Michael Fredrick Denbrock Hired as Offensive Coordinator (2023)

Irish4life · Sunday at 11:01 AM

Like....cmon

IrishLax · Sunday at 11:07 AM

notredomer23 said:
The Denbrock defenders point to the pretty crazy offensive production in the course of the season. The facts are his offense is perfectly average in big games:

2024
Texas A&M 23
Indiana 27
Georgia 16
PSU 27
OSU 23

2025
Miami 24
Texas A&M 34

2026
BYU 24

He’s gone over 30 once and is averaging under 25 points per game. Perfectly average. ND deserves better.

I would argue that 27 against Indiana, 27 against PSU, and 23 against Ohio State are actually really good score lines. Not many got to those numbers against those squads. I feel like pound-for-pound 2024 was his best year calling offense / playing to his personnel.

IrishLax · Sunday at 11:12 AM

Dale said:
According to the board we only threw slot fades though:

View attachment 3065400

CJ didn’t make the throws. That is a reality many have to come to grips with.

Ok so "between the numbers" is not actually "middle of the field." People talk about the middle of the field as being between the hashes in college. So unless their language is imprecise and that's what they actually meant "between the NFL numbers" then that isn't showing anything.

EvilleIrish · Sunday at 11:13 AM

Irish4life said:
Like....cmon

My. God.

Dale · Sunday at 11:15 AM

IrishLax said:
Ok so "between the numbers" is not actually "middle of the field." People talk about the middle of the field as being between the hashes in college. So unless their language is imprecise and that's what they actually meant "between the NFL numbers" then that isn't showing anything.

Where was the wide open miss to Faison?

I’ve said since last year Carr struggles over the middle unless the post clears the safety. He did again last night and missed the post shot. He also didn’t hit Greathouse in stride though some connected.

He’s also usually good on backside digs but he was late, BYU closed in on a few of them and length (Glasker and Satuele) disrupted it.

BeatSC · Sunday at 11:29 AM

James didn’t have a bad game and made some nice runs early on one in particular but he is also someone who has been caught for losses behind the LOS on multiple plays. That doesn’t happen often to Walton who has more power and falls forward. Giving Walton 6 total touches after his last performance is a dereliction of duty by ND. He made our last TD look easy and the two point conversion. Was like the Miami game and getting Love only 10 touches. Felt like once again we kept the offense vanilla and why? Where were any runs to the outside? Bubble screen or just screens? Why doesn’t Carr keep the ball and run on the read options? They are always there for the taking! So many reasons we could or should have won that involve coordinators and sadly Carr. Should be a humbling experience for Carr and might take some shine off of his draft stock although many QBs lost some luster yesterday. No INTs for Carr and he hung in there under pressure and evaded a string rush. Play action more than twice might have helped but Denbrock seems incapable of thinking in the moment. He is collecting high paid welfare from ND. Now we know why the TEs have not been involved very much in the passing game.

Dale · Sunday at 11:30 AM

The middle of the field throws people want are some versions of a slant. Glance. Something stemmed shorter than a post. Those are the busiest throws on the field. CJ works safety down with his eyes. A slant the safeties aren’t gonna declare right away on the timing of a slant. It is a common struggle for young QBs. The VnS type offenses usually work it off a RPO to move the linebackers. We don’t run RPOs outside of the red zone. What CJ generally can throw are digs, seam throws, posts. Things that take a second longer but move the safeties.

So I either thing Denbrock is a moron and has never considered a slant that the whole message board has…..or I think a young QB struggles with these throws. Idk everyone can pick which side makes more sense.

IrishLax · Sunday at 11:34 AM

Dale said:
Where was the wide open miss to Faison?

I’ve said since last year Carr struggles over the middle unless the post clears the safety. He did again last night and missed the post shot. He also didn’t hit Greathouse in stride though some connected.

He’s also usually good on backside digs but he was late, BYU closed in on a few of them and length (Glasker and Satuele) disrupted it.

That's deep middle, we've attacked that quite a bit and with a lot of success this year. I think most people's opinion is mostly about not doing much in that short middle of the field area. On 50 drop backs, would be interested to see how often we threw to the area between LOS and 10, 15 and inside hashes. Might go look at that myself this afternoon.

BeatSC · Sunday at 11:34 AM

Dale said:
The middle of the field throws people want are some versions of a slant. Glance. Something stemmed shorter than a post. Those are the busiest throws on the field. CJ works safety down with his eyes. A slant the safeties aren’t gonna declare right away on the timing of a slant. It is a common struggle for young QBs. The VnS type offenses usually work it off a RPO to move the linebackers. We don’t run RPOs outside of the red zone. What CJ generally can throw are digs, seam throws, posts. Things that take a second longer but move the safeties.

So I either thing Denbrock is a moron and has never considered a slant that the whole message board has…..or I think a young QB struggles with these throws. Idk everyone can pick which side makes more sense.

I think CJ had 2-3 middle passes knocked down in busier passing lanes. Is there any reason not to use play action more often?

Free Manera · Sunday at 11:38 AM

For a second I thought Denbrock’s gameplan was get to the 4th then ride Walton against a worn down BYU front. The TD drive seemed like the proof of concept.

If ND just went to ground and pound with Jonaz after the pick, we’re probably talking about how good Vegas is with their 10 point line.

Dale · Sunday at 11:39 AM

BeatSC said:
I think CJ had 2-3 middle passes knocked down in busier passing lanes. Is there any reason not to use play action more often?

I thought BYU adjusted to our adjustment well. BYU loves mugging their backers and bailing into zone - probably a factor in the lack of PA - so ND went empty a lot to clean the picture up. BYUs response was empty = quick game so hands up.

We were getting zero pressure on Bear and should have done the same.

RocketIsmail25 · Sunday at 11:40 AM

BeatSC said:
I think CJ had 2-3 middle passes knocked down in busier passing lanes. Is there any reason not to use play action more often?

No, there's not. Especially after the run game was so effective early on. That was an absolutely horrific game by Mike Denbrock. I've never been a big fan of his, but more ambivalent than anything. Last night was inexcusable. He needs to go after the season of we're serious about winning a NC. You cannot win a championship in today's CFB with a stubborn dinosaur calling plays.

IrishLax · Sunday at 11:41 AM

This really does seem like malpractice. Everyone hypes up the young guys, and then you just have no faith / ability to rotate guys by middle of the season? Same thing with Walton getting such limited touches. Feels like as soon as they got down big they threw out the game script and just prayed the vets could grit it out.

fightingirish26 · Sunday at 11:44 AM

BeatSC said:
James didn’t have a bad game and made some nice runs early on one in particular but he is also someone who has been caught for losses behind the LOS on multiple plays. That doesn’t happen often to Walton who has more power and falls forward. Giving Walton 6 total touches after his last performance is a dereliction of duty by ND. He made our last TD look easy and the two point conversion. Was like the Miami game and getting Love only 10 touches. Felt like once again we kept the offense vanilla and why? Where were any runs to the outside? Bubble screen or just screens? Why doesn’t Carr keep the ball and run on the read options? They are always there for the taking! So many reasons we could or should have won that involve coordinators and sadly Carr. Should be a humbling experience for Carr and might take some shine off of his draft stock although many QBs lost some luster yesterday. No INTs for Carr and he hung in there under pressure and evaded a string rush. Play action more than twice might have helped but Denbrock seems incapable of thinking in the moment. He is collecting high paid welfare from ND. Now we know why the TEs have not been involved very much in the passing game.

I think the first time James has had a negative run all year was last night. If Walton had gotten more carries I guarantee he would've also had negative runs.

PutuporShutup · Sunday at 11:59 AM

IrishLax said:
This really does seem like malpractice. Everyone hypes up the young guys, and then you just have no faith / ability to rotate guys by middle of the season? Same thing with Walton getting such limited touches. Feels like as soon as they got down big they threw out the game script and just prayed the vets could grit it out.

Maybe the beat will actually do their job in 8 days and ask real questions for once… most likely they’ll forget in 8 days and revert back to asking questions about the rivalry and history, who is navy’s qb on scout team, what does he think about the naval institute, what are his Halloween outfit plans, etc

Freeman should get blasted with questions about the wr snap count 7 games in at altitude, not playing Walton much, all the talk before the game but the team clearly was not prepared, the lack of fire and energy to start from him and the players, is he willing to play young guys over vets, even captains that aren’t playing well, players not knowing their responsibilities on D, etc

I don’t care and the beat shouldn’t care that next week is navy week, there should NOT be a single question about navy.

ND should spend this bye week on fixing themselves and early Miami work; then next week do a week of prep on navy. Don’t spend 2 weeks on navy to blow them out then lose to Miami, beat navy, but ensure you do everything to beat Miami.

Dale · Sunday at 12:25 PM

There was a play last night that you can splice with the Gilbert slant versus Purdue and get exactly where the issue is. Against Purdue they go empty, the Purdue LB shows blitz or CJ hard count got him to show and so he motioned the guy knowing he now had 1 v 1 with zero LB help and hit Gilbert for an explosive slant. Last night, same empty look. I can’t recall if it was the James fight for a first down or another but he throws the slant to James short of the sticks. Gilbert won completely clean on double slants. Big play. But because the read wasn’t clean CJ defers to the cleaner read of James knowing that defender has no help whereas Gilbert’s could (he didn’t) inside.

CJ reads double posts, he doesn’t trust double slants. It shows up on the film almost every week.

IA4irish · Sunday at 12:33 PM

Irish4life said:
Like....cmon

IrishLax said:
This really does seem like malpractice. Everyone hypes up the young guys, and then you just have no faith / ability to rotate guys by middle of the season? Same thing with Walton getting such limited touches. Feels like as soon as they got down big they threw out the game script and just prayed the vets could grit it out.

if you can read these two tweets and still think the coaches did a good job last night, kudos to you

irishff1014 · Sunday at 12:35 PM

IrishLax said:
This really does seem like malpractice. Everyone hypes up the young guys, and then you just have no faith / ability to rotate guys by middle of the season? Same thing with Walton getting such limited touches. Feels like as soon as they got down big they threw out the game script and just prayed the vets could grit it out.

This is on player usage. Just like Walton he should have been much more of a game plan but we decided to go 5 wide like we are Chip Kelly’s Ducks teams.

NDFAN2008 · Sunday at 12:39 PM

If Im freeman im calling up Chip Kelly after the season and bring him in to be offensive coordinator.

irishandy · Sunday at 12:45 PM

Get rid of Mike Brown before Denbrock. Denbrock didn't make a backyard football mistake before halftime.

ulukinatme · Sunday at 11:39 PM

We used to talk about QB regression in the 2nd year under BK. Maybe it was Denbrock all along?

ulukinatme · 2026-10-19T02:01:13-0400

Notre Dame Joe · 2026-10-19T03:09:18-0400

NDFAN2008 said:
If Im freeman im calling up Chip Kelly after the season and bring him in to be offensive coordinator.

Norvell will be available for the run-first spread. They can also rush to the line and snap it.

FWIrish4 · 2026-10-20T16:47:26-0400

It’s hard to believe this is the same OC that was at LSU. I went back to Jamie’s article when Denbrock was hired highlighting the motions and mismatch designs. The creativity and designs are great.

The Twitter links in the article are dead, so I tried to manually pull some into the post for reference.

There’s our jet sweep motion we want and 2/4 are play action

Part of me thinks this stuff is in there somewhere, but the other part wonders why isn’t it already being utilized?

Film Don't Lie | Motion and Mismatches

Whether it was at Notre Dame, Cincinnati, or LSU, Mike Denbrock has proven to be one of the best in the business at utilizing pre-snap motion and finding mismatches in the secondary

irishsportsdaily.com

Jiggafini19Deux · 2026-10-20T16:55:42-0400

NDFAN2008 said:
If Im freeman im calling up Chip Kelly after the season and bring him in to be offensive coordinator.

I'm so incredibly happy you are not Freeman.

BleedBlueGold · 2026-10-20T17:03:32-0400

FWIrish4 said:
It’s hard to believe this is the same OC that was at LSU. I went back to Jamie’s article when Denbrock was hired highlighting the motions and mismatch designs. The creativity and designs are great.

The Twitter links in the article are dead, so I tried to manually pull some into the post for reference.

There’s our jet sweep motion we want and 2/4 are play action

Part of me thinks this stuff is in there somewhere, but the other part wonders why isn’t it already being utilized?

Film Don't Lie | Motion and Mismatches

Whether it was at Notre Dame, Cincinnati, or LSU, Mike Denbrock has proven to be one of the best in the business at utilizing pre-snap motion and finding mismatches in the secondary

irishsportsdaily.com

Someone talk me off the ledge….im about to jump

ozzman · 2026-10-20T17:05:59-0400

He's still does some good stuff, and he schemed three open TD that were there for the taking. It's not ledge worthy... Yet

FWIrish4 · 2026-10-20T17:08:43-0400

ozzman said:
He's still does some good stuff, and he schemed three open TD that were there for the taking. It's not ledge worthy... Yet

Yeah they picked up the blitz but spammed slot fade (again) that required a remarkable catch by Greathouse.

GATTACA! · 2026-10-20T17:21:40-0400

FWIrish4 said:
It’s hard to believe this is the same OC that was at LSU. I went back to Jamie’s article when Denbrock was hired highlighting the motions and mismatch designs. The creativity and designs are great.

The Twitter links in the article are dead, so I tried to manually pull some into the post for reference.

There’s our jet sweep motion we want and 2/4 are play action

Part of me thinks this stuff is in there somewhere, but the other part wonders why isn’t it already being utilized?

Film Don't Lie | Motion and Mismatches

Whether it was at Notre Dame, Cincinnati, or LSU, Mike Denbrock has proven to be one of the best in the business at utilizing pre-snap motion and finding mismatches in the secondary

irishsportsdaily.com

ndfanatic78 · 2026-10-20T17:24:05-0400

NumbersGuy0520 said:
Nested into all of this… I’m losing faith in Mike Brown. If you can even call what I had in him going into this game “faith”. Maybe just acceptance/cautious optimism? We don’t have championship caliber receivers and never seem to.

- Faison’s solid but that’s about it. Maybe throw in Gilbert who was a nice surprise this year.
- Greathouse is too hot and cold, plus the drops.
- Absolutely struck out on transfer WRs. Graham is about as MIA as Porter, who is literally out for the season.
- Young guys supposedly have promise but we never see them in meaningful snaps?
- Heard so much about Bubba Frazier all offseason - where’s he? Or any of Bettis/Burress/Fitzgerald.

Faison is an awesome #2. He would feast if we had a legit #1 threat but alas he is it so the defense can focus on taking him away and laugh when no one else, but for a game here and there, can beat man to man coverage.

Michael Fredrick Denbrock Hired as Offensive Coordinator (2023)

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