Why Aren't We Talking About the New DC?
- Thread starter IrishMike409
- Start date
We have seen so many DC's the last 10 years, BVG, Elko, Lea, Freeman, Golden and now Ash. I think people are in a wait and see mode, which is smart. No one considered Al Golden a home run hire when ND hired him, no one considered Al Golden a home run hire after his first season, he turned into a home run hire his 2nd year.
I personally believe if Marcus would have elevated a first time DC like Mickens, he would have had to spend more time on defense, sort of coaching the coach. I think Marcus wants to be a CEO Head Coach, part of that is having grey haired coordinators on offense and defense. Which let's him float and oversee, not have to dig in on one side of the ball, which for Marcus would be defense.
I think this is great, if you remember when Bob Davie and Charlie Weis, both rookie coaches, whose ships started to sink. Both those guys took back play calling on their side of the ball. Bob Davie defense and Charle Weis offenes. I knew then they would be gone, because micro managing never works. So, this hire makes alot of sense to me
I personally believe if Marcus would have elevated a first time DC like Mickens, he would have had to spend more time on defense, sort of coaching the coach. I think Marcus wants to be a CEO Head Coach, part of that is having grey haired coordinators on offense and defense. Which let's him float and oversee, not have to dig in on one side of the ball, which for Marcus would be defense.
I think this is great, if you remember when Bob Davie and Charlie Weis, both rookie coaches, whose ships started to sink. Both those guys took back play calling on their side of the ball. Bob Davie defense and Charle Weis offenes. I knew then they would be gone, because micro managing never works. So, this hire makes alot of sense to me
Why didn't Freeman look at the top defensive coordinators at Big 12, Mountain West, Conf USA programs? Any of those guys would run through a wall to be defensive coordinator at ND. And they'd potentially be able to bring over 1-2 of their top players.
This process seemed rushed for no good reason.
This process seemed rushed for no good reason.
It's pretty simple to me. As a fan you either trust Marcus Freeman or you don't to know and do what he believes is best for his program. I for one do as I believe he's certainly more knowledgeable about that than all of us here combined and then some.....except for Get Nasty, he knows more about football than anyone else who has ever walked the face of the earth.
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Is it smart if we do that, what happens if we prematurely jump to conclusions? Is it going to cost us a playoff spot? Possibly, but I mainly would think it would have absolutely no effect on anything. So we could stay idling in a 'wait and see' mode, and be totally undecided and noncommittal on our feelings about this all-important hire for a a program and a team, seemingly poised to go on an extended playoff run, principally on the back of our defense. Or that's what we would have thought with Al Golden still on board. With him gone, we'd be liable to be like, Oh shit, what's going to happen? Golden's gone and we got this new DC no one's ever really heard of before, or we have heard of him, but mainly for him being an incredibly unsuccessful HC at Rutgers. But he does have a respectable enough if also unexceptional and slightly downtrending overall resume coaching all over the place at the highest levels and so we should probably just wait and see.....
And MF can do whatever he wants, and be a CEO coach, but if this guy isn't a good DC, we're effed. So that's all irrelevant. Other than to say, he does bring that experience, so I guess you can trust him, but trust him to do what, produce a mediocre defense? Not that he will suck, but my framing of this would be, if I had to guess which I do, that MF is simply repeating the AG formula, almost blindly. And going to back the well. And if that really is the sum and substance of his thinking and his approach, that isn't terribly reassuring. I would want MF to really believe in the guy specifically. And that this is his guy. Not just someone who sort of 'fits the profile', because he was so understandably thrilled and satisfied with how well things worked with Al Golden. Again, by no means a likely bad decision, but still, it's formulaic. Or at least that's what I'm thinking is quite possible in this situation.
But as long as we keep MM on board, then he's still available to us, as well as coaching DBs for one more year. But obviously that will be an unsustainable situation, and MF will have to decide how much he values MM's presence on the staff, because he'll probably get other offers.
My issue isn't so much with the hire itself -- we dont have anywhere near the access that MF does when determining who his next DC is
My issue is that 1. Chris Ash doesn't seem like much of a recruiter DESPITE THIS BEING THE #1 ISSUE HOLDING BACK THE PROGRAM
and 2. Al Golden was making 2+ million in salary for the next several years plus had what I'd imagine to be a market-rate buyout attached to his contract which pays ND a lot of money if he gets hired away. Chris Ash wont be making anywhere near Al Golden's salary
Where's all of this extra budget savings + buyout money going to improve the program?
Also there's a thread with 125 posts and 7K views talking about Chris Ash here: https://notredame.forums.rivals.com/threads/chris-ash-dc.194961/
My issue is that 1. Chris Ash doesn't seem like much of a recruiter DESPITE THIS BEING THE #1 ISSUE HOLDING BACK THE PROGRAM
and 2. Al Golden was making 2+ million in salary for the next several years plus had what I'd imagine to be a market-rate buyout attached to his contract which pays ND a lot of money if he gets hired away. Chris Ash wont be making anywhere near Al Golden's salary
Where's all of this extra budget savings + buyout money going to improve the program?
Also there's a thread with 125 posts and 7K views talking about Chris Ash here: https://notredame.forums.rivals.com/threads/chris-ash-dc.194961/
IrishMike,
Bet we’re singing his praises next year. His track record of losing his job as head coaches were fired in his last three or four stops taints his record, and his abject failure as HC at Rutgers hurts him as well. I look at this in terms of the elite coaching talent that Freeman and Notre Dame can now attract. Freeman and others within the industry think highly of Ash, and Freeman seemed to quickly zero in on him rather than an expanded recruitment effort. I think Freeman has earned trust in his selection of staff, and I expect really great results from Ash Mickens. .
Freeman probably wanted continuity above anything else is my guess. Doesn't make sense to hire someone new and do a complete overhaul when you just finished the season w/ a top 10 defense. It was likely in the plan to make Mickens a co-coordinator, so he also needed someone willing to do that. Lastly, if there's anything bad about hiring young hungry up and coming coaches is that they aren't likely to stick around for very long. That's one of the reasons for hiring Golden is that they didn't think he would get an HFC opportunity anytime soon. Ash is probably not likely to get an HFC job soon either. There's a lot of factors to consider and it's not always best to just hire the hottest name out there.
Can you also post your take on the GOLDEN hire... from three years go? I'm pretty sure it was just as negative as all of your other posts. And, for example you constant trashing of our recuiting: low 3* Leonard Moore -- he ended up being on of the top 5 True Freshmen in college football this year.
I'm inclined to listen to Urban Meyer and Marcus Freeman -- you listen to... yourself. Negativity echoing.
No.....
I'm here everyday and wasn't seeing it. I saw it on other boards.
Maybe I just missed it.
Two of the Big Ten's best coaches in the past 35 years — Wisconsin's Barry Alvarez and Ohio State's Urban Meyer — trusted Ash to run the Badgers' (2011-12) and Buckeyes' (2014-15) defenses,
Two of the Big Ten's best coaches in the past 35 years — Wisconsin's Barry Alvarez and Ohio State's Urban Meyer — trusted Ash to run the Badgers' (2011-12) and Buckeyes' (2014-15) defenses,
He won a national championship. What have you two won with your brutal, if woefully uniformed, opinions?
Well if continuity was the objective why wouldn't you just promote from within and bring in a new position coach? I think the objective was experience, at the unavoidable expense of continuity. Ash has no previous affiliation with ND or MF that I'm aware of. And unless he's totally prepared and especially able to run Golden's already existing schemes and philosophies without missing a beat, I'm not sure where the maintaining continuity part comes in.
I think he just wanted a veteran hand, apparently in a very similar mold of Al Golden, and in that conceptual sense it's continuity, but other than that it's an all new coach with I would imagine his own playbook.
I didn't see any talk at all and heard it was a done deal early yesterday aft.
What a run of defensive coordinators. When Elko left, I thought he was irreplaceable and then we had Lea. Thought the same thing about Lea and now I think Golden might have been the best of the bunch.
At some point you just come to expect the Notre Dame defence to show up. Notre Dames identity is a physical defence who can stop the run. It’s been that way for the better part of the past decade. Notre Dame doesn’t recruit heads and shoulders above the rest on the defensive side, so I’m not sure if it’s the Notre Dame environment, discipline or coaching, but it’s been consistently good. Heck if you take out the BVG years, the last really bad defence we had was during the Weis years.
If Ash isn’t trotting out a top 25 defence in his first year, he won’t last very long.
ND final DF+ by season the last 8 years (since Brian Kelly 2.0 lol)
Remember that DF+ (defensive F+) adjusts for opponent quality and luck:
2024: 3rd - Golden
2023: 7th - Golden
2022: 30th - Golden
2021: 13th - Freeman
2020: 17th - Lea
2019: 8th - Lea
2018: 9th - Lea
2017: 13th - Elko
Since MF came on board back in 2021 and then Golden in 2022 NDs defense has climbed to top 5.
I think anything less than maintaining a top 5 defense would reflect poorly on Ash going forward and obviously seriously hinder NDs chances of maintaining a top 5 position overall.
Remember that DF+ (defensive F+) adjusts for opponent quality and luck:
2024: 3rd - Golden
2023: 7th - Golden
2022: 30th - Golden
2021: 13th - Freeman
2020: 17th - Lea
2019: 8th - Lea
2018: 9th - Lea
2017: 13th - Elko
Since MF came on board back in 2021 and then Golden in 2022 NDs defense has climbed to top 5.
I think anything less than maintaining a top 5 defense would reflect poorly on Ash going forward and obviously seriously hinder NDs chances of maintaining a top 5 position overall.
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