Max Bullough Is At Home As The Notre Dame Linebacker Coach
New promotions typically bring a few perks with them. For newly promoted Notre Dame linebackers coach Max Bullough, that currently means a better parking spot and a new office. Bullough spent his first season at Notre Dame last year working with Fighting Irish linebackers and was just promoted to full-time linebackers coach this month.
Being a full-time assistant has even more meaning for Bullough, though. His late grandfather, Jim Morse, was an Irish team captain while playing halfback for Terry Brennan from 1954-1956. Bullough’s mom, Lee Ann, is a Notre Dame grad as well. Bullough’s own playing career took him to Michigan State before a handful of seasons in the NFL, but it always felt like Notre Dame would be part of his plan.
"I’ve always had a lot of family at Michigan State (and) a lot of family at Notre Dame,” Bullough said in his first public appearance since his promotion. "For my mom this is huge. For my late grandfather who just passed away this would have been huge. He wanted me, one of my brothers, the other brother, my sister, one of us to go to Notre Dame and none of us ever did. A couple of us had the chance, the other didn’t really, but it’s big. I think it’s big for my mom right now, going through losing her father. It’s kind of cool to make that full circle within a timely fashion.”
Bullough’s two brothers, Riley and Byron, both played at Michigan State, where their dad, Shane, played as well. His sister, Holly, is currently on the Spartan track team.
"Not even putting that family a part of it, to be at Notre Dame is an honor in and of itself,” Bullough said. “You talk about all the coaches and players here, I mean I feel silly even talking about that with how many of those guys there are. But in terms of my family.”
Bullough’s coaching career started like most anyone looking for an entry into the profession. After leaving last suiting up for the Cleveland Browns in 2018, he got his first GA position with the Cincinnati Bearcats the next year when his current head coach, Marcus Freeman, was the defensive coordinator.
Bullough moved to Alabama in 2020 and spent three seasons as a graduate assistant on Nick Saban’s staff. He was part of the Crimson Tide’s national championship program in his first season, but his duties were light on actual on field coaching and heavy on desk duty. He left for Notre Dame in 2023 for another GA position, but one that allowed him to actually coach linebackers on a daily basis under defensive coordinator Al Golden.
"It was literally everything,” Bullough explained. "I mean it’s the reason I’m standing here today. It’s the reason I came to Notre Dame. Coach Saban kind of got pissed that I left. He told me it’s not a training ground because he thought it was a lateral move. You guys know me as the linebacker coach here. Before last year I was just a GA and I was good at it and all that, but this is what I love, this is what I do. I’m good on the computers and I got really good at it, but you guys have seen me out there, that’s what I do, that’s who I am and that’s how I affect. So, that’s really what you guys have seen that you didn’t know I didn’t really have before I got here.”
The opportunity for Bullough to move onto Freeman’s staff on a full-time basis came after safeties coach Chris O’Leary left earlier this month to join Jim Harbaugh’s first coaching staff with the Los Angeles Chargers. But there was no guarantee that Bullough would be rubber stamped into the position.
"To be honest with you, on my part I was talking to CO behind the scenes trying to find out when it happened because I knew as soon as a spot at Notre Dame is open you never know who’s going to call,” Bullough recounted. "It could be anybody. (Former Tennessee Titans head coach Mike) Vrabel or who knows. Then it’s someone you can’t say no to. I don’t know (laughs). You guys laugh but who knows? So, I just was like I just wanted to get to Free as fast as I could and hopefully....he was great about going in this direction as opposed to another one.”
Bullough is still young (32) and his passion and energy for his newish job, for Notre Dame and his family are obvious with every word he speaks. A college job, especially at Notre Dame, feels like a perfect fit for him, rather than a possible NFL move of his own.
"I was still a GA now,” Bullough said when asked why college is the fit for him. "I wasn’t one of these people sitting at the top of the mountain just picking where I was going, you know what I mean? I say that, not that I wanted that, I was locked in on this. I had just moved my family, my kids. Like when I go home, first of all, I never get to relax. It’s just like, there’s never a slow moment in my head. Ever. But I was constantly just thinking about this and I just had hoped. I had to be a linebacker coach. I just really hoped that it was going to work out here because of the people, because of the players, because of the family history and really because I want to stay here and see what we can turn the room into.”
Bullough’s promotion to linebacker coach, along with O’Leary’s departure, meant a change in title for fellow Irish assistant Mike Mickens as well. Mickens was the Cornerbacks Coach/Defensive Pass Game Coordinator. He is now the Defensive Backs Coach/Pass Game Coordinator.
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