Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BY ANDREW OWENS W hen Notre Dame lost three assistant coaches — two of whom were lead recruit- ers — from its staff earlier this offseason, it was difficult to imag- ine the Irish actually upgrading their group of coaches this offseason. According to head coach Brian Kelly, though, they did just that. Roughly a month after he began its nationwide search for replacements — and weeks after the program came to agreements with its four new assistant coaches — Kelly introduced the quar- tet to the media at the Guglielmino Athletics Complex March 2. "I'm announcing today what I consider to be collectively the most — and I use these words to define the staff that we put together — I consider it to be the most committed, cohesive, experienced and probably brightest coaching staff that I've put together in my career," said Kelly, who is entering his sixth season at the helm of the Irish program. "Ob- viously, I'm excited about the conti- nuity we still have in place on our staff. But the new pieces continue that momentum that I've talked about, starting with our bowl win in December." Kelly used "cohesive" or other forms of the word five times in his press conference to emphasize a new-look staff with nine assistants, one special assistant to the head coach, graduate assistants, a direc- tor of player development and three soon-to-be-announced analysts. In order to assemble this staff, 2014 offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock moved to associate head coach, out- side linebackers coach Bob Elliott moved to an off-the-field role and defensive line coach Mike Elston ac- cepted the role of linebackers coach and recruiting coordinator. "When you're talking about what we want to achieve here, everybody on this staff has made a commitment that the title that they want the most is a national title," Kelly said. "They are certainly more interested in the title that goes with national champ than the title that goes next to their name. That's why I'm so excited about the staff that we have and the Out With The Old, In With The New Notre Dame believes new-look coaching staff is an upgrade