Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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UNDER THE DOME football office had 24 non-coaching personnel, not including graduate assistants, who would earn an aggregate total of $1.6 million in a year. The two-dozen were known as support staff. More and more, col- leges have emulated the way the NFL fran- chises have a hierarchy of personnel to operate the football office. It is referred to as "quality control" job descriptions that can involve any- thing from tape break- down to game prepa- ration. One of those Alabama support staff members, Russ Calla- way, revealed his role in quality control. "As soon as the game was done, we'd sprint over to the office and type everything in so all the coaches can get started on grading the film," Callaway told The Tuscaloosa News. "By the time they had watched the film at 2 p.m. on Sunday, we had the next opponent fully broken down so there was no wait time as far as get- ting them the break- down books or reports that we always do." This extended to re- cruiting as well. There is not always time to watch drawn out tape for the assistants, so quality control analyzes the tape, splices certain situations (not just high- lights), and condenses three hours worth of action into a tight 10-15 minutes for a coach's re- view. While the March press c o n f e re n c e a t N o t re Dame centered on the four new on-field hires — offensive coordina- tor/quarterbacks coach Mike Sanford, running backs coach Autry Den- son, defensive line coach Keith Gilmore and de- f e n s i v e b a c k s c o a c h Todd Lyght — there were several other po- sitions officially filled with new or familiar personnel. Most notably, Bob El- liott, an Irish defensive assistant the past three years, will be "special assistant to the head coach." This is nothing new at Notre Dame, and typically involves mov- ing a longtime coaching veteran into an admin- istrative and consulting capacity. The first time this p o s i t i o n w a s c r e - ated was 1981, when new head coach Gerry Faust shifted esteemed 1964-80 Irish defensive line coach Joe Yonto to "administrative assis- tant." First-year head coach Lou Holtz did the same with 1969-85 Notre Dame lineback- ers coach George Kelly, whose new title became "special assistant to the athletics director." • The two graduate assistants on offense will be Ryan Mahaffey, a holdover from last year, and former Wisconsin offensive lineman Dono- van Raiola. • The two graduate assistants on defense will be Mike Hiestand, another holdover from last year and son of of- fensive line coach Harry Hiestand, and 2005-08 Irish linebacker Maurice Crum Jr. • Former 1994-97 Irish starting quarterback Ron Powlus will have the title "director of player devel- opment." It's the same role he had at Notre Dame in 2005-06 before becoming the quarter- backs coach in 2007-09. Still to be announced this month and cur- rently getting vetted by