Notre Dame officially announced that Mike Denbrock will be the new Offensive Coordinator for the Fighting Irish. This comes with as little shock as one might find since the hiring has been a "done deal" behind closed doors for some time now.
press release on wide receivers coach Mike Denbrock being promoted to Notre Dame offensive coordinator position: http://t.co/jXv8kKNZkl
— Angelo Di Carlo (@angdicarlowndu) January 31, 2014
Now to the most commonly asked question surrounding this hire… "do you like the hire?"
Yes. Yes, I like the hire because it signifies an ideal of something that I think is just as important as the actually hire itself. It signifies continuity. Now, some of you may think that might be a bad thing considering some of the head scratchers that the Notre Dame offense pulled out of the hat last year, but I think we can all agree that the Golson situation was the bigger issue.
There are three fairly common types of head coaches and they can roughly be called; an offensive guy, a defensive guy, and a CEO. Brian Kelly is, for the most part, an offensive guy. There is a system in place that is "his" and that system is what he knows. If you were looking for a "bigger hire" or something like that, this was not just the wrong side of the ball, but also the worst job to pick from.
Brian Kelly wants his offense on the field. No sexier and veteran offensive coordinator would even want the job if they can't run their own system. For this job, you hire from within and help mold the man to fit the position. The defensive side is already getting shook up with the new defensive coordinator, and this hire helped keep some continuity for a team that needs it after losing two captains on that side of the ball, and a quarterback coming back that could help take this offense to a level that we haven't seen in a while.
I like the hire and I like Denbrock. He has already proven himself to be a very effective recruiter and this position gives him extra clout to become even more effective in that area. We are all pretty sure that Kelly will be calling the plays next year, and that's a good thing too. As far as the future of the play calling is concerned, I'm positive that at some point Denbrock will start doing that job- but not in 2014.
