Everything Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden said Saturday

Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden spoke to the media on Saturday exactly two weeks before the Fighting Irish’s season-opener at Texas A&M. Here’s everything he said in his press conference.

On Notre Dame’s planned rotation of five linebackers

“Max [Bullough] has been vocal about it, but I would say [Mike Mickens] and Al [Washington] feel the same way. We’re trying to develop kind of a herd at each position or a pod that we can rotate through. Obviously, the heat in the opener is one of the elements of the game. For us, we’re trying to develop that at every position. If you had Mick up here right now, he’d tell you he’s trying to get eight to 10 guys ready. I know Al’s somewhere around 10 or 11 that he’s trying to get ready to play. That’s our mentality. We’re trying to build for the long haul.” 

On turning position battles into ways to get guys on the field

“Just trying to find different roles for everybody. That’s one of the things that we tell everybody; you’re auditioning every day for roles. We try to mix up the groupings to put some No. 1 linebackers with the twos, No. 2 linebackers with the ones. Same thing on the back end or our d-end with a tackle. We know it’s not always static in terms of who is in the game. I think that’s really important to build that, if you will, that vertical and horizontal depth.” 

On Notre Dame’s nickel corner position

“Christian [Gray] can play in there. Jaden [Mickey] has played in there for us. Rod [Heard II] can go in there. We can go bigger too. There’s a lot of different options that we have there. We can leave base on the field because we like our rovers in [Jaylen] Sneed and Jaiden [Ausberry] and those types of things. We have a lot of different things. We just try not to present the same thing all the time. That’s important.”

On Notre Dame’s strong-side defensive end position  

“Bryce [Young], Josh Burnham, Boubacar [Traore] can play over there. I guess what I’m saying is we’re not as static as it appears on the paper. Some days, we’ll say so, and so you have to go play this, or you have to go play that. You’re just trying to build it for the long term. It’s a long season. I think that’s what’s great about the scrimmage today. You get all these different situations. 

“To me, it’s like [Marcus Freeman] was saying, it was a really mature scrimmage. There wasn’t a lot of nonsense. It was just really mature. It was clean. Guys were flying around and executing. Wins on both sides. It was fun to watch both sides go out and do that.” 

On Fighting Irish offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock challenging him

“Every day. They do a great job. No. 1, they have a quarterback who can distribute or he can solve it with his legs, which is really an awesome starting point. Everybody talks about [Mitchell Evans], but the other two tight ends behind him made great strides. Now, all of a sudden, there are different combinations that can go in the game.

“I love our running back corps. Different combinations of wide receivers in the game. The totality of that, if you will, provides great challenges. It’s not like we’ll take away Mitch or just take away Beaux [Collins] or hey, we have to focus on Jeremiyah [Love]. It’s not that because then Riley [Leonard] can get you with his feet. I love the system. 

“Coach [Denbrock] had a chance to ride together to Coach Freeman’s house the other day. Just pulled back and said from a macro side, when you look at it, what gives you problems or what’s really, really fun to watch? It’s definitely a challenge every day to go against it and it makes the guys adapt and solve problems on the field.” 

On freshmen defensive backs Karson Hobbs, Leonard Moore and Tae Johnson

“Leonard has been a little bit banged up as of late. I’m sure he’s going to be healthy and ready to go once we start our A&M prep. Karson, we’re challenging him a little bit between some nickel and some corner and doing some different things with him. Tae has really made a lot of progress. Tae cares about it. He really wants to do better and he’s trying to improve. It’s just a challenge back there when you’re young. Again, we’re building it for the long haul and we’re trying to get them to the finish line two weeks from now, but certainly moving forward, we know we can get them there.” 

On graduate student linebacker Jack Kiser wearing the green dot

“It’s probably good because Jack’s really smart. If he had a button back to me it would be a long day. We’d go back and forth.”

On Kiser’s maturity being like that of an NFL player and that helping with in-game communication

“No doubt. He’s a problem solver, and I could tell him certain things and then when I get cut off he can operate it based on what he sees. We just try to keep it really quiet. We try to keep it calm. I tell the coaches all the time, it’s Sully landing on the Hudson. It’s not a rock concert. It’s not everybody yelling. It’s ‘We got Teterboro on the right. Unable. Going in the Hudson.’ It’s just what do we have to get across and the rest of it’s noise. It’s not going to help us. Coach talks about it all the time. All the other noise isn’t going to help us.

On Notre Dame’s defensive leadership

“Leaders. Look, there’s going to be some captains, but we have way more leaders than captains. Everybody has the potential to lead. Even when I try to send notes to the defensive guys that are part of that leader group, it’s a big number and it’s not just seniors. There’s guys that you’re grooming that are sophomores or juniors that have a chance to be leaders. Again, there’s leaders and great teammates. As long as there’s no third parties, we’re going to be in great shape.”

On coaching an NFL-like defense

“To me we’re just trying to get better every day. Everybody’s got their system. We believe in ours. I love our staff. It’s not just the position coaches. You guys have heard me talk about the position coaches. But the ability to execute with the GA’s and the quality control guys and the amount of tips that go out and the structure and all that.

“People name systems whatever they want to name them. That’s immaterial to me. What’s important is do we believe in what we’re teaching every day and trying to fight that chasm between goals and outcome. That’s execution. That’s what we’re trying to every day do. You can call it whatever you want. We’re just trying to get better today and trying to execute whatever we have to do.

“What people mean by the ‘NFL system’ is there’s flexibility in it. It’s not just … the system isn’t the star. The players are the star. Does that make sense to you? That’s the system. The players are the stars. Not the system. And how do we develop players and how do we get them to do the things that they do best.”

On Mike Mickens and Marty Biagi coaching the Notre Dame secondary together

“We just have a great team back there. You have Marty, you have Casey [McHugh], you have Bryce [Dempsey]. I spend a bunch of time down there and obviously Mick heads the whole thing up. It’s a great collaboration. Mick leads it, does a great job with those guys.

“I don’t know what made me just think of it. I think coach said something when we had our retreat. I said before I love my staff. Well, I didn’t know half the staff when I came here. I didn’t know the staff, you know what I mean? To be able to come here and mesh the way that we’ve meshed with Mick and Al and Mike Moon and all those guys. That part of it has been a blessing.

“To take that leap of faith and then be rewarded because they’re great human beings and they’re great teachers and great mentors and great fathers and we get to work together every day, it’s awesome. Coaching defense is hard, man. Trying to stop him [Denbrock] every day with everything they got going on is hard. It can be difficult. There are difficult days. There can be challenging days. There could be days where you have a short fuse and you have a bunch of different personalities, but man, it’s fun to go to work every day. And the way the players respond is what motivates you.”