Notre Dame Fighting Irish

Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly shares film evaluation of QB Malik Zaire

Published Sep. 8, 2015 11:00 p.m. ET

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Malik Zaire impressed the college football world Saturday with the way he led the Notre Dame offense against Texas, but what did Fighting Irish coach Brian Kelly see when he reviewed film of the junior's performance? 

"Well, there's a lot of things we like, but I would probably default back to the old adage that, when you watch film with us," Kelly said Tuesday during a press conference in South Bend, "it's never as good as you think, and it's never quite as bad.

"So the days that he's getting heaps and heaps of praise, there's a lot of things we've got to work on. And the days where he's getting a lot of blame, it probably wasn't all on him. I think it falls more towards he did a lot of really good things, but there's a lot of room for growth and improvement there." 

Zaire was nearly flawless against the Longhorns, completing 19 of 22 passes for 313 yards and three touchdowns. His completion percentage of 86.4 ranks No. 2 in school history for a single game, and that was what Kelly liked the most. 

"I think (his accuracy) was probably the best," Kelly said. "The thing that we need to work on is some fundamentals in the running game need to improve, and some communication things with protection and obviously with cadence."

As well as Zaire threw it, he only ended up with 16 yards rushing on nine carries. Both numbers were surprisingly low for a player considered a dual-threat quarterback. 

"He should have been nine carries for 60, 70 yards, maybe more," Kelly said. "There's a lot of room for improvement in there. He's very capable. He knows where he needs to get better in that. So the fundamentals of working in his reads, and it's all very correctible and things that we'll get straightened out this week." 

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