Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/234294
UNDER THE DOME ✦ GIMME FIVE With former Irish offensive and defensive coordinators Chuck Martin and Bob Diaco accepting head coaching positions at Miami (Ohio) and Connecticut, respectively, we count 17 former assistants in the past 50 years who left Notre Dame to accept head coaching positions at another school. Eight of them occurred during the Lou Holtz regime from 1986-96. Not included are coaches who departed to become assistants elsewhere. For example, Charlie Strong was the defensive line coach at Notre Dame from 1995-98 before moving on to become defensive coordinator for Holtz at South Carolina in 1999. He didn't become a head coach until 2010, going 36-16 at Louisville thus far. Tyrone Willingham's (2002-04) former assistant Trent Miles is now the head coach at Georgia State, but he didn't depart Notre Dame to accept a head coaching position elsewhere. Only two of the 17 assistants who left Notre Dame in the past 50 years were not later fired. Here are the top five former Irish assistants since 1964 that have or had the most wins as head coaches, with their years at Notre Dame in parentheses: Coach (Years At ND) Career Record 1. Urban Meyer (1996-2000)*128-24 2. Barry Alvarez (1987-89) 118-74-4 3. Skip Holtz (1990-93)^ 92-79 4. Rick Minter 53-63-1 (1992-93, 2005-06) 5. Ed Chlebek (1975) 26-51 * Currently at Ohio State; ^ Currently at Louisiana Tech MISCELLANEOUS NOTES • Athletics director Jack Swarbrick said Notre Dame athletics as a whole has never been stronger, with men's soccer capturing its first national championship, women's basketball in the Final Four in each of the past three seasons and other programs experiencing national success. "That's very rewarding," he said. "I think you could make a strong argument for example that our swimming teams are as good as they've ever been right now based on performances so far this year. "I do think from a broad perspective of how are we doing overall, this is or is close to the high watermark for us. We have to build off that. There's a lot of room to get better. The great thing about it is when the student-athletes you're next to in the weight room just won a national championship, you feel SWARBRICK like you can too. We have a lot of sports well positioned yet this year to have great success, and we hope we can bring several of those across the goal line, too." He said a major reason for the widespread success is due to the stability in coaching positions. "That speaks to this place," he said. "All our coaches in their time here have had a lot of opportunities to go somewhere else. Both because of the success they've had but also there are a lot of people who are attracted to the Notre Dame pedigree. If you can operate here they know you can operate in the right way for their university." • Swarbrick praised the success of the athletic department's digital content production, which is featured on UND.com, WatchND, NBC and NBC Sports Network. "We have to just continue to get better at the quality of the content," he said. "The quality of production, the stories we tell and how we position Notre Dame. Secondly, as our reputation grows and as we attract more people to watch our materials, we have to monetize them more effectively and make more money off of it to pay for it. "Third, and most importantly, we always embarked down this road as a way to create a platform for the university to take this same model and do it elsewhere."