This is Irish Hill Street Insider.

I'm Tim Preister with Tim O'Malley.

We thought Pete Sampson was going to join us, but he's trying to get a story out at Notre Dame and has fallen low behind.

So we expect to have him on Friday's podcast.

We just had an opportunity to speak with Brian Kelly, Notre Dame's first practice after about a 10-day break from spring practice, just the fourth of the spring inside.

It's definitely turning nicer, warmer here, so we expect to be outside coming up for these open practices.

But Tim, Brian Kelly, just what stood out from you today in his conversation with the media.

I think the important thing would be linebacker remains completely open to the point where Kelly's comfortable talking about how completely open it is.

He did say, and this is something, it took well from to get there, but he did mention Balal twice. And I think that's crucial because I know everyone we're all trying to replace Asmar Balal, but he is the senior that started 13 games last year. It's a different position, but most people think it's a better position. I don't think it's a great sign if Asmar Balal can't win one of these jobs because they're young. Just because they're young doesn't mean they're not going to have warts you don't know about yet. We just happen to know his. Yeah, and he's played the position before, at least he played the old Will linebacker before Mike Elko came in and Clark Lee ran with the buck, and Brian Kelly still refers to the position as Will.

He did today. But, yeah, I think you're right. Bilal is, you know, I thought it was interesting that he paired up Below with Jordan Jim Arkeith. Now, we thought both of them were buck linebackers. So that gives you an indication that, you know, they're trying to mix a match and they're trying a bunch of different things. but that, you know, trying to get the best player on the field.

He also mentioned Belal and Bo Bauer together, so that would mean Bauer at Mike and probably Jordan Jim Arkeith at Mike. So it's interesting to hear that. I fully understand, you know, we as the media and fans, we want to hear, we want to know a depth chart. We want to know who's

going to be starting in the fall. When you're a coaching staff, especially at this stage of

the spring, it's the last thing from your mind, especially with guys that haven't started that

haven't really played. So it's understandable. It's fine. You're working on the fundamentals.

At least he threw out a couple names that we can cling to a little bit and say,

okay, those guys make sense as potential front runners at the two inside positions.

On the other side of the ball, I think Tony Jones is probably Brian Kelly's highlight.

I think that they're getting consistency out of their senior runner.

I also think when he says Tony Jones is impressing him the most,

I believe it comes from the baseline where Tony Jones was.

In other words, I think he looks at Jafar Armstrong was way above that as a practice player coming in.

So Jafar Armstrong might not be impressing him the most in terms of how a coach looks at it.

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