Tag: Chris O’Leary

Report: Chargers hiring Chris O’Leary as safeties coach

Chris O’Leary reunites with Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter.

The Chargers are hiring Chris O’Leary as their safeties coach, according to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler.

O’Leary finished his third season as Notre Dame’s safeties coach, establishing himself as a quality position coach for head coach Marcus Freeman.

O’Leary was credited for working with Ravens safety Kyle Hamilton, a first-round pick by Baltimore in the 2022 NFL draft. This past season, O’Leary worked with the Nagurski Trophy winner, Xavier Watts, who led the nation in interceptions.

O’Leary started as a defensive analyst in 2018. O’Leary held the titles of senior football analyst in 2019 and defensive graduate assistant before being promoted to safeties coach. In 2020, he helped coach now Browns linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, who won the Butkus Award.

O’Leary reunites with Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter as they coached together at Georgia State and O’Leary played at Indiana State during Minter’s time as an assistant coach.

Notre Dame football loses one of its best coaches to the NFL

A huge loss for the Irish

For some reason, this offseason seems like many coaches are making much later decisions on where they will be employed during next season and the bug has hit Notre Dame football.

Jeremy Fowler of ESPN is reporting that the Los Angeles Chargers will hired away safeties coach [autotag]Chris O’Leary[/autotag] from the Irish. He’s been with the program for the past three seasons, with his star pupil being Kyle Hamilton, who just this past season was named as a First-team All-Pro.

It’s a big loss for head coach Marcus Freeman, as O’Leary has had this group perform at an extremely high level, just this past season Xavier Watts won the Bronko Nagurski Trophy after leading the NCAA in interceptions.

As Freeman has shown he can do, expect Notre Dame to find a more than adequate replacement for O’Leary.

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A trio from Notre Dame on Football Scoops Coach of the Year finalists

Elite coaches = Elite play

You know you are doing well when three of your assistant coaches are named finalists for an award, which is exactly what happened to Notre Dame.

Running backs coach [autotag]Deland McCullough[/autotag], defensive back coach [autotag]Mike Mickens[/autotag], and defensive backs / safeties coach [autotag]Chris O’Leary[/autotag] were all named to Football Scoops Coach of the Year final list.

McCullough is being credited for the play of Aurdic Estime, who rushed for 1,341 yards and 18 touchdowns on the year. The junior running back has declared for the NFL and looks to be one of the first off the board at his position.

As for Mickens and O’Leary, the exploits of safety Xavier Watts, who won the Bronko Nagurski Trophy, along with Benjamin Morrison’s play showed everyone that they are two of the best in the country.

If I had to guess who was most likely to win the award, it would be O’Leary, as he gets the most credit for the success of the secondary.

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Notre Dame football offers Utah 2024 safety

The Irish are early to offer a fast-rising safety

[autotag]Notre Dame[/autotag] football has plenty of ammo when trying to convince a secondary recruit that South Bend is the right place for them. Freshman [autotag]Ben Morrison[/autotag] is coming off an All-American season while former Irish safety [autotag]Kyle Hamilton[/autotag] just finished off an impressive first year with the [autotag]Baltimore Ravens[/autotag].

With that in mind, head coach [autotag]Marcus Freeman[/autotag] and safeties coach [autotag]Chris O’Leary[/autotag] offered Utah safety [autotag]Davis Andrews[/autotag] today.

The six-foot-three-inch and 195-pound player could eventually outgrow the position and end up as a linebacker, but he currently fits the mold of the big safeties that Notre Dame likes to deploy at the back end of their defense.

The Irish offer is Andrews first big one, as he was previously offered by [autotag]Stanford[/autotag], [autotag]BYU[/autotag], [autotag]Arizona[/autotag] and a few others. Expect Notre Dame to be players for his signature later this year.

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Notre Dame doubles up Florida offers today, this time a 2024 cornerback

The Irish are hitting the Sunshine State hard today

The Irish are hitting Florida hard today, as earlier they offered a scholarship to 2025 athlete [autotag]Jaime Ffrench Jr.[/autotag] That wasn’t the only Sunshine State prospect that got an offer from [autotag]Marcus Freeman[/autotag] and his staff today.

[autotag]Jon Mitchell[/autotag], a class of 2024 cornerback received an offer from Freeman and defensive backs coach [autotag]Chris O’Leary[/autotag]. The six-foot and 160-pound cornerback doesn’t quite have the offer list of Ffrench Jr. but a still solid, growing list that includes [autotag]Michigan[/autotag], [autotag]Michigan State[/autotag], [autotag]Penn State[/autotag] and a few others.

Football runs in the Mitchell family as his brother Nic plays for [autotag]Mississippi State[/autotag] and brother Kris plays for [autotag]Florida International[/autotag]. Safe to say the family is an athletic one and the youngest might end up being the best.

At the current moment, the Irish have a fantastic start to their 2024 recruiting class, with seven total commitments led by quarterback [autotag]CJ Carr[/autotag] and wide receiver [autotag]Cam Williams[/autotag].

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Marcus Freeman to attend NFL draft

Well, it is draft day.

Just where [autotag]Kyle Hamilton[/autotag] gets selected remains to be seen but the former Notre Dame star will become the latest former Fighting Irish player to have his name called in the NFL draft’s first round on Thursday. When that does, Hamilton’s defensive coordinator for one season will be there as Marcus Freeman will be in attendance as will safeties coach Chris O’Leary.

It will be a busy couple of days for Freeman, who will attend the draft in Vegas on Thursday night and then return to throw out the first pitch at Notre Dame’s home baseball game Friday against Boston College. All the while, you can bet he’s in touch with recruits and his staff.

Yes, the draft in this regards is about Kyle Hamilton but Marcus Freeman is no fool, either.  He is being there to support the former Notre Dame star even if he wasn’t his head coach but it’s yet another chance to sell Notre Dame as you can bet when you see him on TV tonight that Freeman will be sporting an “ND” pin.

Notre Dame will also likely see the likes of Kyren Williams, Kevin Austin, Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa, Jack Coan get selected in middle to later rounds while Isaiah Pryor, Drew White and Kurt Hinish could sneak into the final round.  Cain Madden and Jonathan Doerer will likely be signed as undrafted free agents.

Hamilton also coached Cincinnati cornerback Ahmad “Sauce” Gardner who is projected to possibly go in the top-five.

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Notre Dame Football Coaching Staff Wish List

The next Notre Dame football coaching staff dream team…

Notre Dame is looking for a new head coach after Brian Kelly bolted to Baton Rouge to head the LSU football program.  Where does athletic director Jack Swarbrick look after the tidal wave Kelly left in his wake?

The good news is Swarbrick shouldn’t have to travel very far to fill the suddenly open spot and that the program was clearly left in a great place.

So what would a dream Notre Dame coaching staff look like at the end of this coaching search?

Here’s the Notre Dame dream team that Swarbrick can start to piece together:

Two Notre Dame coaches named to 247Sports top 30 Under 30 rising stars

Hopefully both of them stick around for a while

College football annually has plenty of turnover on coaching staffs, we saw it this past season with Clark Lea leaving to lead Vanderbilt and subsequently Brian Kelly finding his new defensive coordinator in Marcus Freeman. Finding a replacement can be great, but what teams also have to do is not only win on the field and develop their players, but develop their own coaches.

Most major programs see other teams poach their up-and-coming coaches so finding younger assistants who are on the rise in the profession is paramount. That’s exactly what Kelly has been able to do, as today, both offensive coordinator Tommy Rees and safeties coach Chris O’Leary have been named to 247Sports 30Under30, college football’s rising star coaches.

The inclusion of Rees should not surprise anyone, he has made their list for 3 consecutive years. In his first full season calling the offensive plays, Rees led the Irish offense that “ranked 30th nationally in point per game and 34th in yards per play as it reached the College Football Playoff.” Pretty impressive if you ask me.

As for O’Leary, after starting his career as a graduate assistant at Georgia State in 2015, he’s climbed the ranks from when Kelly hired him as a defensive analyst to graduate assistant and now the defensive back/safeties coach. Chris Hummer cited last year’s Butkus Award winner, Jeremiah Owusu-Koramaoh, as a feather in O’Leary’s cap even though he “can’t claim credit for JOK’s ascendance, but those around the program have been high on O’Leary and his ability to develop.”

As stated above, coaches like these two typically get poached by other programs giving them more responsibilities and higher pay. Hopefully that won’t be the case so soon for Rees and O’Leary.

Report: Notre Dame finds new safeties coach

Notre Dame’s 2021 coaching staff appears complete after news came down of the new safeties coach for next season.

Marcus Freeman’s first staff as defensive coordinator at Notre Dame appears to be nearing completion with a report out on Wednesday night.

Freeman and Notre Dame have been looking to replace safety coach Terry Joseph who left for a job at Texas on Steve Sarkisian’s first staff after being passed over for the defensive coordinator job with the Irish.

According to FootballScoop.com, it appears Freeman, Brian Kelly, and Notre Dame have found their man in Chris O’Leary.

From FootballScoop.com:

Per sources with direct knowledge, Notre Dame conducted multiple in-house and exterior interviews in recent weeks before it settled on O’Leary as the final staff piece for new first-year defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman.

O’Leary is from Terre Haute, Indiana originally, and a former walk-on at Indiana State.  He has made previous coaching stops at Georgia State and Florida Tech before getting on at Notre Dame.

Related: Notre Dame’s official 2021 recruiting class