Notre Dame University football coach Brian Kelly is under fire for failing to land an age-old coaching joke about team execution Sunday night on national TV, but he blasted back at questions from those who might not have gotten the joke.
After his Fighting Irish withstood an 18-point, second-half rally by Florida State for a 41-38 victory in overtime, Kelly was asked by ABC sideline reporter Katie George about his team's fortune.
"I'm in favor of execution," Kelly told George during an on-field postgame interview. "Maybe our entire team needs to be executed after tonight.
"We just didn't execute very well."
Kelly's off-the-cuff quip was a play on former Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach John McKay's 1976 joke, when he was asked about his team's execution in a loss.
"I'm in favor of it," McKay famously joked.
When asked about the reference – which is likely older than many people covering the game or criticizing it on social media – Kelly had to give context for his intended punch line.
"It's an old John McKay quote," Kelly told reporters. "I was kidding. It was tongue-in-cheek. It wasn't funny?
"I was talking and making a joke about it. It was taken serious? Are you people crazy?"
Kelly blasted back cancel-culture defiance to ESPN.
"It's a John McKay quote that he used after a game," Kelly said. "I was stealing one of his old quotes and being funny, because nobody likes to be funny anymore. If you want to take me to town on that, please do."