After a gutting loss to USC, Brian Kelly vowed his Notre Dame team wouldn't like him very much this week. He named names for individual accountability. Arduous practices ran long, including one in which he made the Irish repeat every period he found unsatisfactory.
Then, in post-practice comments Thursday, Kelly drove a wedge between the players he recruited and the players he inherited — comments that inspired angry public replies from some players and had more fuming in private, multiple sources close to the team told the Tribune.
WTF you doin bro?"You can see the players that I recruited here," Kelly said Thursday. "You know who they are. We've had one class … that I've had my hand on. The other guys here are coming along. But it's a process. It can't happen overnight. They're getting there. We're making good progress."
Later that night, responses from some players emerged on Twitter accounts. Senior guard Trevor Robinson wrote "You can see the new players. I'm coming along" followed by "You know you (sic) they are" followed by "You can tell the difference between the guys. Night and day."
In response, senior defensive end Kapron Lewis-Moore wrote "awful(,) man.. im sure we talking about the same thing." Junior linebacker Manti Te'o wrote "Playin for my bros and that's it!!!!"
Social media sentiment indeed may be somewhat fleeting — not coincidentally, the tweets were deleted sometime Friday — but multiple sources close to the team confirmed to the Tribune that players were hurt by, disappointed in or angry at Kelly's remarks.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/ct-spt-1029-notre-dame-football--20111029,0,324180.story
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The bottom line is what happens on the field. If he wins this will soon be forgotten.
