ND Defensive Coordinator search- 2025

Dale

Dale

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Irish du Nord said:
People 100% talk shit about Greg, even if he does good analysis from time to time. Honestly I like all the II and ISD guys, including TP. He’s testy right now but I like that it comes from a place of caring about the university and program. Kinda sick of the whole “It’s all just a business, can’t fault anyone” approach that certain media members take. I don’t envy any of their positions though, they can’t block the 2008s of the world like I just did.
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Greg would be immune from criticism if he didn’t sniffle every 5 seconds
 
Dale

Dale

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Jiggafini19Deux

Jiggafini19Deux

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“The more we met, the more we talked, I learned right away this person understands football, he understands scheme,” Freeman said. “I was also looking for a person that didn’t want to come in here and just drop this playbook, and say, ‘Hey, this is what we’re doing.’ No. Al Golden was a guy who said, ‘Let me evaluate what you all are doing, let me evaluate your players and let’s put together the best scheme.’”

“I’m not hiring him to run my system,” Freeman said. “I want him to evaluate what we’ve done and find out how can we enhance from this as a beginning point.
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This is what Coach Free said when he hired Al Golden. Wondering if this is also true right now?
 
ColinKSU

ColinKSU

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peadeam said:
I’ve learned over my 35 years of watching ND that there is absolutely no point in getting worked up over position and coordinator hires. I have no choice but to trust Freeman and criticize the results later. When he hired Golden Golden I didn’t hear a single person say he’d be as successful as he was. Most were pissed at the hire. There’s so much we, as fans don’t know. It’s obvious Mickens is a very valuable position coach but there’s something Freeman doesn’t feel comfortable with and if he had hired him he could fail just as easily as Ash or anyone else. My feeling is Golden had a lot of success because our secondary play has been so good. When you can lock down most receivers you can take a lot more risks that make you look like a genius. It’s a shame that Mickens isn’t ready for whatever reason but I hope he stays
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This. I don’t have the energy to care about things I can’t control.
 
stlnd01

stlnd01

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BoredIrish said:
FWIW Fickell coached with half out current staff... So if anyone knows if Ash is a fit, it would be him.
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Omg when you put it that way, seven of our ten current coaches have spent at least one season working for Fickell. That doesn’t include Rudolph who spent five years at the place where Fickell coaches now.
 
Free Manera

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Recent insider posts on 247 say Freeman had Ash in mind all along and had/has a good relationship with him. Sounds like it’s happening.

Leonhard was intrigued by coaching at ND but just doesn’t want to deal with the grind of college ball.
 
CanadalovesND

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Free Manera said:
Recent insider posts on 247 say Freeman had Ash in mind all along and had/has a good relationship with him. Freeman absolutely wants to keep Mickens. So sounds like this is happening.

Leonhard was intrigued by coaching at ND but just doesn’t want to deal with the grind of college ball.
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I wonder if the good relationship with the two will help keep some of Ash's personality in check. It's Freeman's program, he's the boss, it's his direction. Ash was in way over his head at Rutgers, a program known to be a historically a poor recruiting program (OSU, PSU, ND & others take the top in-state targets every year). He made bad personnel decisions, including constantly changing the offensive philosophy year after year, and looking back on it briefly, he is one of those coordinators that is better off staying as a coordinator. Not the type of guy to be the head of a program.

The only thing I would be cautious on is if Mickens & Ash can work together. I'm sure Freeman laid out the parameters of the job, and what he expects from his staff, in terms of interprofessional (and personal) cohesiveness. Ash also brings experience to coaching defensive backs, something that Mickens had to take on in its entirety transitioning from just a cornerbacks coach. So, Ash, if hired to also coach safeties, can take that load away from Mickens, and Mickens can focus more solely on cornerbacks and being a Co-DC.
 
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The Backer

The Backer

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After thinking about it a bit

  • Seems like Knowles and Leonhard just weren't options in the end for different reasons. As much as we'd like to, you can't just chloroform guys and have them coach your team
  • Ash is a Cover 4 guy. As far as I know, most of our guys on staff are cover 1 robber, cover 3, and man guys. I suspect (but don't know) we struggled running two high safety looks, hence some of our problems with USC, the IU comeback, and OSU. I think sometimes you have to be able to cover with man, but other times you have to be able to play zone.
  • I suspect we won't run Cover 4/2 deep, but my guess is with Watts going to the NFL we're going to need a lot more of it next year
This is a hire that can work, but Freeman's leadership is going to end up being the thing that makes it work.
 
A

ab2cmiller

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I can only assume that Freeman’s plan A was going big for Knowles or Leonhard. Plan B is to elevate Mickens to Co-DC which requires bringing in someone Freeman both respects and is willing to live with a Co-DC arrangement. Guessing not a ton of options there.
 
Irish4life

Irish4life

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IrishSteelhead said:
BS.

You don’t go from offering the best DC $3 million to dragging someone out of the dumpster.

But, we also courted Ludwig, made a substantial offer, then just said “eff it, I guess we will just let the Porker guy do it”, so anything is possible.


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What if Ash was Freeman's 3rd target and his top 2 said no?
 
stlnd01

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The Backer said:
After thinking about it a bit

  • Seems like Knowles and Leonhard just weren't options in the end for different reasons. As much as we'd like to, you can't just chloroform guys and have them coach your team
This is a hire that can work, but Freeman's leadership is going to end up being the thing that makes it work.
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Weak. Those kind of excuses are why we haven’t won a title in 35 years. We just don’t want it bad enough.
 
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FWIrish4 said:
My biggest takeaway is that Knowles thinks having to work for James Franklin over Freeman is only worth an extra $100k. I would have thought that was at least an extra $500k/year to put up with his dumb ass.
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He’s got family in PA so that probally had a lot to do with it
 
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FDNYIrish1

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We also came in late to Knowles. Who knows how long the back channels were going on there with PSU. I hope Mickens sticks, this could be a good combo. And we have the players to make most systems look good on the back end.
 
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