“He came in yesterday and informed me that he had made a decision,” Kelly told a gaggle of reporters. “This was not a two-way conversation, this was a one-way conversation.”
Evans didn’t give Kelly a specific reason.
“You’d have to ask him. Maybe he just didn’t like the hot weather that we have here up in South Bend,” Kelly joked. “Not a specific reason other than I don’t think he saw himself fitting in the offense.”
Kelly didn’t try to talk Evans out of leaving.
“I am not really good at talking anybody out of staying with a football team,” he said. “I’ve just never been down that road. I’ll point out some things that I think it’s important to point out. But I don’t know that my role really is to talk somebody out of quitting, but maybe pointing out, ‘Have you considered this?’”
He also makes sure that the player has talked to his family about the decision.
“If they haven’t talked to their family, that’s a red flag for me,” said Kelly. “He said he did, he’s talked to his family about it and that’s why we wish him the best.”
Kelly is disappointed by the loss.
“I’m disappointed anytime we lose a player that we’ve invested a lot of time and effort with,” he said. “We’ve coached him, we spent a lot of time on his development, Coach Longo all summer. Anytime you lose a player, there’s a disappointment that it didn’t work out. Sometimes those decisions are ones that we won’t be able to really understand. Maybe in five or ten years, you look back on it and go, ‘That was a great decision’ or ‘That was a poor decision.’
“I’ve been doing it for 20 years and anytime a player leaves, it’s disappointing.”
The staff believed that Evans had the potential to be a contributor.
“We were happy with his development and he was moving in the right direction,” said Kelly. “It was going to take a little bit longer, and sometimes that's the difference today when we're in a society of, ‘Hey, I want it now. I’ve got to have it right now.’ He was coming along. He clearly was settling in at the Z position. As you know, we moved him around quite a bit.”
Evans was not one of the six receivers listed on Notre Dame’s depth chart heading into the Purdue game. Theo Riddick and Robby Toma were listed as one and two at the Z spot.
“He’s still a young receiver developing,” Kelly said. “He was better suited in the slot position for us and Theo Riddick was outstanding. (Riddick) clearly had a skill level that we felt could put him in a position to play right away. It would be easy for me to say (Evans) just needed to be patient, but he didn't see it that way and I don't know that it was anything that he couldn't do, maybe some were able to move a little bit quicker along the process.”
Notre Dame will grant Evans’ release.
“He’s a West Coast kid, I think he’d like to go back to the West Coast and be closer to his family,” said Kelly. “We’ll release him to whatever school he chooses that is the right fit for him.”
