In a new story series, I'll be breaking down the film of players, recruits, and coaches around Notre Dame Football and give you the insight you deserve, consider this physical intel.
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When Al Golden announced he would be departing for the NFL after the National Championship, it left a defensive genius-sized hole in the Notre Dame program. Speculation did not take long to get underway as to who may step up and fill the role Golden held for the previous three seasons. Some internal and some external options were floated, but when the dust settled, it was Chris Ash's name that was chosen to lead this elite defense. Ash comes equipped with extensive experience as a positional coach, defensive coordinator, and one-time headman at Rutgers University. He spent the past four seasons in the NFL in various roles, and his last time at the college level was back in 2020 as a defensive coordinator for the Texas Longhorns. How his defensive philosophy may or may not have changed since then remains to be seen, just as it is still up in the air as to who will be handling the game-day play-calling duties. I still thought it would be beneficial to go back and scour the film of his last time handling a collegiate defense to help give Notre Dame fans an idea of what may be in store for the 2025 season.
Those who watched the Fighting Irish closely over Golden's tenure became accustomed to seeing his defenses lining up in Man Coverage and being very successful doing so. With Ash, I expect to see a much wider variety in terms of coverage as he likes to mix in much more zone. Going back to that 2020 season, he had his defense in a lot of Cover 3 shells, putting a lot of faith in the ability of the linebackers/safeties to be able to work to the outside and take on that curl-to-flat area.
As you can see here, the Texas defense starts in a two-high look and roll into a Cover 3 at the snap. One safety goes deep, both cornerbacks are in off coverage and play with open hips so they can bail on anything vertical, and the second safety comes down to play that outside curl to flat zone. He is half a step late getting to his spot, the WR is able to break his tackle and it turns into an easy first down for Oklahoma because the corner on that side of the field wasn't in a good position to come down and help.
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This is one more example of a similar coverage from Ash. There's a single high safety, both cornerbacks are responsible for the deep third of the field on their side, and the weak side safety doesn't get out to his zone quick enough, and it is a pitch and catch for an 8-yard gain. If Notre Dame is going to implement similar looks, the safeties and linebackers will need to have strong spatial awareness and not get outflanked to their zones. Ash will still work in Man to Man, which is good because Leonard Moore is a technician when it comes to playing in a receiver's face and mirroring him off the line. Nobody knows this secondary better than Mike Mickens, and I am sure they will work to the secondary's strengths.
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Ash does a good job of disguising blitzes and bringing pressure from different spots. One subtle thing that he does that I really like on film is he will slant the whole defensive line inside to get the offensive line moving laterally, then bring a linebacker off the edge, in a lot of cases untouched. He also likes to drop edge defenders into zone and bring a blitz from other spots to confuse the opposing o-line.
Here, you can see both edge players drop off the line, which threw off the protection for WVU. The line should have slid to the right so the RG could take on the blitzer, and the left tackle could block the 3-tech defensive linemen. Instead, Ash's disguise allowed the middle linebacker to come in untouched for the sack at a critical juncture of the game.
Again, on this play, Ash does an excellent job of not tipping his hand as to where the pressure is coming from. Six players are around the line of scrimmage showing rush. The two linebackers both drop into coverage and instead, the nickel corner is sent off the edge. No one on offense accounts for the nickel, and he is able to put enough heat on the QB to force him to get rid of the ball which results in an errant pass that is intercepted by one of the dropping linebackers that the QB just never got eyes on. Notre Dame was among the best in the country at forcing turnovers in 2024 and will need to carry that over into next year.
Some other things of note when I went through the 2020 season for Texas's defense are as follows:
1) As shown above, Ash doesn't shy away from using cornerbacks on blitzes. My gripe was how he went about it at times. Blitzing a boundary corner vs noncondensed formations leaves a lot of ground for the corner to have to make up to have any type of effect on the play. A lot of times the corner had to come from the far side of the field and the ball was long gone before he ever got in position to make a play. Texas had 17 sacks that season, which was only good for 70th in the country. Some more efficient ways to bring pressure will be needed.
2) There were some issues with run fits in terms of filling cut-back lanes on the second level. Now a lot of this is based on the players he had at Texas. Notre Dame will have a different group with different skill sets so I wouldn't call it an area of concern quite yet, but if there's an area that needs improvement on Notre Dame's defense from last year it's the run defense, hopefully that isn't something that follows Ash to South Bend.
3) Ash likes to run stunts along the defensive line, which will give opposing offenses a lot more to think about in protection, especially when sending linebackers on a rush at the same time which he favors doing.
4) With how much off coverage he had his corners play, opposing teams were making a living in the short to intermediate pass game. Texas gave up over 400 yards a game in his lone year as DC, and a lot of that came from teams utilizing quick hitters. With how talented the Notre Dame secondary is, I expect a lot tighter coverage to be used throughout the course of games.
5) Red zone defense is a point of emphasis for any defense. Texas was middle of the road in 2020, ranking 51st in the nation. Notre Dame has finished Top 20 in back-to-back seasons and will need to continue that trend to remain one of the best defenses in the country.
There is really only so much to take away from how Ash called plays a full five years ago, but I will say it is rare that coaches ever radically change their systems. Mike Mickens being along for the ride in 2025 will definitely help balance what Notre Dame did well before, with what they can improve on going forward. The talent is abundant for these coaches to scheme around and although Al Golden will be missed, the experience Chris Ash brings to the Notre Dame staff, and the rapport Mike Mickens has already built with the players, should not only keep the ship afloat but continue to help flourish the defensive culture the Fighting Irish has cultivated for quite some time.
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