Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden met with the media Tuesday night after Irish football practice. Here's everything he had to say. Answers are largely verbatim. Questions may be edited for clarity and brevity.
AL GOLDEN
Duke quarterback Riley Leonard. Does he remind you of anybody? And what is the challenge in defending him?
“Great question. He reminds me of a bunch of different guys. He distributes the ball really well, so he gets the ball out of his hands quickly. In a lot of ways it's a throwback to the horizontal pass game. It reminds me of the old BYU quarterbacks — Ty Detmer and guys like that. I'm dating myself. But that’s what he reminds me of.
“He sees the field really well, gets the ball out. You could see, in addition to that, they had a vertical component, whether it was UConn or Clemson or whatever. There's a vertical component to it that he does a great job with. And then, obviously, he makes plays on the move, whether that's running the ball or passing the ball, but very, very impressed with him. Very impressed with the offensive scheme.”
Without giving away trade secrets, what's the best way to kind of mitigate what he does?
“It's tough. There's no doubt about it. It's challenging. We have to just mix things up on them and play really good, sound football and not beat ourselves. But there's a reason why they're winning the way they're winning. And I understand that they're playing good special teams and good defense, from the staff. But in terms of what we're focused on, kid’s doing a great job. Really is. And again, the two running backs, 7 [Jordan Waters] and 9 [Jaquez Moore], they're doing a heck of a job. They’ve got nice receivers. Tight ends are doing a good job. And I think the scheme, they're not beating themselves. They're protecting the football, and they're executing.”
And after a loss like Saturday’s and with a big game like this coming up, the mindset of the players is so important. What have you seen from your defensive players in that regard?
“I would just say that's like when we call it synergy or symbiosis. Like, what drove me to get out of bed Sunday and go to work? What drove me to stay late last night? What drove me to get in early today? It’s those kids and the way they just responded. So, they know. Look, you can't can't BS the kids. And they turn on the film, and they see the threat that Duke is. So, for them to go out like they did today and respond and put that behind them shows maturity, shows leadership, shows toughness. And we're going to need all of that come Saturday night.”
You went to a shorter rotation with a lot of positions on defense against Ohio State. I'm wondering how you feel like that worked out and will that continue?
“We needed to rotate more. Sometimes that happens. You guys might know the numbers better than me, because I was fixing this or fixing that. I wasn't looking, like you guys might be able to look after this conversation, but I think I think our numbers were low in the first half. I think our numbers were low. And then [it] got longer in the second half and then, obviously, the two-minute drill added a bunch of plays at the end. So, there's no question that we need to rotate more.”
And does having somebody like Riley Leonard also go into the thoughts of deepening the rotations, since he runs around so much?
“He's fast. He's elusive. He can keep his eyes down the field. That's a strong combination. I know why they're high on him.”
Gabe Rubio seemed like he gave you some good snaps in his first game back?
“Needed that desperately. Needed that toughness. The fourth-and-one stop, he and Rylie [Mills], JJB, all those guys, we needed that desperately.”
You mentioned your reasons for getting up on Sunday. What from the game made it hard to sleep Saturday night?
“Every day is a battle during the season to get ready for Saturday. And if you waste time, if you feel sorry for yourself, if you're trying to commiserate with other people, you're not moving forward. And you have to move forward. Like I just said downstairs [to the electronic media], I don't think there's a coordinator in the country that has been in that position that wouldn't say, ‘Ah, I wish I would have called this instead of that, because they threw the ball here or they completed that ball.’ So, there are always calls that I can look back and say, ‘I would do it differently.’ But the bottom line is execution. So, whatever we call, we need to execute. We need to coach it better. And we need to finish. We really do. We need to finish, and it's not just one play or one series of plays. We need to do a better job.”
This is almost an operational question more than personnel, but with Thomas Harper playing so well and Jack Kiser playing so well, how do you get them both in the field?
“We talked about that. We have to mix Harp in a little bit more at safety, and Jack's numbers are going to go up. Jack's played well the last two games, and he probably got shortchanged. I don't know the numbers from the other day.”
Ten snaps.
“So, not enough, so we need to get his numbers up.”
It's a challenge, right, because he's a rover. You want to play nickel?
“Yeah. I mean, it's always a challenge, but yes, we need to rotate more as a defense.”
With one of those nickel situations, specifically on the last two defensive plays of the game at the goal line, you guys came out and nickel. What was the reasoning behind that? And what happened there?
“So I chose nickel, because, without saying too much, I wanted a specific look. And obviously I guessed right on [second] down [the first of the two goal-line plays]. But I really thought that this call would be the call that would handle all the options that they could have. Move the pocket. Some kind of read-option or zone-read component, so that’s the choice I made there.”
And then coach Freeman talked a little bit about the third-and-19, and the decision to play quarters. What was the reasoning for that?
“I just thought we would get a good vision and break, and obviously we’ve got to coach it better. But what I didn't want to do [was what we did on] the previous fourth down, the previous longer third down. [We] went cover-1 both times, and they beat us. And what I didn't want to do is throw a jump ball in the back of the end zone. That would have been one that I would have lamented. Could we call other things there? For sure, but we need to execute that call, break on the ball, get the ball on the ground.”
Tricky situation, because it's not third-and-goal. It’s third-and-19, so there’s that range there?
“We were thinking three plays at that point. If we stop that play — anything in that defense [alignment] should be caught in front of [the first-down marker]. And then we're dealing with one play.”
END
AL GOLDEN
Duke quarterback Riley Leonard. Does he remind you of anybody? And what is the challenge in defending him?
“Great question. He reminds me of a bunch of different guys. He distributes the ball really well, so he gets the ball out of his hands quickly. In a lot of ways it's a throwback to the horizontal pass game. It reminds me of the old BYU quarterbacks — Ty Detmer and guys like that. I'm dating myself. But that’s what he reminds me of.
“He sees the field really well, gets the ball out. You could see, in addition to that, they had a vertical component, whether it was UConn or Clemson or whatever. There's a vertical component to it that he does a great job with. And then, obviously, he makes plays on the move, whether that's running the ball or passing the ball, but very, very impressed with him. Very impressed with the offensive scheme.”
Without giving away trade secrets, what's the best way to kind of mitigate what he does?
“It's tough. There's no doubt about it. It's challenging. We have to just mix things up on them and play really good, sound football and not beat ourselves. But there's a reason why they're winning the way they're winning. And I understand that they're playing good special teams and good defense, from the staff. But in terms of what we're focused on, kid’s doing a great job. Really is. And again, the two running backs, 7 [Jordan Waters] and 9 [Jaquez Moore], they're doing a heck of a job. They’ve got nice receivers. Tight ends are doing a good job. And I think the scheme, they're not beating themselves. They're protecting the football, and they're executing.”
And after a loss like Saturday’s and with a big game like this coming up, the mindset of the players is so important. What have you seen from your defensive players in that regard?
“I would just say that's like when we call it synergy or symbiosis. Like, what drove me to get out of bed Sunday and go to work? What drove me to stay late last night? What drove me to get in early today? It’s those kids and the way they just responded. So, they know. Look, you can't can't BS the kids. And they turn on the film, and they see the threat that Duke is. So, for them to go out like they did today and respond and put that behind them shows maturity, shows leadership, shows toughness. And we're going to need all of that come Saturday night.”
You went to a shorter rotation with a lot of positions on defense against Ohio State. I'm wondering how you feel like that worked out and will that continue?
“We needed to rotate more. Sometimes that happens. You guys might know the numbers better than me, because I was fixing this or fixing that. I wasn't looking, like you guys might be able to look after this conversation, but I think I think our numbers were low in the first half. I think our numbers were low. And then [it] got longer in the second half and then, obviously, the two-minute drill added a bunch of plays at the end. So, there's no question that we need to rotate more.”
And does having somebody like Riley Leonard also go into the thoughts of deepening the rotations, since he runs around so much?
“He's fast. He's elusive. He can keep his eyes down the field. That's a strong combination. I know why they're high on him.”
Gabe Rubio seemed like he gave you some good snaps in his first game back?
“Needed that desperately. Needed that toughness. The fourth-and-one stop, he and Rylie [Mills], JJB, all those guys, we needed that desperately.”
You mentioned your reasons for getting up on Sunday. What from the game made it hard to sleep Saturday night?
“Every day is a battle during the season to get ready for Saturday. And if you waste time, if you feel sorry for yourself, if you're trying to commiserate with other people, you're not moving forward. And you have to move forward. Like I just said downstairs [to the electronic media], I don't think there's a coordinator in the country that has been in that position that wouldn't say, ‘Ah, I wish I would have called this instead of that, because they threw the ball here or they completed that ball.’ So, there are always calls that I can look back and say, ‘I would do it differently.’ But the bottom line is execution. So, whatever we call, we need to execute. We need to coach it better. And we need to finish. We really do. We need to finish, and it's not just one play or one series of plays. We need to do a better job.”
This is almost an operational question more than personnel, but with Thomas Harper playing so well and Jack Kiser playing so well, how do you get them both in the field?
“We talked about that. We have to mix Harp in a little bit more at safety, and Jack's numbers are going to go up. Jack's played well the last two games, and he probably got shortchanged. I don't know the numbers from the other day.”
Ten snaps.
“So, not enough, so we need to get his numbers up.”
It's a challenge, right, because he's a rover. You want to play nickel?
“Yeah. I mean, it's always a challenge, but yes, we need to rotate more as a defense.”
With one of those nickel situations, specifically on the last two defensive plays of the game at the goal line, you guys came out and nickel. What was the reasoning behind that? And what happened there?
“So I chose nickel, because, without saying too much, I wanted a specific look. And obviously I guessed right on [second] down [the first of the two goal-line plays]. But I really thought that this call would be the call that would handle all the options that they could have. Move the pocket. Some kind of read-option or zone-read component, so that’s the choice I made there.”
And then coach Freeman talked a little bit about the third-and-19, and the decision to play quarters. What was the reasoning for that?
“I just thought we would get a good vision and break, and obviously we’ve got to coach it better. But what I didn't want to do [was what we did on] the previous fourth down, the previous longer third down. [We] went cover-1 both times, and they beat us. And what I didn't want to do is throw a jump ball in the back of the end zone. That would have been one that I would have lamented. Could we call other things there? For sure, but we need to execute that call, break on the ball, get the ball on the ground.”
Tricky situation, because it's not third-and-goal. It’s third-and-19, so there’s that range there?
“We were thinking three plays at that point. If we stop that play — anything in that defense [alignment] should be caught in front of [the first-down marker]. And then we're dealing with one play.”
END
