"Let's go to work, young man," Kelly replied, staring Wenger in the eyes just as the mob all but swallowed him again.

At that point, Kelly still had any number of hands to shake and interviews left to do, but it was clear that the place he most wanted to be was on the practice field. And if he'd scheduled a workout for Friday afternoon, it sounds like the Irish players would have dropped everything to join him.

"I could definitely tell he was fired up, and it fired me up to see how excited he was," said defensive tackle Ethan Johnson.

Kelly was so excited about being at Notre Dame he didn't even use most of the notes his media consultant gave him for his opening speech, preferring instead to "speak from the heart."

It was the same way during his first meeting with the players Friday morning. Kelly stepped in front of the team with a "serious face," according to receiver Michael Floyd, then cracked a few jokes to lighten the mood.

Friday wasn't the day for team-building activities or in-depth discussions of strategy. Kelly only had one point to make to his new team: "If you're not passionate about what you do and how you do it, you probably won't connect with me."

The players got the message.

"That really stuck out a lot to me," said defensive end Kapron Lewis-Moore. "I definitely want to get along with the head coach, but I know I have passion for the game. Not only me, but I think we have 105 guys who are very passionate about the game, so I think it's going to be a really good transition."

From his perspective, Kelly saw a group that was hungry to win.

"You do not come to the University of Notre Dame because you want to be average. You want to be the best of the best. And that's why I'm here. It inspires me to be around young men like I had in front of me today," Kelly said. "Now, we're going to have our good days and bad days, but we start with that premise -- that you can tell these young men, they want to win."

Winning has been Kelly's trademark, and next to his passion, his résumé is all the players have to go on right now. That résumé includes a pair of Division II national championships, two BCS appearances at Cincinnati and this season's national coach of the year award.

"He's a guy that cares about winning," said quarterback Dayne Crist, who said his rehab from a knee injury is going well enough that he could participate in spring practice. "He wants to win at every level, every day and every snap, and I think that's what we got with Coach Kelly."

Lewis-Moore called Kelly's arrival a "shot of life in the program."

"A lot of people are more optimistic, just because we have a coach and he seems optimistic and he says he's got a plan," Johnson said. "I'm excited to see what it is."