Notre Dame Has Arguably The Top Coordinator Duo In College Football
What a difference a year makes for Notre Dame, and now the Irish have one of the top coordinator duos in all of college football. Having a pair of talented coordinators has often been a rare occurrence at Notre Dame, but head coach Marcus Freeman has established that as he heads into his third season with the Irish.
There have been moments over the last 15 years when the Irish had quality coordinators on both sides of the ball. The Chuck Martin (offense) - Bob Diaco (defense) duo had success in 2012 and 2013, and Chip Long (offense) formed a quality duo with Mike Elko (defense, 2017) and Clark Lea (defense, 2018-20).
Freeman went through an awkward search for a coordinator during the last offseason, with his top two targets ultimately not ending up at Notre Dame. The debacle that was the Andy Ludwig negotiations left a black eye on the program, and that debacle was a reason why the ultimate hire - Gerad Parker - was never going to get a fair shake. Parker was always going to look like the settle hire, and the 2023 season was his first in which he was fully in charge of an offense.
Parker did some good things, but ultimately the offense wasn't close to good enough in the big games for the Irish to be better than 9-3 in the regular season.
After Parker departed to become the head coach for Troy, Freeman swung for the fences and landed former LSU (2022-23), Cincinnati (2017-21) and Notre Dame (2014-16) coordinator Mike Denbrock. It was an absolute home run hire for Freeman, who formed an outstanding coordinator duo with Denbrock at Cincinnati from 2017-20.
Freeman has only made one hire at defensive coordinator, and that was Al Golden. His first season was solid, with Golden's defense playing well enough to win most weeks, but the unit was unable to finish enough to really be a top group. That changed in 2023, as Golden developed one of the nation's best defenses. That resulted in him getting a well-deserved pay raise this offseason, and Golden will return for a third season.
Denbrock led the nation's best offense in 2023, and combining him with Golden has a chance to be a game changer for the Irish. Notre Dame went from being in position where there was often complaints about one of the two coordinators (and sometimes both) to Freeman putting together arguably the best coordinator duo in college football.
If you're someone like me that believes the Irish have a talent level that should have surpassed its win-loss record the last two seasons, this change could be monumental for the program. Having coaches on both sides of the ball with a track record of developing big time units gives the Irish a chance to maximize the roster on both sides of the ball.
Look at the numbers.
Denbrock's LSU offense led the nation in scoring offense, total offense, yards per play, yards per pass attempt, passer rating, fewest tackles for loss allowed, plays of at least 20 yards, plays of at least 30 yards and plays of at least 40 yards. The Tigers also ranked 2nd in third-down offense and 3rd in passing yards per game. The Fremeau Efficiency index ranked his offense 2nd nationally and the ESPN Football Power Index ranked it the best offense in the country.
Golden's defense led the nation in pass efficiency defense, ranked 7th in scoring defense and ranked in the Top 5 in total defense, yards allowed per play, passing yards allowed, pass yards allowed per attempt, pass yards allowed per completion, red zone defense and red zone touchdown defense. The FEI ranked the Irish defense 6th and the ESPN FPI ranked it 10th.
Notre Dame is one of just two teams that returns a coordinator that ranked in the Top 10 in both the FEI and the FPI last season. The other being USC, who hired UCLA defensive coordinator D'Anton Lynn this offseason.
Notre Dame is one of just three teams that has a coordinator that has coordinators on both sides of the ball who had a unit that was ranked in the Top 10 nationally in scoring last season. The other two were Georgia and Oregon. Notre Dame was going to be that anyway, even if Parker returned, but Notre Dame was 7th in scoring offense under Parker, but Denbrock's defense ranked 1st.
The difference between Notre Dame and USC is that Lynn has been a coordinator for just one season. His first job was excellent, but he inherits a defense that ranked 121st in scoring defense, 119th in total defense and 104th in yards allowed per play. Denbrock inherits an offense that ranked 7th in scoring offense, 9th in yards per play and 29th in total offense.
Ohio State is another program that can make a case for having the best coordinator duo thanks to the return of Jim Knowles on defense and Chip Kelly deciding to leave his job as UCLA's head coach to become the offensive coordinator for the Buckeyes.
If you want to know why the Irish are being pushed up the preseason rankings, including into the Top 5 by some outlets, this is a big reason why. Freeman has made bold moves this offseason from a coaching and personnel standpoint. He landed some big portal pickups, including Duke quarterback Riley Leonard, but it's the hiring of Denbrock that has created the most excitement, and for good reason.
If Notre Dame is going to finally kick down the door and become a championship program it will need to be outstanding on both sides of the ball. There have been years where the defense was arguably that good, and a case could be made the one time the Irish had an offense like that was in 2015, with Denbrock leading the charge. Having Golden and Denbrock together gives Notre Dame its best opportunity in decades to put an offense and a defense on the field with the ability to play championship football.
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