What Notre Dame players are saying about defensive coordinator Al Golden
Notre Dame senior cornerback Cam Hart went to the team facility last week to meet with cornerbacks coach Mike Mickens. He just so happened to bump into new Irish defensive coordinator Al Golden along the way.
The most memorable moment during the brief exchange for Hart was not about football.
“‘It doesn’t need to be about defense,'” Hart, speaking on the Inside The Garage podcast, said Golden told him. “‘I can help you with life. I can help you with anything.’ He’s been around the game of football for a long time. He’s an older dude. So he said, ‘Come to me for anything you need.’ He seemed like a really genuine guy.”
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Hart said Golden’s 28 years of coaching experience resonated with him too. Golden told Hart’s weight lifting group if they’d ever like to talk about what it takes to get to the NFL, he’s the guy to seek out. Golden spent the last six years as an assistant for the Detroit Lions and Cincinnati Bengals, after all.
“Him saying that to the entire team speaks volumes,” Hart said.
Walk-on wide receiver Conor Ratigan, a cohost on Inside The Garage, said Golden spoke to his weight lifting group as well. His first impression of the new Notre Dame DC was similar to Hart’s.
“Immediately you could tell he was a pretty smart guy,” Ratigan said. “He seems wise. He seems very experienced.”
That’s not what caught Ratigan’s attention the most, though. It’s when Golden told Notre Dame players that he had just coached in the Super Bowl a few days prior to arriving in South Bend. It’s one thing to think about that from an outside perspective.
It’s another to hear it from the mouth of the man who actually did it.
Golden also told the Irish though the Super Bowl was an unbelievable experience, the rush he got when he drove onto Notre Dame’s campus was just different. He told them “there was nothing like it.”
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“It’s pretty cool for him to say that on his first day,” Ratigan said. “He literally just coached in the Super Bowl, the biggest event in sports. Obviously it’s still early, but it was a good first impression for sure.”
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At the time of recording on Feb. 16, Hart said he had “no idea” if head coach Marcus Freeman would be the defensive play caller or if it would be Golden. Freeman and Golden spoke in their press conferences last week about taking a shared approach to designing a defense. There is plenty of time to nail down the particulars.
For the time being, the most important thing Golden can do is gain the trust of the players he’ll be working with when spring practice begins on March 17. So far, so good.
Freeman is building this program on the base of relationships on the micro-level anyway.
“Coach Freeman, he says, ‘Your position coach is your head coach,'” Hart said. “I think he’s more so, especially for spring ball, worried about the defensive coordinator as the linebackers coach. Getting the room together because the room feels a little alienated because of coach [Nick] Lezynski going to Vanderbilt.”
That’s the nature of the profession. Out with one coach, in with another. It seems what Notre Dame lost in Lezynski, who had only officially been coaching the linebackers since Freeman was promoted to head coach in December, the Irish could possibly make up for in other areas with Golden.
