NEW YORK -- Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly was disappointed when Manti Te'o slipped out of the first round in the 2013 NFL Draft.
Kelly got encouragement on the matter from Te'o himself.
"What I like about him is when I talked to him this morning, he made me feel good," Kelly told Around The League shortly after Te'o was taken by the San Diego Chargers in the second round Friday. "He said, 'Coach, don't worry about it. This thing's going to be over, I'm going to get on a team and we'll let my football speak for itself.' That was good to hear."
Kelly called the Chargers a "great fit" for Te'o.
"He comes in with a new head coach, no pre-conceived notions, everybody in there is going to pull their own weight," he said. "It couldn't have worked out better for him."
NFL '13 DRAFT XTRA
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We asked Kelly about the perception by some that Te'o's lack of speed will keep him from being a three-down linebacker at the next level. It's a critique Kelly dismisses out of hand.
"I've never seen somebody run a 4.6 to the curl," he said. "You gotta know where receivers are, you gotta be instinctual, you gotta feel things. He's got that part down.
"The combine is all science. He brings the art part to it, and the art part is pretty good."
Follow Dan Hanzus on Twitter @DanHanzus.