For the third time in four days, Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly backed Everett Golson as his starting quarterback.

And the third-year coach again reiterated the desire to have Golson finish games.

But Kelly also pointed out Tuesday that the quarterback situation at Notre Dame is different than any he encountered during his 22-year career.

"The circumstances are different in that you have a veteran quarterback that has been down that road before, and you have a guy that's trying to get there and somebody who is already there," Kelly said during his afternoon news conference.

"So I don't know that I've quite had a situation where I've had a guy … you know, generally, my stops along the way, you didn't have enough scholarships for three guys on scholarship at quarterback. So No. 2 was not a better option than No. 1 under any circumstances.

"It's just a little bit different that we have somebody with that experience here at Notre Dame and came in and filled in quite well. We don't want to break the game down to starter, middle relief and closer. We want one guy to start it and finish it."

Though Kelly said he wants Golson to start and finish games, Michigan State's defense will be prepared if the Irish change quarterbacks.

Kelly went to Tommy Rees, who started 12 games last season, to run the game-winning drive against Purdue last weekend.

"I think we go against a lot of versatile quarterbacks like (Michigan's) Denard Robinson, who can get out of the pocket and make things happen, similar to how Golson is," Michigan State linebacker Max Bullough said. "Obviously, we played against Tommy Rees last year, so we know what he can do.

"Their offense is set up for each of those guys to do something when they are in there, so it's just knowing what they are going to do and handle that information."