Robert Saleh ‘feels terrible’ about unflattering…

Robert Saleh would like to clarify – he didn’t mean to rip Brian Kelly.

A story the Jets coach told ESPN about he and Matt LaFleur being asked to shovel Kelly’s driveway while working for him as a grad assistant at Central Michigan went viral on Tuesday. After Kelly’s unceremonious exit at Notre Dame, it served as another example of Kelly treating people poorly.

Not so, according to Saleh.

“I feel terrible because that whole thing was taken out of context,” Saleh said Wednesday morning. “When you’re coming up in this profession, part of that article was to tell a funny story of Matt and I as GAs. Part of being a GA — every single coach in this profession, there’s a rite of passage when you’re a GA, a [quality control coach], and that was a funny story and not an indictment on how Brian treated us. Brian’s a phenomenal man.”

Saleh even said that he tried to go back and work for Kelly when he first got the Notre Dame job. LaFleur did go back and work for Kelly, as Notre Dame’s quarterbacks coach in 2014.

Kelly has been under fire after leaving South Bend for LSU just a week after saying it would take a “fairy godmother” offer for him to do so. According to a video that leaked Wednesday morning, he spoke to Notre Dame for just a few minutes and didn’t take questions from the team after the news leaked.

Still, Saleh holds him in high regard.

“There’s a reason why Matt went back and worked for him, there’s a reason why I tried to go back and work for him,” Saleh said. “He’s a really good man, he treats people the right way. I know people are probably upset with him now and there’s never a right way to do things of that nature. I’m always one of his biggest fans.”