Tag: Coaches

Notre Dame assistant leaving for Boston College

Another assistant coach exits Marcus Freeman’s staff. Good or bad?

The University of Notre Dame will now be adding “Football -Tight Ends Coach” to their job posting site as it’ll be located next to defensive coordinator and running backs coach.  That’s because John McNulty, who has spent the last two seasons as Notre Dame’s tight ends coach, is taking the offensive coordinator position at Boston College.

It’s not that McNulty on his own is a great loss for Notre Dame.  He is clearly good at what he does as evidenced by his resume and help in developing Michael Mayer, but it is yet another loss from the coaching staff of Marcus Freeman.

Say what you want about Bayou Brian Kelly but the fact of the matter is the man knew how to assemble a coaching staff which is incredibly key in any level of football.  I’m not trying to suggest Marcus Freeman won’t be but if given the choice, I’d prefer for him to have to do less of that in his first off-season.

It clearly means Notre Dame’s football program is in a healthy state as so multiple are getting boosted up elsewhere, but it also promises nothing going forward.  If its a problem, it’s very much a “first football world problem” to have.

Nonetheless, all the best* to McNulty who was the position coach to the best tight end in college football this season, even if the actual award didn’t even name him a finalist.

*-“all the best” does not apply to Notre Dame’s Nov. 19 senior day contest versus Boston College.

Related:

Notre Dame’s 2022 football schedule – an early look

Notre Dame 2022 football coaching tracker

Report: Boston College pursuing Notre Dame assistant coach

Is McNulty about to leave? Sure seems like it

Marcus Freeman’s eventful off-season of replacing assistant coaches after becoming Notre Dame’s head coach may very soon be having another chapter added.  According to a report from Pete Thamel of ESPN, Boston College is zeroing in on current Notre Dame tight ends coach John McNulty as their next offensive coordinator.

According to Thamel:

McNulty is set to replace Frank Cignetti Jr., who left Boston College for the same role at Pittsburgh. McNulty also previously worked with Eagles coach Jeff Hafley, as the two overlapped on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers staff in 2013.

McNulty has been at Notre Dame the last two seasons and has kept the tight end room at a level that is as high as just about any in college football.  The move would add to the list of assistants that were initially thought to be sticking around but instead won’t actually be a part of Freeman’s first staff at Notre Dame.

Related:

Notre Dame assistant coach tracker

An early look at Notre Dame’s 2022 football schedule

Notre Dame officially names new special teams coordinator

Officially official.

We’ve known for a couple weeks now that Brian Mason from Cincinnati would be taking over as Notre Dame‘s special teams coordinator and Thursday saw that news finally made official.

In a statement released by Notre Dame athletics, Marcus Freeman spoke about Mason, who he coached with at Cincinnati.

“In designing our staff, I want to surround our players with coaches who are excellent teachers, relentless recruiters and intentional in building relationships. I am excited to introduce Brian Mason as our special teams coordinator, as I know he will be a dynamic fit for our program.

“Brian is the best in his field, and has a proven track record of producing elite special teams units. We look forward to him bringing that edge to Notre Dame.”

Mason has coached at Cincinnati since 2017 as his special teams units played a significant factor in the Bearcats going 13-0 and earning a College Football Playoff spot this past season.

Related:

Notre Dame football coaching staff tracker 

Notre Dame transfer portal tracker (2022)

Alabama loses two assistant coaches to other highly-competitive programs

Two Crimson Tide coaches are accepting promotions at there big-time programs.

Nick Saban seems to be the only constant at Alabama. Players come and go, as do his assistant coaches. Working alongside Saban in any role is worthy of being placed on a resumé, which is why so many of his former assistants get hired elsewhere.

It feels as if every year Saban loses members of his staff, who go on to get promotions at other programs. In fat, his old defensive coordinator, Kirby Smart, just beat him in the national championship game.

With the season over, players are entering the NCAA Transfer Portal, declaring for the NFL draft and coaches are leaving for other opportunities.

Two Crimson Tide coaches: cornerbacks coach Jay Valai and analyst Jake Long, have accepted new positions with other highly-competitive programs.

Valai will be the co-defensive coordinator for the Oklahoma Sooners and Long will be the inside linebackers coach at Oregon.

Contact/Follow us @RollTideWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Alabama news, notes and opinion. You can also follow AJ Spurr on Twitter @SpurrFM.

Watch: Georgia coaches come running out of booth after final play

More chills

The final play of the College Football Playoff national championship ended in Georgia’s Nolan Smith sacking Alabama quarterback Bryce Young. Fans at home in Georgia and across the country cried, ran aimlessly around their homes and destroyed some property when they saw their Dawgs win it all for the first since 1980 on Monday night.

Georgia assistant coaches in the coaches’ booth at Lucas Oil Stadium ran, but it certainly was not aimlessly.

Watch the moment Georgia won it all and the coaches took off flying, shouting and making their way to the field to celebrate with their players, coworkers and families.

Every Buccaneers head coach’s all-time record against the Saints

Three different Buccaneers coaches have hit .500 against the Saints, and one has a winning record. But Bruce Arians is 1-5 since 2019:

At risk of acknowledging the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as a serious rival of the New Orleans Saints, I’ll start this off by reminding everyone that it’s a series the Saints own handily, having gone 38-22 against Tampa Bay. That’s dating back to 1977 with a six-game winning streak from 1983 to 1988 (before they shared a division) and a seven-win run from 2012 to 2015.

It hasn’t seemed to matter who the Buccaneers hire as head coach, who they start at quarterback, or who was owning the team — the Saints have beaten them in every era they’ve met.

Still, it’s a good time to run through the timeline. Here is how every coach in Buccaneers history has fared against New Orleans (including the playoffs), from Bruce Arians to John McKay:

Tommy Rees: ‘I wanted to fight for Notre Dame’

This could have gotten ugly real quickly if not for Tommy Rees

The way things went down with Marcus Freeman being hired by Notre Dame less than a week after Brian Kelly up and vanished it’s becoming more clear just how close the entire coaching staff was to being blown up.

Freeman spoke during his press conference about how close

We know how it all turned out now but how close was Rees to joining Kelly at LSU?

Does Rees think Kelly could have handled things differently in order to talk to his team?

Rees joined The Ryan Russillo Podcast and spilled the beans on how everything went down, just how close he was to being LSU’s offensive coordinator.

“I was all in, the GA (graduate assistant) is single and he was all in, the girlfriend was all in,” Rees said, “I had Zillow’d Baton Rouge!”

Rees eventually compared the Notre Dame situation to feeling like he was in a sense, protecting the Alamo.

“I wanted to fight for Notre Dame” Rees added.

It’s worth listening to the entire interview to hear more about everything that went down after the Stanford game and how Kelly acted in the hours leading up to the decision.

The biggest takeaway to me is how if Rees wasn’t proactive in telling Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick that he needed to meet significantly sooner than Swarbrick planned that all hell could have broken loose.

There is a ton more to take away from here as Rees wasn’t nearly as certain to return to Notre Dame as we may have previously believed.

Take a listen to the interview in full by clicking play below:

 

Related:

Everything Marcus Freeman said at his Notre Dame introductory press conference

Marcus Freeman already out visiting five-star recruits

Best images from Marcus Freeman’s introductory press conference at Notre Dame

Tommy Rees talks all things Notre Dame football and Fiesta Bowl

Winners and losers from the college football coaching carousel

Which teams hit home runs and which teams got hurt the most in the coaching carousel so far?

The 2021 coaching carousel has been one of the more wild ones in college football history.

We have seen a little bit of everything this offseason. Successful coaches at premier jobs bolted to other major programs, Miami publicly looked to hire Mario Cristobal while the position was still filled and TCU hired Sonny Dykes from rival SMU from right down the road.

This year’s coaching carousel has already almost doubled the number of coaching changes we saw in 2020. There have been 28 coaching changes made with more likely to come after the bowl season.

All these coaches on the move have made a big impact on the transfer portal and recruiting. More and more players have entered the transfer portal to explore their options for the upcoming seasons.

Much of the future of college football will be defined by the decisions made during this offseason. Take a look at some of the winners and losers of this years coaching cycle:

Watch: Brian Kelly debuts sudden new southern accent

Oh dear lord this is cringe-worthy

Brian Kelly and his family haven’t even unpacked their bags yet in Baton Rouge but there has already been a massive change for the former Notre Dame head coach.  After speaking at his introductory press conference on Wednesday afternoon, Kelly stopped by the LSU men’s basketball game that evening.  It was there he debuted his new southern accent while addressing the crowd at halftime.

Related: Notre Dame coaching staff tracker

Take a peek at the video below and start it at roughly the 30 second mark.  A fair warning to you that things are about to get really uncomfortable and awkward.

Who is that guy?

I’ve listened to Brian Kelly press conferences and interviews for more than a decade and never heard a single hint of an accent whatsoever.  Now all of a sudden he spends ten minutes in Louisiana and he belongs on the cast of “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”

Related: 5 reasons to love the Marcus Freeman hire

My level of discomfort sitting through those couple minutes was limitless.  Perhaps whatever the heck that voice was is why Kelly’s assistants at Notre Dame all decided to stay at Notre Dame.

Related:

See It – Brian Kelly arrives in Baton Rouge

 

Notre Dame Football Coaching Staff Tracker

What Notre Dame coaches are coming and going in wake of Freeman hire?

When Brian Kelly left Notre Dame for LSU the fear among Fighting Irish faithful was that he’d be taking a good amount of assistant coaches with him.  By doing so that would sting Notre Dame both in the present and in the future as not only coaches would theoretically leave and then current players and recruits would perhaps follow the coaches they have close relationships with as well.

That may have been the fear but so far it’s certainly not the case as to what has happened as one by one more Notre Dame assistants have been reported to be staying on the coaching staff as we await the University to confirm the reports of Marcus Freeman being the next head football coach.

If Kelly thought he’d be able to bring a good amount of the staff with him, so far it’s gone for him about as well as it did for Jerry MaGuire when he left to start his own agency.

Here are what we know so far in regards to Notre Dame’s staff and who is returning and who we do not yet know: