If your coaching carousel pool had a box for Clark Lea Defensive Coordinator Notre Dame, and you had that box, congrats – you won! Pete Thamel of Yahoo Sports reports that Brian Kelly will soon end an intense few days of fan base speculation when he promotes Lea to replace the departed Mike Elko.
SOURCES: Notre Dame expected to promote linebacker coach Clark Lea to defensive coordinator.
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) January 9, 2018
The Case for Clark
Lea was the clear continuity choice. Consider:
- 2017 was his third season working with Elko, so he knows the system.
- He has also made a big impression on Irish players and coaches in a short time as an excellent teacher.
- The cherry on the sundae is that he has already proven himself to be a plus recruiter; he was the reason Jack Lamb signed with the Irish a few weeks ago and Jeremiah Owusu flipped to the Irish last cycle. His next recruiting job will be to convince Te’Von Coney, who blossomed under his coaching this year, to stay.
Lea has shown an ability to develop talent as well; not only did Coney emerge this year, but Wake Forest MLB Marquel Lee had a season for the ages in 2016. Lee matched his previous career output in sacks and nearly doubled his career TFLs. Whether Coney comes back or not, Notre Dame will definitely need a couple of young linebackers to step up next year. Keeping Lea around is a good step toward making sure that happens. One of my favorite glimpses of Lea as a coach was in the USC ICON, which included a flashback to a preseason moment between him and Coney. He quietly called Coney over as practice went on. In an almost inaudible tone, he said, “Te’Von, what’s going on today? I feel like I’m not getting your best. Would you agree with that?” It struck me as a true teacher’s approach to his job. Love it.
There’s some concern about readiness, as Lea is in his mid-30’s and hasn’t been a coordinator before. However, there’s no question he’s intelligent and has a great resume otherwise. He holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in political science from Vanderbilt, where he was a two-time All-SEC Academic Team selection. He coached linebackers at UCLA under respected DC Chuck Bullough, then moved to Bowling Green to work with Elko for the first time. He headed to Syracuse to work with with former Jim Harbaugh DC Scott Shafer. He then reunited with Elko at Wake Forest in 2016 before following him to Notre Dame last year. Bullough, Shafer, and Elko are all pretty sharp defensive minds, and all obviously liked Lea. That’s a strong recommendation in itself.
The Rest of the Staff
Mike Elston has now been passed over for the DC job twice, three times if you count BVG’s hire. Will he leave? That’s a tough call. He has to be making good money right now with the recruiting coordinator and assistant head coach titles. I haven’t seen any rumors of anyone else coming after him. He’s been with Brian Kelly for 14 years, and has spent his entire playing and coaching career in Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana. That’s a lot of incentive to stay put. If he leaves, I think it’s more likely he’d leave for a head coaching job than a coordinator job.
There’s also the small matter of replacing Elko’s position responsibility, which was safeties. Given Lea’s youth, Notre Dame should look for an experienced secondary coach to take over the safeties. If he has coordinator experience somewhere in his background, so much the better. This is nearly as critical a hire as the DC position.
History Is On Our Side (Maybe)
What’s that you say? When was the last time Notre Dame promoted a linebacker coach with no coordinator experience? Hm, good question. The answer to that particular bit of trivia is none other than Barry Alvarez, who Lou Holtz kicked upstairs in 1988 when Foge Fazio left for the NFL.
Start making travel plans now, Irish fans. The playoffs await.
How did ND ever let a name like Foge Fazio leave???? That is a name worth backing up the brinks truck for.
Heh. Serafino Dante “Foge” Fazio, according to Wikipedia… His nephew lived down the hall from me at ND while he was the DC for the Vikings. Kid was super proud of Uncle Foge (Zio Foge?), as you might imagine. Good times.
Brendan,
Thanks for this and a good balanced analysis (your style!)
What dorm was that?
I think this is a good choice. I am sure it is hard to call plays the first time, but it is not rocket science. At some point he was going to get a job like this, and if we had passed him over, my guess is he would be on his way to A&M.
I assume this means that none of the ‘proven names’ wanted to move and that Kelly was not sure about some of the less proven. Much of the speculation was on people with one or two years experience, and while more than none, it is hardly proven. I think continuity mattered.
Based on the LBs, we know he can coach. He can clearly recruit. We will find out if he can coordinate.
Well put, and I agree. Plus it seemed like a lot of the “proven names” or up-and-comers were refusing new jobs and sticking put (well, you know, except for Elko) with raises.
I don’t think it was plausible to get Leonhard out of his (and his wife’s) alma mater of Wisconsin, and no one else available from the post last week really moved the needle all too much to me.
Lea seems sharp, and he’s been coaching for 13 years I believe. He ought to know well the system and like you said, we’ll see how well he can coordinate it all himself. It’s a risk since he’s an unknown but I like this hire more than an uninspired veteran guy coming in. Always seems good to me on defense to have youth and energy leading the way.
247’s Barton Simmons says Lea was always the succession plan, and Kelly just kicked the tires on a few other guys to make sure he was comfortable engaging the succession plan sooner than expected.
I don’t know if there’s a real connection, but Simmons and Lea were in grad school at Vandy at the same time. It’s possible they know each other.
It feels like that is true. i came here expecting this discussion to already be happening. The way Kelly announced Elko’s departure just seemed like it was inevitable. Just a few years ago BK grumpily said none of his coaches better leave for another job unless it’s a promotion. i was a little shocked that this time around he sounded like Elko leaving was just part of the plan.
If Elston is fully on board as a career assistant (with the other duties his experience allows) then Lea could be a great hire. Combine him with another secondaries coach and this defense just might keep progressing without much of a hiccup.
I think he said something like they better not interview for lateral moves. He mentioned they better get the other job because they would lose the current one. I think this was in reference to him “being happy” when coaches leave for bigger jobs.
Alford and Elko are the only two I can think of who ended up doing a lateral move, but there are probably others as well.
Good deal – I found this video of Lea with Martini from the spring pretty enlightening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTIvLuACEjk
He seems to be a terrific person, character-wise, for ND – really loves to teach, greatly appreciates the academic value of ND, and is super family-oriented.Football-wise, he’s high upside – clearly a bright guy, knows Elko’s scheme (which is pretty proven at this point), and puts a lot of effort and thought into recruiting. There’s a chance it falls apart since he hasn’t been the man in charge of his own defense before, but I’m giving this one a thumbs up.
That video is great. Seems like a good dude.
So who else do we hire? Can we give TFR double the salary to coach safeties and QBs? He ought to be fairly familiar with Safeties as he completed quite a few passes to them.
I lol’d. Take your upvote.
Tommy… NOOOOO….!!!!
On somewhat the note of QB coaches and safeties….those of you who caught the end of the NCG, any of you shaking your head like I was that A. A true freshman QB with minimal garbage time this season could come in and lead a come back in the NC-freakingG and B. in his post-game interview, could talk through how he was looking off the safety to keep him to the right side of the field so he could come back left and make that deep throw for the TD? If you watch the replay, he did all that in milliseconds. Now, I know that Tua Tagovailoa was a 5-star kid and there’s been talk of him replacing Hurts all season, but still–this is why I just laugh when someone says “Well, Wimbush is only a first year starter, give him time….” 3 YEARS IN THE SYSTEM and NOPE. Meanwhile, Bama’s bringing a kid in off the bench that can completely change their offense and lead them from behind in the NCG, as a true freshman. I hate them so much.
It’s certainly not the same thing, but we brought in a RS freshman in our bowl game after getting shut out for nearly a half, and he led us to 21 points in 32 minutes against a really good SEC defense. Both played pretty well although still had freshman-worthy INTs. Even did the “looking off the safety” thing for the game-winning TD:
https://twitter.com/jamieuyeyama/status/948633644578488320
Well played.
It would have been pretty funny if that horrible sack he took the play before the TD knocked them out of field goal range and cost them the game though. The second guessing Saban would have been getting from the media would have been hilarious.
I was hoping…I was sooo hoping…
Reminds me of the time we brought a redshirt freshman into an away game we were losing and this was the result:
Except that was an injury, not the deliberate choice to bench a guy who had won SEC offensive player of the year and led you to a 26-2 record.
Are you going for a Doctorate in Medieval Japanese Accounting Rules??? No! Don’t get hung so up on details. Banzai!!!!!
What Head coach has the balls to sub in a true freshman? Only Saban. Any other coach is thinking about the media shitstorm that would follow if they lose the game. Saban is only thinking about how to win the game.
This is the right move if you truly believe in what Elko was building at ND. At the end of the day, I’m sure Kelly thought that hiring another DC with a different system from the one he just invested heavily in was only going to hurt the defense.
It would’ve been nice to have a Grinch or a Kwiatowski, but those transitions would’ve come with growing pains and the program can’t afford another overhaul with next year’s schedule looming. With upwards of nine starters coming back, establishing a baseline level of competence and continuity is the best option.
Works for me. It’ll be an interesting next 6 days for Irish football waiting on the rest of the draft decisions and the official announcements from the staff, but this is a good place to start.
Two things – (1) I hope that Elston sticks around as he seems good with the d-line and with recruiting. (2) Any thoughts on who the new safeties coach is going to be? Let’s hope for a dynamo recruiter
Jacob Eason transferring to UW. Knew it’d be a longshot, but my hope never really died until now. Oh well. Jurky boys for life.
https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/uw-husky-football/sources-georgia-qb-jacob-eason-the-former-lake-steven-star-expected-to-transfer-to-uw/
Is he even good? The one season he played his stats were pretty similar to Wimbush. Then he got passed up by a true freshman. Fromm turned out to be good, but he wasn’t a world beater early in the season. Not sure Eason would be much of an improvement.
Eason might also be slightly less mobile than Tommy Rees. Not a fit for the system at all.
Elston appears to be staying. That’s a big win – https://twitter.com/NDFootball/status/950867564644638720
Promoted from Assistant HC to Associate HC. Let the Office jokes commence…
One would assume he got another pay bump, and will be further involved in taking off-field stuff off Kelly’s plate. Wouldn’t be surprised to see him take a MAC HC job in another year or two.
The ISD guys (I think it was them) said they thought Elston would be in line for a MAC level job without being a coordinator–that he’s well known and liked enough that he could get that in the next cycle or two. Their prediction was that if he left to get a DC job, it was because he was aiming higher than that.
Directional Michigan, here he comes!
(Which, good for him, but glad he’ll be around for 2018 at least)
Very happy with his promotion. I dont think there will be any steps backward from a x and o point of view. He should know this system like the back of his hand and the work he put into Coney should speak for itself. Coney went from a backup to a monster and every Irish fan is praying to Touchdown Jesus that Coney returns (Tillery to). My only concern is recruiting. I dont know how good he is or how good he can be. I had the exact same concerns with Elko last year. Elko was a beast out there and he really attacked recruiting and we will need the same from Lea. We have the opportunity to have a better class in the 2019 cycle compared to this one and Lea will have to deliver like Elko did.
One possiblyfactor here. When you promote a young guy to be a first time coordinator, he will probably stay in that role for awhile. Probably won’t get poached for $$, like Elko, or get grabbed for a HC gig. I wonder if all this is planning on Elston leaving next year anyway for a MAC job.
Good for Elston with the promotion and presumably pay raise. Wasn’t Jeff Burris on staff a while back as a grad assistant? Did he stay in coaching? Perhaps he could join Lyght in the defensive backfield.
Burris is coaching DBs at Northern Iowa, I believe. And yes, he was a GA under Kelly a couple of years ago. I like him and I think he’s worth keeping an eye on, but I’d rather get someone on the other end of his career, preferably with DC experience.
I’ve seen DeWayne Walker’s name mentioned. Walker is currently the secondary coach for the Browns, and was the UCLA DC in 2006 when Lea started his coaching career there as a GA. He left UCLA for the head job at New Mexico State, then left the Aggies in 2013 for the NFL. He’s supposedly a plus recruiter and has a great reputation as a coach.
“but I’d rather get someone on the other end of his career, preferably with DC experience.”
Always making it so complicated, Brendan. Get whichever one is going to coach the safeties to make the interception play. Just like we should always hire an OC who calls nothing but the touchdown play!
“Just like we should always hire an OC who calls nothing but the touchdown play!”
^Rookie mistake. Gotta give the D some rest. Call the TD play every 3rd play. (The other 2 calls are obviously QB kneels and then take the delay of game penalties, just for the extra rest for the defense.)
I have not seen anyone’s name mentioned. If he would come, he would be a good choice. If he is at the Browns, he is used to dealing with players with no talent so ND will be a step up. I like that he knows Lea. It would kind of be like Diaco with Elliott. I did not think Walker was all that old. There are very few ‘overqualified’ coaches out there.
I do get worried about NFL coaches though. There was a reason he went to the NFL. Perhaps he hated recruiting, perhaps it was money, perhaps it was dealing with 20 year olds. I know assistants go back and forth a little more fluidly than HCs do so perhaps it was nothing.
As you can probably tell, I am a little partial to alums. They have been to ND, they get it and they can communicate their love for the place. Coming back speaks to that love. Unlike Rees, who I think will be a good coach in time, Burris has college coaching experience and has NFL playing experience. He knows what it takes to get there, and I think players relate to that. I assume he can recruit.
As a warning, when Elston leaves, I would support Bryant Young, if he is still coaching. Same reservation as with Walker though if he has moved to the NFL.
Bryant Young would be awesome, but he just started coaching the DL for the Falcons. Unless he gets fired, can’t see him coming here.
I really wish Aaron Taylor had gotten into coaching. He’s got great charisma on TV and I bet he would have been a helluva recruiter. And we need an OL coach.
There is an ND alumn who has both worked for BK, currently coaches secondary in college (at Larry Bird’s alma mater), and took Spanish with me: Mo Crum Jr. Sign him up!
ND is killing it with analysts, announcers, etc. Why can’t these smart, talented, charismatic guys go into coaching so they can eventually come back and lead us to the promised land! One downside of ND is that players get damn good jobs once they leave football. Makes getting paid peanuts to be a GA or HS assistant look pretty unappealing.
Rumors starting to pick up steam now that Harry Hiestand might be Bears bound to be their o-line coach. This offseason sucks
You can’t blame teams for trying to get Harry. ND needs to step up to the plate with this one.
Iirc Hiestand rejected NFL offers last year, but if he stays it’s going to be because he wants to stay. Colleges and NFL teams are too far apart on upper OLine coach salaries for ND to compete in a $ competition. But I would hope that ND would offer a raise at least as a sign of their desire to keep Hiestand, even if they don’t match any proposed NFL salaries.
This one really sucks. He has been a stud. Also means we lose any chance at getting Petit-Frere. And yet another coach we need to hire this year. I’ve secretly been hoping we are still looking for an actual 10th assistant (or 11th or however many at this point) over TFR.
God I hate ND offseasons. Why is a 10-3 team getting decimated like this? Shouldn’t NFL teams be hiring Clemson, or Bama, or OU’s coaches? Well maybe not OU’s DC. Hey Bears, go hire the Badger’s OL coach.
ISD is reporting that Hiestand is taking the job with the bears. Oh woe is me. Anytime this team finds success, a thousand fleas attack them and begin dragging them back down.
I’m starting to believe all of the Negative Nacys out there that are predicting the end of the BK era. It certainly looks like the assistant coaches are seeing it.
NFL pays more than college and Hiestand’s losing the 2 best players in his group. Easy to see this being independent of the current status of ND, it makes total sense for him to make one more run at the NFL, especially since he’s no spring chicken.
Elko, meh, the Fisher situation isn’t one anyone could have predicted but it did seem like Kelly and ND expected Elko to go somewhere after a short period and had Lea in the wings. If Lea refused the ND DC spot and tagged along with Elko, that would be a sinking ship scenario.
Could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Coaches think they see better stability somewhere else, so they leave, so ND becomes unstable, making the perceived improved stability true.
Perception IS reality, maaaaan.
Individually, both of these guys will be making more money than they would at ND. BUT both are still leaving. Jumping ship doesn’t look good, doesn’t help attract new top tier talent (coaches or players), and won’t help 2018 when BK will be criticized for anything short of 11 wins.
Don’t forget: not only is it more $, it’s also not having to recruit.
Elko gushed about A&M, saying he took the job in part because he wanted to compete for a championship. That one stings.
Yeah, OK. A&M was a lot farther away from the playoff than we were. They’re not getting past Alabama, at least not while Saban is still there. Then there’s that small matter of Auburn and LSU, and Ole Miss and Mississippi State manage to be just good enough to occasionally wreck your season.
He went to A&M for one reason. $$$$$$
Yeah, he has to say that, but anyone who even remotely follows college football knows aTm has never been closer than ND to winning a championship. ND has been closer to a national championship than aTm has been to a conference championship.
A&M’s one good year this century, ND went to the NC game, and even after Bama finished ranked higher in the Coaches and AP. And JFF was not even a great QB, he was mediocre against the SEC (8 pass td, 8 rush td, 5 int) and incredible against joke teams (16 pass td, 11 rush td, 3 int)**.
aTm since 2000:
1 ten win season, 3 nine win seasons
same number of DIVISION titles as ND and Harbaugh with 0
finished the season ranked 3 times!
1 top 15 finish (#5 in 2012)
ND has more ACC basketball championships (in what, 4 years?) than aTm has division titles since 2000.
**I’m still bitter about the JFF Heisman.
Feels good to rant a bit.
Nice post.
What would you expect him to say? “I came here because you guys offered me a literal truck-load of money – Guaranteed! I can pick my nose for the next three years and you’ll still be paying me, sucka!.” OR “”I came here to win championships!!!”
I know which of those statements seems more likely to be truly true…
Listen! We’re not just doing this for money!
We’re doing it for a *(pant) load* of money!
2018 so far:
Few important things to note here…
1) As Scarponi said, the NFL pays a LOT more to its position coaches, and the rumor is the Bears are about to make Harry the highest-paid OL coach in the league. The final number might be somewhere around $1.5M.
2) ND did reportedly ante up to try to keep him, they weren’t being cheap. But that money is just off the scale for college.
3) With his prior service time, Hiestand can put in a few more years and get a league pension. That’s a really big deal.
4) His youngest is currently a high school senior – there’s no family reason left to stick around South Bend.
Supposedly NFL teams have come after him pretty much every offseason, so I’m sure Kelly knew this would happen eventually.
Apparently, hen he came Kelly knew he would go back to the NFL at some point to finish his career. HH was up front about that. He wanted the rest of his NFL service time pension. Ofcourse, it must be one heckuva pension if you want that on top of $1.5MM per.
As you note, this 100% makes sense for Hiestand, but a major bummer nonetheless.
Another major bummer is the seeming inevitability of Jack Swarbrick using all this turnover to explain why BK will continue as coach after an 8-4 season.
This is sooo OT — but doesn’t anyone want tp chat about the Natty? I would love to hear some of your expert analysis stuff.
I kinda felt bad for Georgia, I sort of bonded with all their fans sitting around me back at the game in September (seems like forever ago)… and I was REALLY wanting the evil genius to lose that game yesterday. (Remember, I am from the era when Bear Bryant was 1 and 5 against us; this current state of affairs feels so… wrong.
Hiestand to Da Bears. This is going to be another patented ND Offseason of Pain(tm, all rights reserved, copyright MMXVIII)
The downvote is because i lost control and shot the messenger….sorry ’bout that.
I think E should do a post outlining the top 10 worst off-seasons for ND. This could be a legit series to cover all the horribleness that happens to us every year.
This is a great idea for Irish people who love suffering. And any Russian ND fans as well