Notre Dame Notebook: Mike Denbrock Talks National Championships, Running Game, Head Coach Desire
With Mike Denbrock back in the fold at Notre Dame, the Fighting Irish football team feels like it in as firm a spot as it has been in recent years. With Denbrock in place as his third offensive coordinator in as many seasons, and Al Golden going into his third season in South Bend, Irish head coach Marcus Freeman has bolstered his staff with two uber-experienced coordinators.
Despite this week’s comments from naysaying national talking heads, Notre Dame inarguably has better access to the College Football Playoff than ever before with the format set to expand from four to 12 participants this season. The charge for Freeman and his lieutenants is to first get to the CFP and then win four consecutive games to claim the program’s first national championship since 1988.
Denbrock left LSU, a program that has claimed three national championships in the past 21 years, to join the quest to bring an elusive title back to Notre Dame. Denbrock coached under both Brian Kelly and Tyrone Willingham in previous stints with the Fighting Irish. He would know as well as anyone how how feasible it feels for Notre Dame to win championships in 2024 and beyond.
"I certainly think the landscape has changed some in regard to the playoff system that we have and the access that we have to it,” Denbrock began. "I know there’s been a lot of debate this week back and forth about whether that’s an advantage or disadvantage and all that. I’ll leave it to the experts to decide all that. But I think we have access to that becoming a real possibility.
"I think we’ve got a roster that is moving in a really positive direction where those possibilities are maybe even more real than they’ve been in the last few years,” Denbrock continued. “Combine that with what I hope is a really good offensive system that these guys run to perfection and Al Golden dialing up the defense that he dials up and we’ve got an opportunity to do something special.”
Run The Ball
In his last stop as Notre Dame offensive coordinator in 2015, Denbrock was firm in his belief that the ability to run the ball is mandatory for success under the golden dome. Freeman’s two Irish teams averaged 189.1 and 185.7 yards per game under Tommy Rees and Gerad Parker the last two years.
Denbrock’s two LSU offenses averaged 183.9 and 204.5 rushing yards the last two seasons, and he has not changed his thinking about how a successful rushing attack impacts success in the college game.
"I think everything that you do has to be built around a strong running game,” Denbrock explained. "Now, does that mean that it’s going to be 60 times a game? It doesn’t mean that, when we do call runs that we give our guys a chance, numbers-wise, number one. Number two, we put them in a position from a scheme standpoint to take advantage of what the defense is trying to do and then we execute it. But I think any great offense revolves around the ability to be able to run the ball.
"Having said that, I will say that I think I’m more open than I was years ago to not just pound my head against a brick wall and just understanding that the game has changed and the more athletes you can get out in space and create mismatches is also a good way to play offense,” Denbrock continued. "There’ll be a good balance of that and there will be afternoons where we run it 50 times and there’ll be afternoons where we may throw it 50.”
Aging Well With Time
When Denbrock was Kelly’s offensive coordinator at Notre Dame, he was the play caller on Saturdays, but he was running a heavily Kelly-influenced offense. When he became Cincinnati’s offensive coordinator after Kelly purged his staff after the 4-8 season in 2016, Denbrock gained autonomy of the offense he ran and called for Luke Fickell’s Bearcats.
He was a different coordinator when he rejoined Kelly at LSU in 2022 and he is a much different coordinator in his return to Notre Dame now.
"I think just experience is the best teacher,” Denbrock remarked. "Even though I had been in that role before, since leaving here the last time it’s kind of been a lot more where it was my show to run. You’re always going to have influences from the head coach and he’s always going to have a voice in what you do and how you do it, and that’s okay. I’m unbelievably fine with that, but I was able to break away and kind of develop my own way of doing things. My own system, my own style of offense, if you will, and how that fits what I think based on the personnel that we have available to us what the best way to do that is.
"(I have) been able to adjust it the way I want, been able to add to it the way I want, been able to subtract from it the way I’ve wanted,” Denbrock continued. "That’s, I think, the biggest difference now is experience is a great teacher, number one and number two the system that we’re going to run and it’s development is something that I’m in complete control of.”
Head Coaching Desires
Denbrock has more than three decades of experience in a coaching career that began with Kelly at DII Grand Valley State in Michigan. He has never been a head coach, and at 60 the itch to move into attain that top spot on the ladder is not one that he needs to scratch any longer.
"I think this has become more and more of a young man’s business,” Denbrock opined. "I don’t see, unless something incredible just kind of hits you in the face, that that would be my career path from this point forward. I think I’m very content leading an offense and helping Marcus and this program win a national championship here and I want to be part of that and I want to do that here with these student-athletes and with this coaching staff. I just don’t see that as something that is real attractive to me these days, unless it was something that you just couldn’t turn down.”
Denbrock takes over an offensive staff that returns running backs coach Deland McCullough and offensive line coach Joe Rudolph. Wide receivers coach Mike Brown is in his first season at Notre Dame after coaching with Denbrock at Cincinnati from 2019-2021. Like Parker before him, Denbrock will coach the tight ends.
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