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Notre Dame Football: Quick hits from media day

By Greg Hadley

Nov 14, 2015; South Bend, IN, USA; Notre Dame Fighting Irish head coach Brian Kelly signals to his players during warmups before the game against the Wake Forest Demon Deacons at Notre Dame Stadium. Notre Dame won 28-7. Mandatory Credit: Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 14, 2015; South Bend, IN, USA; Notre Dame Fighting Irish head coach Brian Kelly signals to his players during warmups before the game against the Wake Forest Demon Deacons at Notre Dame Stadium. Notre Dame won 28-7. Mandatory Credit: Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports /
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Notre Dame hosted its media day Friday, as Brian Kelly and several key players addressed members of the press in advance of the team’s fall camp, which starts tomorrow. Here are the highlights.

Brian Kelly has yet to decide on a starter at quarterback, won’t put a timeline on when he will pick a starter and said he might not even definitely pick a starter.

Basically, if you were looking for closure regarding Notre Dame’s QB situation, forget it. Kelly is keeping everyone, including opponents’ coaches, guessing until the last possible second.

As for Zaire and Kizer, both spoke to the press, and both gave pretty generic answers in regards to the QB competition, which is as expected.

There was one interesting tidbit though, as DeShone Kizer revealed that he picked up a new mentor over the summer: Deshaun Watson.

In other quarterback news, Kelly announced that sophomore Brandon Wimbush, who was a long-shot contender to start in the spring, will likely redshirt this season.

In non-QB news, the head coach also named some early leaders for Team 128, which also functions as a short list for the team’s captains.

Last season, the Irish had five captains, four of whom played primarily defense, and it seems likely there could easily be that many again this year.

Kelly also addressed the recent suspension of sophomore tight end Alize Jones, who will not play this season due to academic issues.

Kelly also tried to brush off the loss of Jones as not a big deal to Notre Dame’s offense, which is hard to understand, as Jones was the second leading receiver returning for the Irish this season and cross-trained at wide receiver this spring.

That is, unless Kelly knew Jones was going to be suspended, which would contradict a statement he made earlier in the summer that no Irish players were in any academic trouble.

Notre Dame’s fall roster was released before Kelly’s presser, and defensive tackle Grant Blankenship, who was suspended last spring for a violation of team rules, was not on it. Kelly confirmed that Blankenship is no longer with the program.

As for other players missing from fall camp, Kelly announced cornerback Devin Butler and running back Justin Brent are both injured and will miss time.

Off the field, Kelly basically came out and said that Notre Dame’s recent agreement with Bleacher Report will be primarily aimed at recruits, even more so than last season’s “A Season With” on Showtime.

The other non-quarterback players didn’t have much to offer in terms of hard news, but for your enjoyment, here are a collection of tweets about them anyway.

https://twitter.com/NDFootball/status/760609484058361856

Next: Buy or Sell: Notre Dame football will win nine games this season

Be sure to check back every day for more updates as the Irish get started on fall camp at Culver Academy tomorrow.

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