Gino Guidugli Hits The Ground Running As Notre Dame's New Quarterbacks Coach

Gino Guidugli and Gerad Parker have history. Notre Dame’s new quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator, respectively, once went head to head in the Kentucky state high school football playoffs when Guidugli’s Highlands teams met Parker’s Lawrence County squad in the state semifinals more than two decades ago.

Who won?

"You can ask Gerad,” Guidugli said with a grin, recalling the distant encounter in his first meeting with Notre Dame media.

For the record, Guidugli’s team prevailed in that semifinal en route to winning back-to-back Kentucky state championships in 1999 and 2000. The two went on to successful college careers, Guidugli at Cincinnati and Parker at Kentucky, and nearly worked together at Cincinnati when their playing days were done.

"Gerad was on Luke Fickell’s original staff at Cincinnati and Gerad ended up leaving that job and I was the one that ended up taking his spot as the running backs coach at Cincinnati,” Guidugli explained. "We’ve got several friends in the business. There was like a weird connection. Gerad had some opportunities to be a head coach at one point and he and I had talked about me coming onto his staff.”

Guidugli has hit the ground running in the past two weeks as Notre Dame’s quarterbacks coach in a reunion of sorts with Parker. He has actually talked with former Irish quarterback’s coach and offensive coordinator Tommy Rees twice since being hired. The first came on his drive from his old job at Wisconsin to South Bend.

"Just trying to get a feel for the room and some things on recruiting,” Guidugli said of the conversations. "It’s an offense he’s been running and he’s played in, so just getting his perspective on some things. If I have questions, he’s been very helpful just to be able to reach out to. He has no problem answering questions and anything I had concerns about or wanted to know why, he explained them to me.”

Guidugli’s playing career led him to stints in the NFL, Canadian Football League and the Arena League before he jumped into coaching in 2010 at Central Michigan. His eight professional stops along with his college playing experience and coaching experience give him a vast base of knowledge to draw from.

"I think my responsibility as a coach is to take that information and pass it along to the players that I coach,” Guidugli said of his coaching philosophy. "That way they’re a much better player than I ever dreamt about being. How do you go about that? You have to build a relationship and build those guys’ trust that you can develop them, you are giving information that’s going to make them a better player. Ultimately, I think that’s how you get the most out of them.”

Notre Dame’s quarterback room is stocked with talent. Arguably more talent than Guidugli has ever had in his past five seasons mentoring quarterbacks at Cincinnati. He jumped right into the film room with Wake Forest grad transfer Sam Hartman soon after arriving on campus.

"You get a pretty good feel from that,” Guidugli explained. "What does this guy know? How does it compare to what we’re going to call it? Just kind of comparing notes. It’s just about building a relationship, getting in the meeting room and getting around him at practice and outside the building and being able to see what makes him tick.”

Much of the early learning curve for both Guidugli and Hartman has been about new terminology. Hartman had his own at Wake Forest, while Guidugli had his at Cincinnati. The base of Notre Dame’s old terminology will stay the same going from Rees to Parker’s offense.

Hartman had planned to have a deeper base of knowledge of his new offense than he has now, but that process was delayed when Rees left for Alabama just a couple weeks after Hartman arrived on campus. Guidugli has done his part to get the new Irish signal caller up to speed before the pending start of spring practice in less than two weeks.

“He and I are learning at the same pace, so I would learn it in the morning and I’d come teach it to them in the afternoon," noted Guidugli. "I told him as soon as I knew it, I would get in and try to install it for them.”

Hartman has 48 games of experience under his belt from his time at Wake Forest. Combined with his 110 career touchdown passes, it dwarfs Irish junior quarterback Tyler Buchner’s 13 games (most in cameos behind Jack Coan in 2021) and six touchdown throws. But none of that matters to their new quarterback coach right now.

"I don’t think Tyler Buchner is going to take a back seat to anybody,” Guidugli said. "Tyler Buchner is going to go out here to compete for the starting quarterback position and he’s going to get an opportunity to compete for it, just like the rest of those guys in the room.

"I’m coming in with a clean slate,” he continued. "I know what I know of them knowing the offense and understanding the offense by the way I’ve installed it, the way I’ve quizzed them and what they’ve done so far out in football school. Those guys are all going to be given the opportunity to go out there and execute and compete. I don’t think Tyler’s going to take a back seat to anybody.”

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