Your weekly dose of Notre Dame news, opinion, and other stuff.
Top News
Notre Dame has made the hiring of offensive line coach Harry Hiestand and wide receivers coach Chansi Stuckey official this past Monday as both were immediately on the road hitting the recruiting trail. A day later, the Irish made defensive line coach Al Washington official, as well.
Former Rainbow Warriors player Timmy Chang (2000-04) has been hired as the new head coach at Hawaii.
Derek Mason stepped down as the defensive coordinator at Auburn and was hired by Oklahoma State.
The Ravens are expected to hire Mike Macdonald from Michigan for their defensive coordinator position.
Notre Dame alum and current NC State athletic director Boo Corrigan has moved up to become the chair of the College Football Playoff Committee.
The Big Ten is thinking about eliminating its 2 divisions and dropping down to only 8 conference games per season, especially if College Football Playoff expansion happens in the future.
Uniform of the Week
I recently discovered that Arizona State has worn a style of uniform in recent years that they have dubbed “Froze Gold” and no I’m not kidding. The picture embedded below is from their 2020 game at Oregon State. The one thing that jumps out is the white logo and stripe on the yellow helmet. It really makes it hard to see, and I noticed when the Sun Devils went “Froze Gold” again at Washington this year they didn’t repeat this mistake and added maroon outline.
I don’t understand Arizona State’s approach to their uniforms. They have a couple really iconic features (Sparky logo, their yellow/maroon/yellow home uniform, etc.) and while they still use these on occasion they are a program that I’d recommend gets back to basics a lot more for their brand. A cardinal sin for me is that you should know the team immediately when you look at their uniform (even if it’s an alternate) and that is definitely not the case in the photo above.
Recruiting
Quarterback Jackson Arnold (0.9664) was supposed to be a top priority for Notre Dame but following a visit to Norman he’s committed to Oklahoma.
One of the nation’s top tight ends Luke Hasz (0.9739) committed to Arkansas.
Harold Perkins, the top linebacker recruit for 2022, has left Texas A&M’s class.
Georgia receiver Jermaine Burton beat Alabama in the National Championship and is now headed west to play for the Tide in 2022.
USC picked up transfers from Oregon running back Travis Dye (1,271 yards and 16 TD last year) and Stanford running back Austin Jones, plus Alabama linebacker Shane Lee and Auburn edge rusher Romello Height.
Brian Kelly and LSU added corner Jarrick Bernard-Converse from Oklahoma State.
Former Virginia Tech quarterback Braxton Burmeister has landed at San Diego State.
UNLV quarterback (and former top 50 recruit) Justin Rogers is in the Portal for the second time after initially transferring from TCU in 2020.
YouTube Channel
No lie, when I die I really, really, really hope that part of the deal is that we get to go back and look at anything from history in vivid detail. I’ve always been fascinated with the Roman Empire and that would be one of my top spots to look at “live” so to speak.
Not that I’d love seeing people kill each other specifically, more so just the spectacle of these massive ancient armies and how they moved and operated. I was once reading a book about an important Roman battle (I can’t remember which one) and it went into painstaking detail about how long it took to finish because of the amount of people, slowed down by bloody mud and dead bodies everywhere, with everyone getting ridiculously tired. We’ve had decades of Hollywood and TV shows glorifying these ancient battles when I feel like many of them were probably chaotically stupid and almost amusing to watch unfold.
Tunes
I was a touch too young to appreciate Alice in Chains during their prime which let’s call the period when they were touring off their wildly successful 2nd album Dirt in 1992-93. In fact, I really missed all of the great early grunge rock (specifically Pearl Jam) and wouldn’t dive deep into these types of artists until about 1998 or so. In retrospect, I’ve always found Alice in Chains a fascinating band.
You have an obvious heavier metal sound mixed with a more quieter and softer guitar tone. Obviously, Layne Staley’s voice is out of this world, so one-of-a-kind, and carries so much of their work. Plus, the harmonies! My goodness, AIC was such an unicorn band.
Trivia (answer at the bottom of the article)
Notre Dame has played 12 games against a team that would eventually finish No. 1 in the AP Poll but has won only one of those games. Who was the opponent and which year?
The Other Football
The United States Men’s Team got past El Salvador 1-0 on Thursday night in Columbus to stay 1 point behind Canada atop the CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying table. The Americans will face the Canadians on Sunday afternoon in Hamilton for a chance at 1st place.
In transfer news, young Serbian star striker Dusan Vlahovic spurns a sure move to the Premier League this window (or summer) in favor of a transfer from Fiorentina to Juventus for $80 million that is in final stages of being completed. Also, Manchester United forward Anthony Martial is headed out on loan to Sevilla.
Sad news from the normally wacky Africa Cup tournament where at least 8 people were killed in a deadly crush outside Cameroon’s stadium.
The Big 5 Check-In:
EPL – A late Marcus Rashford winner sent Man United past West Ham. Manchester City dropped points in a 1-1 draw against Southamapton, while Tottenham lost for the first time under Antonio Conte in a 2-0 defeat at Chelsea. The real story of the weekend was on Friday as American Josh Sargent scored an absolutely disgusting scorpion goal (plus another goal later) on the road against Watford.
La Liga – A late extra time goal sent Atletico past Valencia, a late goal saved a draw for Real Madrid against Elche, while yet another late goal put Barcelona 1-0 past Alaves.
Serie A – More late winners as Edin Dzeko’s 90th minute goal put Inter 2-1 over Venezia. Roma went up 4-0 over Empoli and held on 4-2. Inter Milan and Juventus drew 0-0 at the San Siro.
Bundesliga – Leverkusen rocked Augsburg 5-1, Dortmund snuck past Hoffenheim 3-2, and Bayern Munich cruised past Hertha Berlin 4-1.
Ligue 1 – 2020-2021 French champions Lille lost for the 6th time this year following a 2-0 defeat to Brest and now sit in 10th place. Both Nice and PSG cruised to keep a 11-point lead atop the table for the latter club.
Streaming
I watched Taxi Driver a few months back and here are my thoughts. I feel like pretty much any movie set in grimy 1970’s New York City is going to be watchable. They should make more of them these days. For me, I felt like that aspect of NYC was such a big character in the movie–and since I knew the general outline of the story about the descent of DeNiro’s Travis Bickle–I was mostly focused on the way things were shot in the city.
But if I’m being honest, the one scene I simply cannot get out of my mind is director Martin Scorsese’s cameo half way through the movie in the back seat of DeNiro’s cab where he talks about killing his cheating wife. It’s so jarring and crazy to watch, especially because Scorsese inserted himself at the last moment after the original actor left the production.
A Look Back
I got dangerously drunk the night before the 2003 Navy game in a hallway “Around the World” party and remember waking up super late the next day watching this debacle in a friend’s dorm room. Someone found a McDonald’s cheeseburger on the ground and was challenged to eat it. As you’d guess, it didn’t end well. It’s so weird the things you remember.
This is such a sad time for Notre Dame football. Look at the team running out on to the field with a 2-6 record. Look at how utterly enormous Tom Hammond’s head is next to Pat Haden. Check out Brady Quinn looking like a walk-on quarterback who struggles to throw the ball. It all ends with kicker Nick Setta injured roaming the sidelines and the most ridiculous D.J. Fitzpatrick game-winning field goal wobbling through the uprights. The streak over Navy continued (for another 3 seasons at least).
18S Paddock Club
2022 Regulation Changes (Part 3 of 4, Front Wing & Rear Wing) – With the increased emphasis on ground effect for greater downforce the importance of both the front and rear wings will be less pronounced from 2022. As we mentioned in part 2, they are hoping the cars are more balanced from the center floor rather than reliant so much on the wings on the car edge which were incredibly unbalanced in dirty air.
Teams are now restricted to a 4-element front wing (5-element wings were on all cars last year) with blended triangular endplates combined with a diveplane on the outside, and while they are not present on the concept cars, the tiny adjusters will remain on this front wing. No longer will pylons on each side of the nose connect to the wing. Now, the wing is built directly into the nose at a high angle removing the Y250 vortex coming off the previous front wings which set up the aero for the rest of the older cars via the bargeboards. This also removes the need for capes underneath the nose as air rushing under the floor is necessary in this aero set up.
Perhaps nothing looked so alien on the concept cars as the rear wing. For one, the concept cars didn’t have Drag Reduction System (DRS) built into them. However, DRS will be on the rear wings for 2022 with F1 hoping to remove the system in the future should the dirty air problems be solved (or severely reduced) through these regulation changes. The wing is 80mm wider and 40mm higher off the ground, effectively with no endplates while using a swooped design.
The rear wings will also now be tethered to the car. Beam wings are now back and will further help seal the diffuser from the floor as a 2-element component sits below the exhaust connected by a pair of pylons to the main rear wing. Lastly, the wastegate coming out of the engine’s turbo now has to merge inside the exhaust prior to exiting the bodywork so it’s possible engine sounds are a little different in 2022.
Red Bull Racing (2nd place, 585.5 points)
Home to the defending driver’s world champion Max Verstappen after a legendary run in 2021 that saw the Dutchman win 10 races, including the controversial title-clincher finale at Abu Dhabi. Verstappen had a blown tire while leading at Baku, crashed out at Silverstone and Imola, otherwise he finished every race either 1st or 2nd last year. Teammate Sergio Perez came over as a late signing from Racing Point (re-branded Aston Martin) and struggled in the middle of the season (essentially blowing any chance at the constructor’s title) but raced well on either side of those results to finish in 4th place. Ironically, Perez was given an extension for 2022 in the middle of those struggles and he’ll need a strong season this year to secure his seat once again.
Be prepared for many to fade Red Bull in 2022. They were the only team to bring consistent upgrades to their car until the end of 2021 while chasing Verstappen’s title and as a result pulled resources away from their new 2022 car.
Their engine supplier Honda was officially supposed to be stepping away from F1 this year, although it now seems like this is only a partial truth. Originally, Honda was gone completely for 2022 with Red Bull Powertrains taking over the IP of the old Honda engines while hiring away Honda employees to develop new engines at the team’s Milton Keynes facility. Now, Honda will be building and maintaining the “Red Bull Powertrain” engine in Japan, as well as supplying trackside and race support. This set up appears to be in place through 2025 until new engine regulations are released. Effectively, Red Bull is footing more of the bill with Honda for 4 more seasons in order to focus their Red Bull Powertrains facility in England on the 2026 engine, when Red Bull is either prepared to become its own true works team, or welcome in a new engine partner which we’ll cover in more detail this spring.
As the defending champion, Verstappen has announced he will be using the No. 1 on his car for 2022 and debuted his new gold-trimmed helmet yesterday.
Uralkali Haas F1 Team (10th place, 0 points)
Haas was a dumpster fire in 2021. Due to a lack of funds and new regulations on the horizon, they chose not to develop their car at all and had both of their experienced drivers move on from a year ago in favor of F2 champion Mick Shumacher and F2 5th place finisher Nikita Mazepin, the latter’s father Uralkali company providing much-needed funding for the team. At least Schumacher showed some promise while Mazepin never made it to Q2 in qualifying and never came close to scoring points.
It’s an uncertain future for the team as they continue to have sub-standard facilities in North Carolina as the token American team on the grid. Their chassis is still designed by Italian company Dallara and while they benefit from using the Ferrari engine, the team is still without a simulator which could sink their season before it even begins with the new regulations.
Trivia Answer:
Florida State, 1993
FSU-1993
That was the worst travesty in all of polling. The fact that two teams can face each other head-to-head, and the team that won the head-to-head match-up is prevented from winning the national championship is ridiculous…especially considering that Miami won a championship a few years earlier because they beat us in a similar situation. It still seems terrible, 30 years later.
B E S T L O S S B A B Y
B E S T L O S S B A B Y…..which really pissed off the best win people.
There was simply no excuse for that logic being used against us in ’89 and then being ignored in ’93. Just like ’93 FSU was probably better than ND for the whole season, we were probably better than ’89 Miami, but when you play the game and lose, even on the road, tough noogies for you. Or at least that’s what we thought.
Whether people were just still mad at us for the NBC deal, disliked Notre Dame on principle or just wanted to give Bobby Bowden his championship, that was a travesty.
Being so mad about this is one of my earliest ND fan memories. It’s even stronger in my mind than the actual win vs FSU
The slaughter in those ancient battles was unbelievable.
At Cannae it’s said 50,000 Romans died in one day. By the sword! By the end of the battle, the surrounded, exhausted Romans were said to have accepted their fate and were kneeling with open tunics allowing the Carthaginians to mercifully kill them quickly.
I think just the smells from ancient times would be enough for me.
It just seems super human to our modern eyes.
Soldiers had terrible diets, marching around for hundreds of miles in these dinky sandals, dealing with god knows what types of injuries with little medical care in these harsh conditions, etc. Then when the time comes to be ready for some of the most absurdly brutal combat known to man.
If you have some free time, the History of Rome Podcast by Mike Duncan is amazing…and 179 episodes long. I’ll be honest, I only made to episode 107: the year of the Six Emperors.
Is that on YouTube also ? If it’s the same guy, it is really good.
I believe I too have started and not finished that!
As a military historian, this is one of the hardest things to get modern audiences to understand. Even in the field, too often people treat armies as interchangeable and movable icons on a map, like units on their Risk board or latest CIV game. What you find when you really dig into the logistics and what actual people had to do, you see that much of what we *think* we know about campaigns and battles didn’t happen that way.
You all listen to Dan Carlin? Another podcaster that does a fantastic job of military history. His WWI podcast is just brutal, the descriptions of Passchendaele…
Carlin is…mostly good. He’s perfect at what he tries to do, and as a specialist in Japanese history, his recent (like, 2 years long) series on Japan in WWII surprised me with his level of research and that it actually tried to explain (and uses some of the books and research I would in class) the stereotypes. He does sometimes lean into the war porn and stereotypes a bit at times, but overall I like his podcasts way more than I ever thought I would.
At some point I’m going to create a syllabus where one of the projects is for students to listen to and evaluate history podcasts.
Yeah, I realized when I typed that I’m not a historian, but for the layman Carlin is very entertaining.
And can you really call anything about WWI ‘war porn’? Heck, the Nathan’s Hale’s Hazardous Tales about WWI (Treaties, Trenches, Blood, and Mud) is pretty depressing, and that’s a YA graphic novel that uses cute little animals to depict the combatants.
The Nathan Hale’s books are good, my kids (12 & 16) love them.
There’s a balance–you can get into the graphic detail without reveling in it. Looking across Carlin’s series (at least the ones I’ve listened to), he walks the line. Honestly, it’s mostly his delivery–he’s very long….dramatic…pauses…gravely voice…EMPHASIS. I couldn’t do that in a class lecture or an academic presentation, I’d look like an ass. He can because he’s producing entertainment, and it’s valuable to bring people in if it informs them. My point is that you could go too far with it–reveling in the horror. He walks the line, and does mostly pretty well.
For the record, I think podcasts and other public-facing history work is super important. I co-hosted a Japanese history podcast for 5 or so years, and was in a documentary on Netflix that came out last year. It’s my job as a historian to do good research and write good stuff so the content creators have something besides crap to base their edutainment on, and to take the opportunity to influence that when I can. I’d much rather people listen to Dan Carlin than so so so much out there.
Also, having done a history podcast for 5 years, holy crap the work that guys like Carlin or Mike Duncan or Patrick Wyman (one of my current listens is Tides of History) is phenomenal, because it’s SO MUCH WORK to put together one episode. They’ve got teams to help them, but still. I had to stop because I couldn’t put in the time necessary to do good work and work on my PhD.
Since we’re on the subject, other history podcasts I’d recommend:
The History of England
The British History Podcast
The History of China
The History of English Podcast (linguistics nerds, rejoice!)
BBC’s got some that I listen to as well, depending on the subject:
You’re Dead to Me (Comedy/History podcast)
History Extra
In Our Time
As a massive fan the Punic War era through the Pax Romana – I would hang out there also. I would love to watch the luminaries of the age – Pompey, Cato, Caesar, Crassus – doing their patronage thing while working their way through the Fora Romanum.
Apocryphal or not, the order from Hannibal Barca was to take no prisoners, yet the Carthaginians at Cannae ended taking thousands. It is said their sword arms got too tired from all the stabbing that they started rounding up the legionnaires as ransom booty.
Hannibal had made the “No Quarter” call to try to get Rome turn to fear and surrender upon witnessing the annihilation of two entire consular armies. Rome’s response – see you next year.
There’s a great YT channel called Overly Sarcastic Productions. One of the proprietors there “Blue” loves Mediterranean history. It is great for a very tongue in cheek yet informative deep dive on the Hellenistic Age transition to the Roman one.
Thanks for the YT channel rec!
I have the Sap/jar of flies album on vinyl. Just saying.
Wow, brag much?
Imma flex: I saw AIC open for VH on the For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge Tour in ’91 in Providence.
Woo! More kickers. 6* PWO kicker Zac Yoakam commits.
We’re back, baby! YCNHTMKLSLSTQ!
It’s kinda scary that I know what this means?
It’s our program motto, apparently
Phew! I feel better, thanks.
That Navy 2003 video, good God. That brings back some memories. I usually got home from high school cross country meets juuuuuuuuuuuuuuust in time to see kickoff of the Lionel Tyrone Willingham era. Lucky me.
The 2003 team was really, really bad, and could have easily gone 2-10. It’s crazy to think that team, two seasons later, would be two plays away from going 11-0 with almost the exact same roster.
Speaking of things that have improved a lot since 2003, the NBC booth. Hammond and Haden were probably the worst announcer combo I have ever seen in any sport, with the possible exception of Gus Johnson and Joel Klatt. I love how when Haden is talking, Hammond turns directly toward him, way too close, and leans down into his face. What a weirdo.
Yeah, it’s incredibly jarring to see those early 2000’s booths with Hammond and Haden when you haven’t watched them in a long time. The clothing all looks really old and the resolution is weird. NBC has made so, so many improvements since that time.
You guys forgot about SkyCam™!!!!
Eric on this subject, I think you once rated the booth teams (maybe on the old site?) and have thought for awhile that an updated version (or at least discussion) on the relative merits of broadcast teams might be good off season fodder. I cut the cord several years ago so I only get the nationally broadcast games now, but I always liked McDonough and Blackledge.
Hmmm, I feel like maybe someone else did it? I don’t care about the booth unless it’s really bad.
Woah woah woah woah, what do have you got against Gus Johnson and Joel Klatt? I mean, I can understand if Gus’ schtick is too over the top for you, but Klatt is football savvy and intelligent and works well with Gus. There are some flat out awful, don’t know the rules all that well, are ridiculously boring, etc.
Gus can’t pay attention to anything. He’s so busy screaming and trying to invent Chris Berman-esque catchphrases that he misses most of the game. I can see how his style might work for a March Madness game, but he doesn’t have the attention span for football.
Joel is a caveman and never met a vicious head-to-head hit he didn’t like.
Gus is unwatchable. You don’t need to scream about every 5-yard hitch route.
Nice to see Hiestand back. And he’s a recruiting already. Even Pete Sampson walked back his comments he made in his shamrock podcast that hiestand was a “lazy recruiter”, in one of his recent Athletic articles. There was some hesitation from writers here too. Implying jokingly that he would sit around in the car and not go into a recruits house. I get the impression that since he yells at practice and pushes players to be their best, that this tactic is seen as archaic and not fitting the current culture of young hot coaches. But this is silly. The dude can coach and if you are a NFL caliber player he will get NFL results out of you. I hope he has carte blanche to yell his ass off.
Here’s a blurb from the recent II podcast:
Q: Does Marcus Freeman expect the same level of recruiting from Harry Hiestand as he does from the rest of the staff or does he let him pin point his targets and go get them without getting involved with the other positions?
Sampson: The latter, and I think that’ll probably be true of defensive coordinator.*
*expecting Al Golden, presumably.
I don’t think lazy is the right word for Hiestand because he’ll go after the OL in the easiest recruiting position in the program. When it comes to other positions, waiting in the car probably isn’t the right analogy because he wouldn’t even get into the car to begin with.
Lol true. Wasn’t he the area coordinator that got fuller and josh Adam?
Yeah, I think once upon a time he was considered a passable recruiter in his region, although I don’t think he often went places alone and would’ve had someone like Alford or Elston with him a lot.
Great pot-pourri this week. That Navy tape was indeed kind of sad, but my boys and I were there, and like the crowd, we were happy at the end. A truly wobbly kick though, we were in that end zone and I thought the air was coming out of the ball or something.
As far as the 1993 ending, that was my moment to try to influence the AP and coaches’ polls voting, in the hope that the bowls would wind up with us and FSU head to head. In the guise of working on an article for the Colombia Journalism Review, and with the help of John Heisler and some interaction with Coach Holtz himself I managed to talk to dozens of reporters and some coaches, evoking the eventuality of that head to head business from 1989. Might have swung a few, but the big problems were (1) a serious amount of dislike of our program, dating back generationally, especially in the South, and (2) yes, the everyone loves Bobby B business. As Lou said later, they owed him one or the other!
Finally, for the military history, thank you all for all those podcasts, appreciate the topic, Eric. One of my jobs is running the program in Europe for what the military calls “battle staff rides” and we have tried a few Roman battles. The problem tends to be they were so long ago it’s hard to get a good fix on the terrain. My best one is Caesar vs Vercingetorix at Alesia. Super fun to go there, and a museum has reconstructed a portion of the two walls the Romans built (one facing in to keep the surrounded Gauls surrounded, the other facing outside to protect against the arrival of a relief column. Totally cool stuff!
Staff rides are an awesome way to teach campaign history. My first was at Gettysburg as an ND ROTC cadet, which was completely amazing. My most interesting was probably when I organized a trip for my battalion’s officers to Iwo Jima–it’s owned by the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (navy) and we had to go through multiple levels of approvals for clearance to take our commanding general’s private jets down there for a day. One guy got heat stroke and we almost missed our departure window, since the Japanese were using the air strip for flight training at a certain time and we were supposed to be out of there before that. But still, great trip. Walking on the beach (which is almost a 45 deg angle) in calf-deep volcanic ash, it’s amazing to think how anyone of those poor Marine SOBs were able to get ashore. And then climbing up Mt. Suribachi, pretty special.
Wherever I end up getting a job, if I’m lucky enough, I hope to make a battle site visit/staff ride part of a military history course. No better way to get a sense of what had to happen then to walk the ground itself.
Way off topic, but this is the Rambler, and Eric brought up military history — so yes, staff rides can be a strong (and enjoyable) educational technique.
Iwo Jima way way amazing, kind of jealous, wanted to go there ever since the Clint Eastwood movies — and then hearing Mark Milley talk about his dad. Anyway, good for you! If you are ever wanting to put together something exceptional in Europe, give me a shout out — if not me, I have a dozen super historians on the bench.
As for the football link, who can name the Notre Dame football player with WWII combat experience with the USMC?
Only one?
Angelo Bertelli missing the last part of his Heisman season to join the Marines comes to mind.
Also, if people don’t know the story of Mario “Mots” Tonelli during the Bataan Death March, they should.
https://armyhistory.org/mario-tonelli/
Staff rides are such a great learning experience. I was lucky enough to bet to participate in two in my grad program — one for the Shenandoah Valley campaign (civil war) and one for the Philadelphia campaign (revolutionary war).
The same program has done some really cool international ones, including Colombia for the anti-FARC counterinsurgency, and Vietnam for the American war there.
Putting this here instead of adding to the “Temple MAC schedule” fight over in the other post’s comments…
The impression I’m getting is that Freeman wants someone to come in who is going to run Freeman’s defense. Clearly Heacock would want to run his own scheme, and same for most other “experience” hires. That’s why the rest of the options are more of the “up and comer” type. But Golden might fit actually BECAUSE he hasn’t coached his own D in a long time. He’s “up” on the latest NFL stuff (which isn’t that big a deal to me, since often scheme originates at lower levels and moves up, rather than colleges and HS copying the NFL) and can come in, learn Freeman’s scheme, and implement it while also providing some “experience,” at least in terms of “don’t do this, I did that at Miami and it was bad.”
That’s my glass half-full view. I’m not thrilled with Golden as a candidate at all, but I’m also not paid to make these decisions.
Al Golden hasn’t coordinated a defense since 2005. He shouldn’t be on the list.
Yeah, just trying to find a logic to it. I don’t like it at all either.
Fwiw, prior to this year Bill O’Brien hadn’t coordinated a college offense since 2006 (and was only an OC for one year New England in 2011). I don’t find Golden not being a DC recently troubling, given his overall experience, and certainly not disqualifying. Def not the most inspiring candidate out there for fans and name value and reputation but I don’t see Golden that much different from the same level as some of other one-time possible candidates like Derek Mason or Chris Ash.
That’s good about Bill O’Brien, but it doesn’t make Al Golden qualified for the job, nor does it make ND Bama. The last time Golden ran a college defense, smart phones did not exist. ND should be focused on coaches with recent, relevant experience. That is not Al Golden, and he should not be under consideration.
I would prefer Rossi from Minnesota.
Golden was a head coach in college from 2006-2015, he does have recent enough relevant experience. If he gets the job, it will be for his experience, not as a coordinator but overall. What is irrelevant, though a fun fact, is that he never had an iPhone when he was a DC.
When he was a head coach, he got fired for giving up nearly 60 points to Clemson.
If we wanted someone with head coaching experience, we should have made that a priority when we hired a head coach.
See fellas, I told ya so.
Meh, so he doesn’t have experience or you don’t like the experience? Goal posts are shifting too fast on this one. I do agree Golden is not the most satisfying candidate, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a viable candidate.
Bama fans were *not* happy with Bill O’Brien.
When are they ever happy? And that doesn’t mean O’Brien wasn’t effective as an OC. I’d take ND fans being unhappy with the DC if the defense was as good as Bama’s offense.
I think the quality of Bama’s offense might have more to do with their players than Bill O’Brien specifically.
Right. They thought BOB was holding back their offense given the talent level.
From a fan’s perspective I could definitely see how they felt that way. While their offensive FEI rank was 2nd behind Ohio State, Bama ranked 50th in Busted Drive Rate which is the percentage of the offensive drives that resulted in negative or zero yardage. It was their worst showing in that category since 2016 when they ranked 107 (somehow). I watched a couple of Bama games this year and there were times where the play calling was perplexing and Bama seemingly could do whatever they wanted and then BOB would throw a wrench in things and it would kill the momentum.
ND was 107th in this category this year. Maybe somewhat surprisingly ND was in the top ten in both 2018 and 19.
Could have been #1 if O’Brien wasn’t holding them back!
As a fan, I can definitely appreciate Bama fans being annoyed with BOB when it feels like you’re boom or bust. There’s plenty of ND fans (myself included at times) who have been annoyed with Rees for the same thing with ND’s offense.
And Bama’s team has been #1 – 2020, #2, #2, #8, and #8 in 2016 across 4 different OC’s in that time frame so I don’t think talent level was BOB’s issue. His offenses at Houston tended to be middle of the road despite above average offensive talent.
Right, but the whole point of mentioning of BOB by me wasn’t to endorse of the job he did one way or another, but simply an example of the gap in being a coordinator and still being hired for probably the biggest OC job in college football.
That’s fair.
I can definitely get on board that if it becomes Marcus Freeman’s School For Coaches That Can’t Coach Good instead of Nick Saban’s. We’re going to have a pretty awesome decade of football for Irish fans.
Tbf, O’Brien was calling plays in Houston from a few games into the 2016 season thru a few games into the 2020 season and he was also the OC while the HC at Penn State and built the offense there according to SI.
Of course, and all of that feeds into my point that a veteran coach like O’Brien or Golden is certainly qualified to be a coordinator at the college level, regardless of job titles.
Word is Heacock didn’t want to coach a position (LBs) and that was the deal breaker.
Yes, that was the main issue.
Pretty big issue, IMO.
Tim Prister said on the last II podcast that Heacock turned ND down. Not sure if he meant that there was an offer or he decided not to pursue the opening because he didn’t think he was a fit or wanted to do the job (like coaching LBs) that Freeman had in mind.
I took as ND and Heacock could not agree on the parameters of the job.
The Athletic and ESPN reporting that Boston College is speaking with ND TE Coach John McNulty about their OC position.
So we’re down to three returning staff members I think?
Bruce Feldman now reporting (via tweet) that this is a done deal and McNulty has accepted the job.
McNulty & Jurokvec returning to South Bend next year, let’s gooooo.
Could be worse–Auburn just lost the OC they hired 3 weeks ago.
Bama’s still filling slots too, and probably will have more to fill when someone hires BOB.
None of this makes it any better for ND per se, but the OMG WHY IS IT TAKING SO LONG angst is missing that other than ND’s lengthy vetting process it’s mostly normal in terms of timelines.
Wow so whole new offensive staff besides Rees, right?
Yep.
OL–let go.
WR–let go.
TE–took OC position
RB–took OC position
OC\QB–same person
It might be really good for Rees too because he’s going to get more pushback from new guys with different ideas now that Rees is building his own game plans.
It’s a good thing that guys are moving on to become OCs elsewhere. Hopefully we keep that kind of pipeline going. It would be interesting to know what has happened in the last 5-7 years for our position coaches and where they went.
Coordinators falling out left and right from the mighty branches of the Tom Rees coaching tree.
In all seriousness, the coaching tree from Kelly’s last five years might top the tree from his previous 20+ before that (especially if, quite reasonably, you don’t count Matt LaFleur).
It probably helps when you are a top team playing well because other schools want to hire from that kind of team.
But who are the guys who have gone on to coordinate (as promotion) or be a head coach elsewhere from the last 5 years coaching staffs?
Pretty crazy that the ACC has 3 OC’s with ND ties (Taylor at Louisville, Chip Long now at GT and McNulty)…And Mike Elko is the Duke head coach!
Given how well ND has played against ACC teams, maybe that shouldn’t be a surprise. Still kinda shocking to me that no one in that conference hired Elston to be a DC, I think that would have been great for him and for an ACC school if he was like the DC of UVA or Wake or NC State or somewhere like that. I guess lack of regional and coaching connections hurt, but he’s certainly had a lot of great tape against ACC teams with his group
Hmm, I wonder what changed 5 years ago…in 2016…
lol
Just for balance, the defensive side:
DC: Took HC position somewhere nearby
DL: Lateral (downward, because Michigan) move
LB: Took same HC position as DC
S: Still at ND, has coached LBs, may move back to LB depending on new DC.
CB: Still at ND
Special Teams: Left for LSU
Super bowl bound Ben Skowronek! Just like we all predicted.
and Khalid Kareem.