Western Kentucky's Mike Sanford defends DeShone Kizer

Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly thinks DeShone Kizer should have remained at school instead of declaring for the draft, but you can put Mike Sanford in the prospect's corner.

Sanford, who was Kizer's offensive coordinator and quarterback coach at Notre Dame before being hired by Western Kentucky as head coach, defended his former pupil Tuesday.

"There's no doubt in my mind DeShone Kizer is ready to be an NFL starting quarterback," the first-year head coach told Chad Bishop of WBKO.

On Monday, Kelly said Kizer "should still be in college" and "the reality of it is he needs more football, he needs more time to grow in so many areas. Not just on the field, but off the field."

Sanford, on the other hand, believes Kizer has what it takes now.

"He's a guy that I think extremely highly of," Sanford said. "I think he has all of the tools to be an incredibly successful quarterback. He's someone who can go out there and do something from the very beginning."

Kizer threw for 2,705 yards and 24 touchdowns to eight interceptions in 2016, while completing just 59.3 percent of his passes. Those numbers were worse than his redshirt freshman season, when he threw for 2,884 yards and completed 63 percent of his passes.

"The thing I think about with DeShone and what's so impressive is the intellect he brings to the game," Sanford said. "We put just an inordinate amount of stuff on his plate and he was able to go out there and make a lot of plays.

"His bandwidth is so broad already, I think he's ready to be an NFL starting quarterback. I've had a chance to be around Andrew Luck at Stanford, same thing - great intellect, body type is durable."

Kizer is expected to be a mid-round pick in April's NFL draft.