“Let me tell you how that plays out in the locker room. This is racial.
"Now, let me go here- you know I don’t like to play the race card. When you see a black coach undermined on the sidelines, when he’s a coach with authority over those players, they’re going to say, ‘Hmm. there are very few images and likenesses of a black player with the position of authority on the coaching staff. very few.’
"And when you see one treated like that, your imagination starts to take over and say, ‘Brian Kelly, we tried to respect all of you guys on a level playing field, despite the fact that most of us on the field are black, but then most of you on the sidelines are white.’
"But when you undermine one of the few figures that we can actually see a likeness, now that speaks volumes to those players towards a negative play.
“If you’re going to show us that there’s a divide between what you think of us or what you think of a black coach, because I guarantee you, if he thought that coach was of his equal, he would not go out there with the one-arm chokehold,” Wiley said.
Kelly said he regrets the sideline confrontation with assistant coach David Grimes during a 24-20 victory at Temple.
"I wish the situation never occurred. I regret that it happened.
"David and I have met about the situation. We've moved past it.
"Our sideline was not where it needed to be. There were some things going on on the sideline that were unacceptable It falls on my shoulders.
"It's not what we're about. It's not who we are. It won't happen again," Kelly said about the incident.
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