Notre Dame won't consider controversial player fines

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The fining of unpaid college football players via their cost of attendance payouts generated plenty of national buzz this week, but Notre Dame won't be joining Cincinnati and Virginia Tech in levying monetary discipline to its players.

Coach Brian Kelly said on Friday's edition of "The Dan Patrick Show" that Notre Dame won't consider levying a fine if a player misses class, commits an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty or doesn't keep a clean dorm room (among the transgressions Virginia Tech was willing to fine players for until its athletic director shut down that disciplinary policy).

"It’s not something in my 26 years that I felt is something I would do," Kelly said. "I have a ton of respect for coach (Frank) Beamer, he’s been in the business longer than anybody and I would never question anything he does. I just know that for me, it’s so hard on these kids financially, especially my guys here at Notre Dame, they do not have that kind of money.

"We try behavior modification … getting up early for study table on Sunday and we think that if you have to get up early at 5 o'clock or 6 o'clock on a Sunday morning after Saturday then you will start to make sure you don’t skip class."

Even as Virginia Tech took plenty of national heat for its fining policy, Cincinnati coach Tommy Tuberville told ESPN he would consider withholding some cost of attendance money to discipline players. Cincinnati's athletic director, unlike Virginia Tech's Whit Babcock, supported the policy.

[MORE: Nic Weishar emerging as key part of Notre Dame’s TE rotation]

Kelly said Notre Dame's cost of attendance payouts are between $1,800-$1,900 to players, and doesn't view it as the first step toward paying players with a salary (though it's fair to wonder how a program could fine a player it technically still doesn't pay).

“I think it gives them truly what the cost of attending it is relative to transportation costs,” Kelly said. “It’s really about transportation costs. But it’s still about college kids.

"I’m looking at our budget right now and probably 30 percent of our kids don’t even have the money that was allocated to them because they didn’t bring back library books, they got parking tickets, they didn’t turn in their keys. They got all kinds of charges on their student account, so that $900 they were going to get is like $150 right now. Typical college. You didn’t pay your bills and that stipend check is now $150. I don’t think it’s going any further than cost of attendance and I think that that’s where it should be.”

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