SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Notre Dame players told athletic director Jack Swarbrick the program needed a high-energy leader who was passionate about winning and Fighting Irish football.

Players believe they got what they were looking for when Brian Kelly was introduced Friday as the new coach of the Fighting Irish.

"We could have went out and played a game right after we had our meeting" tight end Kyle Rudolph said. "His passion went throughout the whole meeting room, from us to everyone else in there. We went to breakfast and everyone kept talking about it, kept talking about it. I feel like everyone is very excited."

The word Irish players kept using to describe Kelly was passionate.

"His passion was very contagious. That's the biggest thing I took from him at this point," said Dayne Crist, the only Irish quarterback on scholarship after Jimmy Clausen announced he would enter the NFL draft. "But there's a lot of getting to know each other involved. I'm very excited to get that started. We have a lot of work to do."

Kelly was 34-6 at Cincinnati, winning nearly half as many games in three seasons as coach of the Bearcats as the Irish did for the entire decade (70-52). He has just one losing season in 19 seasons as a head coach. The Irish have five during the same span.