Mike Denbrock shares how he has grown as a coordinator since leaving Notre Dame

Mike Denbrock is now in his third tenure under his third different head coach as an offensive assistant at Notre Dame. That included a previous one-season stint as the team’s offensive coordinator, which is the role he’s now filling again.

It’s been seven seasons since Denbrock last coached at Notre Dame. In each of those seasons, Denbrock was an offensive coordinator, first at Cincinnati and later at LSU. With that better experience in mind, he recently shared how he feels he’s grown as a coordinator since he left Notre Dame.

“Experience is the best teacher,” Mike Denbrock said. “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 OK. I’m unbelievably fine with that.”

Denbrock had a relationship with Brian Kelly dating back to their time together at Grand Valley State. After that, he held several offensive assistant roles, including under Tyrone Willingham at Notre Dame. He later returned to the Irish under Kelly. Now, with Marcus Freeman running the program, he’s again back to lead the offense.

Most recently in his career, Mike Denbrock has found success at LSU under Brian Kelly. In particular, he helped Jayden Daniels to win the Heisman Trophy while the Tigers averaged 45.5 points per game in 2023, the best in the country.

“But I was able to break away and 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 we have available to us, what the best way to do that is,” Denbrock said.

“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. That’s the biggest difference now. Experience is a great teacher, number one, and number two, the system that we’re going to run and its development is something I’m in complete control of.” 

Mike Denbrock downplays hopes to become a head coach

Despite his long and successful career in coaching, Mike Denbrock has never been a head coach. However, he has also downplayed his personal hopes to become one.

“I think this has become more and more of a little bit of a young man’s business. I don’t see — unless something incredible just hits you in the face — that that would be my career path from this point forward,” Denbrock said.

“I’m very content leading an offense and helping Marcus and this program win a national championship here. I want to be part of that. I want to do that here with these student-athletes and 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 just turn down.”