame's BCS championship loss to Alabama, coach Brian Kelly solicited the advice of New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick. The future NFL Hall of Fame coach spent a "substantial amount of time" pouring over game footage with the Fighting Irish coaching staff to evaluate their program, Yahoo! Sports reports.
Kelly and Belichick met in February at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am in California. They clicked and quickly became friends. Kelly eventually asked in March if Belichick would be willing to assess the shortcomings of his Fighting Irish team.
"I asked him if he could spend some time watching games and we could discuss," Kelly told Yahoo! Sports.
The three-time Super Bowl winning head coach was more than happy to oblige and spent a day and a half with the Notre Dame coaches.
"I just really enjoy talking football," Belichick said. "So much goes into the entire process that it's impossible to run out of things to work on - coaching, playing, practice, preparation, scouting, technology, how the whole structure fits together."
Belichick suggested Kelly should give his players more power to make adjustments on the field based on what they see.
"And that, to me, says everything you need to know about Bill Belichick," Kelly said. "It's not just about scheme, it's about understanding the concept of the game and making those adjustments as the game unfolds.
"With the players, we were a little bit, 'This is your job. Do your job.' Instead of, 'You can do your job.'"
Belichick didn't meet with Notre Dames' coaches to flatter them. Because of his familiarity with the Fighting Irish's defense, he was able to give Kelly good insight.
"Bill is very aware of our defense because there's great similarities," Kelly said. "It was a great way for him to communicate some things with us using the same nomenclature to, 'Hey, have you thought about this?'
"... He would watch a play and say, 'Why didn't your players adjust to that? Why didn't you let your player make that adjustment? He was in a four technique, an inside shade of the tackle, and you knew it was a boot down and you knew they were going to break contain, why didn't you let a four go to a five?' I thought it was a great observation."
As for Belichick, he saw it as an opportunity to get better himself.
"It doesn't matter how long you've been at it," Belichick said, "we are all still learning and trying to improve on something."
