Whose car do we take?
Even though it probably wasn’t as dramatic as in “The Town,” that’s at least how I imagined Mike Denbrock and Al Golden’s trip to Marcus Freeman’s house would be.
As fall camp came to a close on Saturday, Notre Dame’s offensive and defensive coordinators took a step back from the day-to-day stresses of camp to truly evaluate where the team stands – this time in a different environment.
“Coach (Denbrock) and I had an opportunity the other day to go over to Coach Freeman’s house together, step back and say, ‘What’s bothering you from a macro perspective? Or what’s really, really fun to watch?'” Golden said.
The evening at Freeman’s house gave both coaches a chance to reflect on what the other does well and how that might impact the start of the regular season.
“I need to have information from him and I hope he knows that if he needs something, he can get it from me so we can make each other better,” Denbrock said. “If adjustments need to be made, if there are signs in what we’re doing. Do we need to do a better job of covering up this, that or something else? Do we do that too often? What really hurts you when you’re in this coverage?
“This interaction between the defensive personnel is crucial to our development and hopefully it helps them a little bit too.”
Denbrock and Golden had their last chance to face each other in fall camp on Saturday in a uniform scrimmage. Denbrock’s offense pulled out a 42-40 win, but no one really knows the outcome.
However, the narrow victory did not bring Denbrock much joy.
“To be honest, I didn’t really like it,” Denbrock explained. “If you had asked me if we had played the way we can, I would have liked the gap to have been a little bigger.”
While Denbrock’s brutal honesty doesn’t necessarily bode well for the best offense, he knows his unit is up against a great defense – led by a great staff.
“Al is fantastic,” Denbrock said. “The entire defensive team and especially the communication between the two teams is critical to everything we do because we’re building a football team here.”
Denbrock also knows that battling the rugged Irish defense will only accelerate Riley Leonard’s progress in his system.
“He’s not afraid to try, fail and learn from it,” Denbrock said of his new quarterback. “He doesn’t usually suffer from analysis paralysis, which can easily happen with our defense. You stand there and just ask yourself, ‘OK, what’s the right thing to do?’ He makes a decision and lives with it.”
Golden responded by saying how tough it was to face Denbrock and the offense every day.
“They’re doing a great job,” Golden said. “First of all, they have a quarterback who can distribute or release with his legs, which is really, I mean, a great place to be.”
And it doesn’t end with stopping Leonard. Golden has to make plans to stop guys like Mitchell Evans and Jeremiyah Love.
“Everyone talks about Mitch, but the other two tight ends behind him have made great strides, and now all of a sudden there are different combinations that can come into play,” Golden said. “I love our running back corps, different combinations of wide receivers in the game. The totality of it, if you will, presents great challenges.”
“It’s not like you say, ‘Oh, just take Mitch away or just take Beaux (Collins) away or, you know, hey, we need to focus on Jeremiyah.’ It’s not that, because then Riley can catch you with his feet. So it’s great. I love the system.”
While the two Irish coordinators face difficult days with August 31, hopefully the saying “iron sharpens iron” will prove true for Notre Dame in 2024.
“Coaching defense is tough,” Golden said. “Trying to stop (Denbrock) every day, whatever they’re trying to do. It’s tough. It can be difficult. There are difficult days. There can be challenging days.”
