Five things Notre Dame OC Mike Denbrock said Saturday before the national championship game

A couple days away from Notre Dame’s monumental national championship clash against the Ohio State Buckeyes, players and coaches from both teams met with the media. Fighting Irish offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock spoke about a handful of topics, and Blue & Gold provides five key quotes from his press conference.

On Notre Dame offensive lineman Charles Jagusah

“I remember fall camp and Charles getting his feet wet. He hadn’t played a lot of football obviously even leading into fall camp, then unfortunately the injury that happened. I think one of the first questions that we all asked was how serious is it, how long is it going to be, is there an opportunity to possibly get him back at some point?

“Then to watch him every day put in the work necessary on the sideline and in the meeting room, just in case there was an opportunity, just in case there was a chance for him to possibly contribute to the success of the football team was pretty cool to witness and watch every day.

“Coming into the game, the Orange Bowl, and playing the way that he did, I thought was a testament to his preparation and a testament to Coach [Joe] Rudolph and the job that he does with the offensive line. We’ll see how things shake out for Thursday, but he’s had a really good week of practice, and really all those offensive line have done a nice job this week.”

On the keys to be able to move the ball against Ohio State

“Let me go back to the Georgia Tech game first. What a tough football team. What a well-coached group. That was a battle. I think all the games that we played this year like that one have helped prepare us for what we’re going to face against Ohio State.

“Obviously Ohio State, their front seven is tremendous, and when you say, hey, while their front seven is tremendous, I’m not trying to downplay their back end at all. Those guys are great cover guys, great tacklers, great at impacting the football game on their own right.

“We’re going to have to win the line of scrimmage and be consistent with doing it for us to be able to operate the way we need to operate offensively.”

On the competitive nature of Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard

“Just everything that he does, he competes at. Whether that’s his preparation for a game, on the practice field, obviously in a game situation, and then when the guys get in the locker room, I think they compete as hard in there as they do at anything that they do in their life just from a bragging perspective so that they can kind of give each other a hard time about it.

“The ping pong games in the locker room are legendary. I think everybody kind of saw probably his highlights of his basketball career in high school come up. He wanted to make sure that got leaked out so everybody saw that.

“Yeah, just a really competitive guy. It’s fun to be watching him kind of express that and let people kind of know who he is a little bit more.”

On what makes Marcus Freeman a successful leader and head coach

“There’s so many things. I think he’s consistent with his message of encouraging those guys in every aspect of their life to reach their full potential. I think they identify with that. I think he’s a genuine person that, when you talk to him, you feel like you’ve known him. If you talk to him for five minutes or whether you’ve known him for five years, you feel like you know him, the real Marcus Freeman, because he’s so authentic and he’s so personable.

“I think that relates to the players of today really well, and they kind of take that in and feel like, okay, this is somebody that I know has my best interests at heart and that I can trust. It allows them an opportunity to kind of give their best to that effort when they’ve got a leadership like that.”

On how Freeman directed the Irish after the loss to NIU

“Very, very critical point in our season obviously. The mood of the team and the feeling around the team always comes from the top down. His ability to compartmentalize it a little bit, to analyze it, to kind of be willing to be vulnerable, us as a coaching staff, him as the leader of the program, and look at the things that we felt like we really needed to fix.

“Not just that we lost, but why we lost, and what is it that we can change, do, repair to make sure we don’t have to suffer the same consequences again. He did an outstanding job obviously of doing that and pointing the team in the right direction, and they’ve done a great job of following the plan.”