Earlier in July when the SEC’s head coaches visited ESPN’s headquarters, one of the bigger stories emerged when Missouri head coach Gary Pinkel said no independents — such as Notre Dame — should be allowed in the College Football Playoff.

“Give Notre Dame a year to join a league,” Pinkel said. “They don’t have independents in the NFL.”

Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly has kept mum about the criticism, but he responded Wednesday when he jumped on the Rich Eisen Show. Eisen pointed out to Kelly what Pinkel said in July, and Kelly responded.

“You know, our situation is that we don’t play any 1-AA teams,” Kelly said. “I think that when they decide to not play any 1-AA teams then maybe we can be on an equal footing.

“We’re going to play teams that give us a quality schedule, and that’s all really that we can control from year-in and year-out. We’ll continue to have a robust schedule, and those are the 12 games we’ll have. And when we measure up our schedules, I think ours stands up pretty good.”

Kelly has good timing for his criticism after Missouri just won its opening-week game against Southeast Missouri State, a 1-AA opponent.

Eisen pointed out that Kelly isn’t playing the “sisters of the cupcake poor.”

“If you look at the schedule they play and the schedule we play, the number of snaps we’re going to have to put on our football team are going to be many more than their football team will have to expend.”

You can watch Kelly’s complete interview on the Rich Eisen Show here.