Notre Dame quick-hitters: Al Golden talks Super Bowl, return to college football
Speculation became near certainty which became confirmation, all in less than 48 hours.
Former Cincinnati Bengals linebackers coach Al Golden was officially named Notre Dame’s next defensive coordinator on Wednesday. He was the final assistant coach hired for head coach Marcus Freeman‘s first staff, and the coaches took time on Wednesday afternoon to speak with the media for the first time since the Fiesta Bowl.
On the Super Bowl experience, Bengals season
“It was an just incredible experience. Just the preparation, all that goes into it, the game itself, watching the players prepare and what it meant to them, the way the game unfolded.
“I was happy in the NFL, I’m not going to lie to you. It was an incredible experience, and to be down there with Coach Taylor and the defensive staff, it was awesome. To be able to coach players that bought into a team, that’s hard to leave.”
On the last 72 hours since the Super Bowl
“I’m still trying to recover from it, to be honest with you. Everybody says when you lose that game, it’s really hard to recover from. I didn’t have much time to recover. I landed (in South Bend) at 8:30 Monday night, went in and saw everybody that I had to see, and I was here yesterday afternoon working. So that was a quick turnaround.”
On Marcus Freeman’s introductory presser, what drew him to Notre Dame
“When he became the head coach, I listened to his press conference. I told him this at a later date, and I told my wife, I said ‘I share his values.’ When I listened to his press conference I said ‘That would be a place that would get me back.’ What Notre Dame represents from a community standpoint, from a character standpoint, from an educational standpoint.
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“To me, it’s always been about the four C’s: classroom, community, competition on the field and then what you do in the complex. Those four C’s make up who we are. I was listening to Marcus, and I told my wife Kelly ‘I don’t really have to change to be a partner with that right there.'”
On the current Irish defense
“We’re going through the roster now, and I had a chance to meet a lot of them. There are a lot of good-looking kids, a lot of smart kids. So I’m excited about that. In terms of what’s in place, it’s great, because it’s multiple; it can be four-down or it can be three-down. You need that. We did it in both Detroit and in Cincinnati. So I think there are a lot of things there that we can build on.
“It’s really what we build from here. It’s like moving into a new neighborhood. You don’t just take the fence down because you don’t like the fence. You’ve got to find out why the fence is there. So that’s what we’re doing right now, we’re not going to start by saying ‘Hey, we’re going to do this’ if there’s no meaningful purpose for that, No. 1. Then No. 2, there are obviously great things that Marcus and his system have executed both here and previously, so let’s draw on that.”
