What Are Major College Coaches, Control Freaks Like Brian Kelly To Do When Their Teams Are Away?

Football coaches are notorious control freaks, especially at the college level.

So, you can imagine the sort of withdrawal many of them are experiencing with their entire rosters scattered around the country, back home with family and friends, trying to do the right thing amid a global pandemic. 

“I think ‘control’ is really a word that sometimes gets used in a negative connotation,” Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly said this week. “We like the structure because structure is what our players really want on a day-to-day basis.”

Practices and workouts aren’t the only part of a student-athlete’s day that typically get scheduled down to the minute. The same goes for meals, classes, study halls, recovery sessions and chalk talks. 

Suddenly, with classes going online and workouts being largely unsupervised, the temptation is there for football coaches to fret even more than they usually do. When it comes to big-time college sports, out of sight rarely means out of mind. 

“It’s trying to get that structure in a distance environment, where they’re not there every day and you have to rely on their ability to be disciplined on their own and have the intrinsic motivation to do the little things the right way,” Kelly said. “That’s where, for us as coaches, when you don’t have that ability to control some of those factors, it can be a little bit unsettling at times.”

Notre Dame is among the universities that have extended pass/fail opportunities to all spring classes. It remains to be seen if that will include the first summer session, which Notre Dame already has moved online, or how that might impact academic progress for Fighting Irish football players.

Kelly feels fortunate to have Adam Sargent, a former Notre Dame lacrosse player who was paralyzed in a 1997 car accident, heading up the academic support system for his football program. Sargent, associate director of academic services for student-athletes, keeps daily tabs on the 100-plus players (including walk-ons) that Kelly still hopes to have at his disposal once in-person coaching can resume. 

“Adam Sargent has been fabulous in putting together a comprehensive plan for all of our players,” Kelly said. “We’re sharing that plan on a weekly conference call where he is in constant communication with not only our players, but all of our position coaches. This has become much more of a decentralized operation where all of the position coaches are involved with Adam and assisting with any issues that may arise.”

Everything from last-minute changes in class schedules to technical support, including wifi connections and Zoom accounts, is on the table in an ever-shifting target for the department’s troubleshooters. 

Kelly said his assistant coaches “are more involved than they’ve ever been before” in the academic side of things, a development he actually likes. 

“Quite frankly, it’s been really good because it helps build stronger relationships with the players,” Kelly said. “There’s an accountability piece. We can make sure there are no restrictions from an NCAA standpoint that we can’t hold them accountable. It’s been very interactive.” 

Parents have been enlisted as well to keep a close watch on the same young men who had grown accustomed to being off at school and largely on their own. If that makes some student-athletes bristle or feel like they’re back in high school, that’s a small price to pay for continued good health and staying on track academically. 

“This has become much more of a decentralized operation where all of the position coaches are involved with Adam (Sargent) and assisting with any issues that may arise.”

So-called SWAT team leaders at each position group stay engaged with their far-flung teammates as well. That was already part of Notre Dame’s offseason program, but the stay-at-home directive has only increased its importance. 

Taken together, these safeguards are almost enough to soothe the fraying nerves of the most controlling coaches in the land, even someone as detail-oriented as Kelly. 

“We have some really good leadership among our group that really leans on our players relative to our standards and accountability,” he said. “And all of our support staff have done such a great job of monitoring our players. It allows me to at least get some sleep at night.”