Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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16 JANUARY 2024 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED BY JACK SOBLE AND TYLER HORKA O n Nov. 27, Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman ex- pressed his desire to keep his entire coaching staff together. That included the offensive coaching staff whose unit disappointed in key games against Ohio State, Duke, Louis- ville and Clemson. The next day, Freeman parted ways with wide receivers coach Chansi Stuckey. Notre Dame put out a press re- lease that evening that made one thing clear: This was Freeman's decision, not Stuckey's. The question on many fans' minds: What changed? Freeman addressed that in a Zoom press conference Dec. 4. "From the last time we spoke, it was 24 hours of deep thought and difficult conversations with a lot of players and a lot of coaches, regarding our overall performance at wideout," Freeman said. "I had to make a difficult decision." The decision was to fire Stuckey, whom he hired as wide receivers coach in 2022. "I am truly just thankful for Chansi and everything he's done and given to this program, but we had to move for- ward and that's what we're gonna do," Freeman said. NEW DIRECTION It took Freeman less than a week to find his replacement for Stuckey. Free- man zeroed in on Wisconsin w i d e re ce ive rs coa c h Mike Brown. Mul- t i p l e o u t l e t s reported Dec. 3 that Brown was set to join Free- man's staff. It became of- ficial Dec. 10, when Notre Dame made the announce- ment after completing its comprehensive hiring process. Freeman and Brown worked together at Cincinnati. Brown was the wide re- ceivers coach there from 2019-22 be- fore he followed head coach Luke Fickell to Wisconsin this past offseason. He took on the title of passing game coor- dinator to go along with wide receiv- ers coach in his last year at Cincinnati when he worked alongside Bearcats offensive coordinator Gino Guidugli, ONE TO ANOTHER Marcus Freeman makes swift move to replace former Notre Dame wide receivers coach Chansi Stuckey with Wisconsin's Mike Brown