Everything Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden said before Irish vs. Navy

Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden spoke to the media Tuesday night ahead of what might be his toughest challenge of the season to date — slowing down Navy’s humming along triple-option offense.

Here’s everything he had to say about that and more.

On what’s new, what’s the same in the 2024 Navy offense

“There’s still a lot that you can carry over. Obviously when they’re in the gun it’s a different sort of attack, some different options, but you know, just the basic tenants in terms of, how do you attack the quarterback? How do you fill the alley? How you leverage the pitch? Those all still apply. They’re just, they’re just taking on different shapes in different forms right now.”

On balancing Notre Dame’s best players vs. who the best players for this week are

“I think that’s a great point. So it’s really not about the guys that rushed the passer well, or the guys that played well last week, or the guys that played well versus Texas A&M. It’s the guys that play this defense well, and obviously that play against this offense and how they operate well. I think that’s the most important thing.

“Some of the guys that are inexperienced, they they know what the challenge is. They have to have urgency, they have to have eye discipline. They have to be prepared like crazy the next three days, and then ultimately, you got to go out and play football. And that’s that’s what our task is as coaches, to get our guys playing fast by Saturday against a really formidable foe.”

On avoiding overwhelming Notre Dame’s young players with information on the Navy offense

“Heavy on the front end. Try to be as much front-end loaded as you can, so that you’re playing faster and faster come Thursday, Friday and then obviously into the game. So really fast start for us. Sunday morning, game plan in by Monday morning, we walk through. Today was our first practice at it. I think the thing that’s challenging this year that might be different was it used to be you just ran these eight, seven, six calls all over the field. Now what’s challenging now is you’re game planning differently for them in terms of what they’re doing in the red zone, what they’re doing in short yardage, what they’re doing on goal line, what they’re doing in third and long. All of those aspects of the game have been brought into it, and I think that’s what’s making them really challenging.”

On Drayk Bowen’s physicality

“I think I said it after Stanford, too. We’re talking about a couple of weeks now, and it started the bye week for me. I just think he’s playing more downhill, more physical, he’s wrapping, he’s knocking ball carriers back. Hopefully he can take a deep breath here and do it against these fullbacks and these tailbacks again Saturday because it’s a challenge.”

On when he realized he had something in Adon Shuler

“I mean, other than he’s from New Jersey, right? Everybody’s got a different journey. And then, so he gets injured, and he’s he’s working, he’s getting better, he’s learning the defense, and all sudden, you put him out there, and you can see it’s not too big for him. He’s instinctive, he’s physical. He’s still learning, he’s still growing, but he’s always around the office. He’s always studying film, he’s always asking questions. He’s got a great look on game day. It’s never too big for him, even if he makes a mistake.

“Like the other day, I know it’s a little thing, but just talking about before he went out, the play, the defense that we were in, and where to be position wise. And so it’s great when (Mike Mickens) is saying one thing, he goes out and does it and then reward it.

“That’s exactly what he was supposed to do, and it’s exactly what he didn’t do against Louisville on a very similar play in the high red (zone). So kudos to him.”

On Shuler not making the same mistake twice

“Very effective. His care level is really high. We say the give a “F” Factor is really really high. It means a lot to him. I said last week, whether it’s Leonard [Moore] or Bryce [Young] or Drayk [Bowen], just keep bringing in kids that love the game as much as you love coaching it. And he’s one of them. He can’t get enough. He just can’t get enough.”

On the young players making waves for the Notre Dame defense

“We don’t look at them as freshmen. I know you have to give them a label in terms of their year, but we just look at them as players. I’ve said this before, if you’re in the NFL and you draft and play a couple guys, nobody cares that they’re rookies. That’s our mentality here. They’re talented, get those guys ready to go, and all of those guys have helped us. We’ve become younger, obviously, through injuries, but that’s okay. Navy doesn’t care about our age. No one on our schedule cares about age, and we don’t either. We just want to get them ready to go.”

On Navy offensive coordinator Drew Cronic

“I don’t know him personally, I think he’s done an amazing job. He’s ‘personneled’ exactly the way he sees the game. Anytime that is aligned from the head coach to the coordinator to the quarterback to the personnel that’s actually employed on game day, that’s makes a great challenge.

“I have nothing but respect for him and the way he’s operating. They way they’re operating. They don’t beat themselves, they protect the football. Their efficiency with the ball is excellent and obviously they make it challenging now because they’re in the gun, they’re out of the gun, they’re under center, they’re doing all kinds of things that make you work together and test their unity.”

On Navy’s willingness to pass changing Notre Dame’s defensive schemes

“It’s not their willingness, it’s their effectiveness with the passing game. Their yards-per-completion, and some of the near misses they’ve had that were open. That all grabs your attention. You can’t just allocate everybody up into the box or you’re going to give up easy scores. You can’t get beaten on those and have bad eye discipline. I think they’ve done a great job, excited about the challenge for our guys. And like I said again, it’s it’s gonna test every aspect of our unit strength on defense.”

On Notre Dame’s poor first-drive scoring defense

“Yeah, some really bad calls. Like I’ve put us in some really bad positions and maybe didn’t recognize the way a team wants to operate early enough. A couple of those we just need to make a red zone stop.”

On feeling out the first drive and adjusting as a response

“No, I think teams are really—look, teams are…it’s really challenging to defend offenses in this day and age. They come out on script, and if you don’t get them off track, then you’re dealing with the script. You keep dealing with the script until you get a stop. It’s really simple. Teams that are dealing with a script are really challenging, right?

“If they’re on script for a long time, they practiced it Wednesday, Thursday, Friday walk-throughs. It’s your job to get them off script—I have to do a better job of getting them off script. Give the guys a better plan and opportunity to execute and get them off script.”

On Navy having more adjustments than any opposing defense could ever make

“That’s correct. Be sharp. Believe in what you do. Execute what you do. If you can’t execute the fundamentals of what you practiced all week, you can kiss the adjustments goodbye. You’re just going to get further and further away from the core of who you are and your identity. Be really good at what you have going into the game, and if there are some adjustments that are required, then you can add. But if you’re trying to fix, and add, that’s a bad combination. You have to stay away from that.”