Deep Dive Pod 40, Chris Ash, ( Notre Dame Defensive Coordinator )

From the football fields of Ottumwa, Iowa, to the sidelines of college football's biggest stages, Chris Ash has built one of the most impressive coaching résumés in the game. In a remarkably short period of time, he's worked alongside some of the sport's most respected minds—including Urban Meyer, Barry Alvarez, Bret Bielema, Steve Sarkisian, and Marcus Freeman—while also spending time in the NFL with the Jacksonville Jaguars and Las Vegas Raiders. 

Chris was the co-defensive coordinator for Ohio State's 2014 College Football Playoff National Championship team before earning the opportunity to become the head coach at Rutgers. Today, he's leading one of college football's premier defenses as the defensive coordinator at Notre Dame. 

Join us as we go back to where it all began in southeast Iowa and trace Chris Ash's incredible coaching journey—from Drake University to the Big Ten, the SEC, the NFL, and now South Bend. We'll talk about the mentors who shaped him, the lessons learned along the way, and what it takes to succeed at the highest levels of football.

#notredame #notredamefootball #collegefootball #Iowa #Ottumwa 

You can communicate with us at deepdivepod2025@gmail.com or be part of the Deep Dive Community in our Facebook Group Deep Dive Podcast https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1JGiMUC7bq/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Here we are, boys. Montana, Rudiger, Raymond.

SPEAKER_02 0:14

Raymond. How are we doing?

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Good. Yeah. Which one of the two of you is Rudiger? You choose. Do you know who Rudiger is? Okay, well. So let's see by the end of if you know who know who Montana is. Yeah. Boys, we have a big time, huh? Hannah Montana. Hannah Montana. You're right. You got it. Look at the big brains on bread. Boys, we have a big time guest for our anniversary show today, so we're going to get right at it. But you know, with all of these AI-generated personalities, I'm a little worried about imposters. So I would like to maybe do a little vetting of our guest before we invite them to officially sit down with the deep dive arena. Is that okay with you? Yeah, great. Guest, I'm going to read you some comparisons, and I want you to respond with your most immediate answer. So, guest, please do your best. Happy Joe's pizza or Casey's pizza? Casey's Canteen loose meat sandwiches or Mr. Quick's five and a pound.

SPEAKER_04 1:23

I kind of like them both, but I'll go canteen.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Skate land or drive in.

SPEAKER_04 1:30

Oh boy, you could do a lot more in a drive in.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Grams, dairy freeze, or baskin robins? Grams, without a doubt. Midwest League or a Temwa Bank bike race?

SPEAKER_04 1:43

Oh boy. Great memories of both. I'll go with Midwest baseball.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Okay. Last question. Here we are. Please finish this sentence. Johnny get a rat trap bigger than a uh you stumped me on that one. Oh Johnny get a rat trap bigger than a uh I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 2:03

Mouse trap?

SPEAKER_01 2:05

The answer is a cat trap. Tumwa High will always be our school because we love her true we do. We'll fight for her. It's been a while. You gotta note her. What do we got going on? That's part of the fight song that's in the student, the current student handbook. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:24

Yeah, that's all right. All right.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Well, we'll talk about that.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Okay, let's go.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Today's guest grew up under the Friday night lights in Otumwa, Iowa, and somehow turned that small town beginning into one of the more remarkable coaching journeys in college football. Since leaving Atumwa, Chris has climbed nearly every rung on the coaching ladder from college to the NFL. Along the way, he's worked alongside some of the biggest names in all sports and football. He was part of the Ohio State 2014 national championship team, and he earned the opportunity to become the head coach at Rutgers University. So join us as we go back to where it all started and hear stories that helped shape one of college football's most respected defensive minds. The defensive coordinator for Notre Dame, Chris Ash. Chris, welcome.

SPEAKER_04 3:12

Thank you guys. Appreciate the invite.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Yeah, thanks for joining us. Thanks for making time, Chris. Appreciate it. So here's the backstory. I am friends with Chris's brother, Todd. And Todd's a listener. And Todd um listened to the Tim Lester podcast. And he called me and he said, Dude, that is my brother, almost exactly, except for the fact that my brother had to play football at a Tumwa High School and not Wheaton South or whatever, wherever Tim came from. So then he reached out to you and said, Hey, would you want to be on these guys' podcast? And you were gracious enough to say yeah. So I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_04 3:47

If I would have known you were friends with my brother, I probably would have declined.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

I have, I bet you I've ridden 10,000 miles with your brother and maybe had that many beers too. He's pretty good buddy of mine.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

And you're still alive. Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

Yeah, well, there's been a couple of times. There's been close calls. So when when people ask where you're from, what is your response?

SPEAKER_04 4:12

Uh Iowa.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:14

And they say we're at, I say southeast Iowa. Yeah. We're at a Tumwa, and they say a Tumwa.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Right.

SPEAKER_04 4:21

No, a Tumwa. And I have to tell them uh it's south of Iowa City. Right. Oh, yeah. We know that where that's at.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Up to a certain point. I think once once Tom Arnold kind of lost his um cachet, Tumwa kind of dimmed a little bit. But there was a long time, you know, that you there was a long time that Tumwa. Who was it right?

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Yeah. They knew. I mean, it was the video game capital of the world, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 4:48

It was. It was back in the 80s. And MASH, Radar O'Reilly's something. Kinds of pop culture. So it was, I think.

SPEAKER_04 4:55

Flight Air Balloon Festival.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

Right. An Oktoberfest, if you do celebrate. But uh yeah, no, itumwa, I think, was one of those towns if that was kind of lumped in with like Waterloo and Cedar Falls, kind of those mid-towns. Let's go back and we're gonna start at the very beginning. What did a summer look like for a 12-year-old Chris Ash in Atumwa? Did you have a job?

SPEAKER_04 5:16

Uh 12, yeah. I I was a newspaper uh delivery boy. Right. I used to do the Atumwa Courier and the Sunday Des Moines Register. So you had two routes. I did I had two routes. Yeah, we used to do that. I did that for uh a number of years. I did that all the way through through high school.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Northside kid or south side kid?

SPEAKER_04 5:33

Northside.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

So you had some uh you had some hill climbing ability to you. Did you deliver on a bike?

SPEAKER_04 5:38

Well I was uh I was on the way north side uh before uh after the hill started.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Oh, so so you were the same as a south sider, but you still look down on the south side?

SPEAKER_04 5:47

Yeah, yeah, trash. Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

We'll probably get a couple emails about that.

SPEAKER_04 5:53

You got an at number five. I shouldn't say that. My grandparents uh were were uh Southsiders.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Yeah, I was a Southsider, but uh not for a ton of years. But I lived right behind um where Pomida was and now Fairway. So yeah. I was a Wildwood kid. Yeah. So what sports did you play when you were a kid?

SPEAKER_04 6:11

Uh I I did a lot, I did them all. Football. I remember uh starting football uh when the Tumble started the Youth Tackle Football League. I don't even know if it's still there anymore. Uh I was one of the original members. I was a quarterback on the uh Otumo Youth Uh Tackle Football League. Uh we used to play over on the Evans uh football field uh in the back there. Nice, yeah. Uh played baseball, played basketball, uh, did tennis and played tennis quite a bit. Uh my uncle and uh had a cousin who was heavily involved in tennis, went and played uh he played college uh tennis, got involved in tennis and played tennis for a long time. So those were really the sports. I did track a little bit in high school, but football, basketball, uh tennis, baseball, those were the main ones.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

You're in the little league?

SPEAKER_04 6:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

I think it's amazing. Otoma had three leagues. They they're all all little leagues, but they what they had the Midwest, the American League and National League?

SPEAKER_04 7:01

National, yeah. I could never figure out I played I was in the Midwest and it was on the west side of town, but it was called the Midwest.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

So right. So you you've named two of the things that as a Centerville kid I envied. Number one, you had tackle football, which I don't even know if Centerville still has tackle football, but I think things have swayed the other way. The other thing is you were in the Midwest League, which meant that you had those cool dug-in dugouts, right? Oh, yeah. You had to walk down dugouts.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

Yeah, yeah. Tumwa's fields were legit.

SPEAKER_04 7:28

Right. They were legit. Yeah. The the uh high school baseball field, the Legion field was awesome. The the little league fields were great. Uh, baseball was a big deal.

SPEAKER_02 7:37

You remember playing in Washington? Yeah, probably the shortest right field porch in the Southeast Seven. I'm sure the Southeast seven.

SPEAKER_04 7:45

I'm trying to remember. I I think I hit one out of left field in uh when I was in high school.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

Okay. Was it off a lanky, tall right-hander with salt and pepper hair and glasses as a 17-year-old?

SPEAKER_04 7:55

Right. I don't I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

So when you uh started playing tackle football, was that your immediate love and you knew football was your future? Or did you uh lean towards one of the other sports and think maybe that was your uh gonna be your go-to as you got older?

SPEAKER_04 8:08

No, I really had no idea. I uh started out in the YMCA flag football league, and then they started the tackle football league, and you know that was like the thing to try to do, and so I did it. And um I was a quarterback, I couldn't throw, but uh, thought I was Joe Montana at the time.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:25

And uh it was fun. And uh I just kept continued to do it, did it in middle school, did it in high school, and uh went on and did it in college. It never was very good, but um, you know, had a lot of great memories from it, a lot of great friends, and um really it football changed my life.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

I'm guessing when you started coaching, you probably were recruiting almost exclusively multi-sport athletes. Is that harder and harder nowadays? You find yourself recruiting kids that are have played football almost exclusively, or are you still able to find multi-sport athletes?

SPEAKER_04 8:56

There's more and more uh kids that are specializing, but when I first started out coaching, I was recruiting kids that had money so they could pay to go to Drake. And they didn't have money, it didn't matter what sports they played. If they had money, we were recruiting them.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

I mean, you were uh in a super unique situation because you basically played at Drake, and then within a year or two later, you were a coordinator there, right?

SPEAKER_04 9:18

Yeah, I think it was 24 years old.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

So you were coordinating some of the kids that you had played with that were freshmen and sophomore when you were there. Yeah, yeah. What was that dynamic like?

SPEAKER_04 9:27

Did you actually they wanted me to go out and drink with them all the time?

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:31

Did you want me to come over and hang out at the house parties and stuff like that? I'm like, I can't do that, boys. Sorry. Right, and your coach I'll be done at uh another bar if you want to go there, but I can't go to house parties.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

That was 12 months ago, right? That's what you told them. I'm an old man now.

SPEAKER_04 9:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

Your coach was from Atoma, too, right?

SPEAKER_04 9:48

He was Rob Ash.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

Same last name, different, different family, same last name.

SPEAKER_04 9:53

Same last name, same hometown. Uh both ended up at Drake, but uh no relation.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

That's wild. So, what are you um what was your experience like in Atuma?

SPEAKER_04 10:01

Uh I don't know. I'm a normal kid for Atumwa.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Right.

SPEAKER_04 10:04

Um you know, if you want to call it normal, I mean, in and out of trouble a lot. Um would go to school, play sports, we'd get in trouble on the weekends, get older, you know, uh go hang out with my brother and his older friends and think I was cool.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Right.

SPEAKER_04 10:19

Um, but uh and I guess that's kind of what you do in a Tumwa. There's not a Were you the right age?

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Were you um part of the video game Capital of the World? Did you walk some arcade time? And if so, what was your specialty?

SPEAKER_04 10:32

Uh, you know, uh, what is it, Galactica or something something like that? That was Galaga or something. I used to play. I used to think I was pretty good at uh Mario Brothers or Super Mario Brothers. I used to have it at a come and go. Used to go to the come and go and play Super Mario Brothers uh all day and all night as long as they were open.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Nice.

SPEAKER_04 10:50

Yeah, I used to go down to the arcade there on Main Street in Atumwa and um you know play a lot of those games. I was never good enough to be in uh you know the uh competitions that they would have.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

There were a couple arcades there in town, but the Twin Galaxies or whatever was the number one one, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:07

That was the one that so what was your uh youth sports uh teams growing up in Atumwa?

SPEAKER_04 11:14

Were you uh Missouri-based, you know, for pro sports or in college, or would you uh a little bit of so I I grew up watching the Cubs with WGN and Harry Carey. Yeah, um, I hated the Cardinals. My my grandfather was a huge Cardinals fan, and I'd go sit on the front porch with my grandpa, and he'd listen to Cardinals baseball on his radio uh every single night. And I hate him. Um, I like the the Royals, we'd go to some Royals games. We had uh relatives that live down in Kansas. We'd go visit them in the summer. We it was a big deal to go to a Royals game.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 11:46

Uh so baseball, you know, it was the Cubs. I like the Royals, I hated the Cardinals. Uh football, you know, the 49ers were great when uh I was growing up. And I remember the old JC Penny, my mom uh bought me a Halloween outfit of uh Joe Montana 49ers uh um Halloween outfit. So I fell in love with the 49ers. Um Chuck Long was uh a big deal, you know, uh at uh Iowa at the time when I was growing up and um was a big Iowa fan. And then I went and worked at Iowa State and uh ended up hating him for a while. Uh and then I ended up working for Chuck uh at San Diego State. So I grew up um cheering for Chuck and being a big fan of Chuck's as uh a player, and then I worked uh for him at San Diego State.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

We uh we have Hat Peterson on who was with the 85 Hawkeyes, and he told the most amazing story about it would have been New Year's Eve, I guess. Yeah, the Roswell where somebody at the hotel put Chuck Long out on a two-foot wide uh evacuation balcony for like 15 minutes, locked him out on this evaluation junk, yeah, Jonathan Hayes.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Yeah, not the kind of thing you want to do to your starting quarterback the night before the night before the game, but it was a different era, I guess.

SPEAKER_04 13:00

Yeah, and he went.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Well, that's kind of cool that you you had a chance to to both see him and uh to work with him. So I got a quick couple quick questions here that are Tumwa specific. Do you remember the monkeys that were underneath the water tower?

SPEAKER_04 13:17

I do, yeah. They used to have that little uh a little uh pet uh park or whatever they wanted to call it with monkeys underneath the water tower. Right. I wouldn't have just remembered that without you bringing it up, but yeah, I remember right.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

It's you I think probably one of my fondest memories is uh uh earliest memories anyway. Like I was probably about four or five years old, and I remember a a dude flicking a cigarette butt at one of the monkeys, and one of the monkeys would actually pick the cigarette up and smoke it. Smoking monkey, like a little love it.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Yeah, I can't believe that's not still there.

SPEAKER_04 13:51

I'm surprised it's not.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

It is a tumwa, after all.

SPEAKER_04 13:56

Yeah, that was a that was a cool deal. I used to love going to see the monkeys. They used to have a little uh pond down there at the park, too, would walk around the pond and go up and see the monkeys. That was like a great Sunday afternoon.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

There's there's some things obviously that they just don't do anymore, but a tomwa had some exceptionally interesting interesting things.

SPEAKER_04 14:13

Monkeys at the park they don't do anymore.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

No, they don't. I don't think they do the lagoons anymore either. It used to be great to like the lagoons downtown or down in the park in Atomwa. It didn't matter how old you were, you could just bring like a yeah, and he had beer. I mean, it was just debauchery. There'd be like 12-year-old kids with a their case of their dad's beer, and just nice, yeah. Sounds like a fun place to grow up. The other thing that I noticed about you is your birthday is on December 24th. Yeah. Were you one of those kids that got ripped because you didn't uh because you're you were a Christmas Eve baby, or did you get to celebrate?

SPEAKER_04 14:49

No, I never I never had a birthday party. Yeah, um, never can remember really having birthday gifts, everything was Christmas based. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

So that would have been yeah, that would have been a big time bummer at the fact you couldn't have all your friends down at uh Happy Joe's and had the sirens go off.

SPEAKER_04 15:05

None of that. No.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

I always feel bad for December 24th, kids. Man, it's it's the biggest trip.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

So if you were to get back to Otumwa in the near future, where where would you go or where would you take someone who hasn't been to Otuma? Like, do you have a favorite dive bar, favorite restaurant that you think has to be hit?

SPEAKER_04 15:24

Well, I the I think the dive bars, the the only one that would still probably be there would be like Tom Tom Tap or Owl's Nest, maybe. Um the real dive bar that we used to hang out at when I grew up was Bubba's over on uh Church Street.

SPEAKER_02 15:39

Okay. Right.

SPEAKER_04 15:39

Jerry Parker used to be the mayor uh of Atumba, uh, ran the bar. I know why the crazy place.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

I know why you liked Bubba's because you were they would let anybody in.

SPEAKER_04 15:50

I mean literally that 16-year-old ID worked every time.

SPEAKER_02 15:55

Is that where your your ragbride team got their name? Team Bubba. It has nothing to do with it.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Okay, but it's okay, but it was definitely yeah, his daughter rode bikes too. Okay, so but uh yeah, no, they bubb's was they had no governor on the uh beer tap. Anybody, if you got in the door, you're gonna get served.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

But they're no longer going, they're gone.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

Yeah, and Tom Tom Tap's no longer going either, man. That was cool. No, they that whole entire uh hotel tomwa is done.

SPEAKER_04 16:23

I don't I don't really remember it's being his hot Hotel Tumwa was used to be the Park View Plaza, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:29

Oh, yeah, okay, yeah. Yeah. So when when they shut all that down, the TomTom went down too, which I don't know why really, yeah. I don't know why they couldn't have kept that open. It was really kind of cool, and it was it was probably maybe a little more of a lounge than it was a dive bar because it wasn't a true dive bar, it was a lounge.

SPEAKER_04 16:45

I would have hotel uh bar. Yeah, Bubba's was a dive bar, right? Okay, the real deal shuffleboard, poker table, popcorn, jukebox.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

Cash only.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

Now you gotta admit the south side had better dive bars than the north side.

SPEAKER_04 16:59

I don't know that the north side really had any.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

They had Young's, they had uh the keg. Yeah. So yeah, the south side's where you wanted to be if you wanted to shoot out the lights. Yeah. So what's one thing that you've taken with you, no matter where you've been, that's been either that's Iowa? It doesn't have to be a Tumwa specific, but what's the one thing that's gone with you since you've uh as you've progressed through your professional life?

SPEAKER_04 17:23

Uh I would say two things that uh I I'm pretty proud of being born and raised uh in a Tumwa and in Iowa specifically. Uh one is just uh trying to be a good person. You know, people in Iowa are really good people and uh work ethic, you know, you've got to work hard. People in Iowa work hard, they have to work hard. And uh, you know, those are two things I try to pride myself on that uh I think uh lead to success wherever you're at, doesn't matter. You know, treat people right, be a good person and and work your ass off, uh and you've got a chance.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

When you were 24 years old and you were working or you're at Drake, I mean, how did you get that job? How did I mean I understand the hard work? Listen, how did how did uh Coach Ash know that your work ethic on the field was going to translate to a coordinator position?

SPEAKER_04 18:12

Uh so there were a few stops um in between when I graduated and I I was hired as a defensive coordinator at Drake. It was a short two, I guess, year and a half, two years. So my senior year in college, I tore my ACL and I did it during training camp. And I did have no idea what I was going to do. So I got surgery, I rehabbed, and I started working in the football office at Drake. So that was kind of my foot in the door. And uh I was got a history degree, I thought about becoming a teacher. I did some student teaching in Des Moines when um I was still at Drake. So I would go be a student teacher, I'd go in the afternoon over to Drake and work in a football office and did a lot of stuff. I mean, get coffee, make copies, cut up film, whatever you know they needed, I did. So that's really where it started. And after I graduated, I didn't have a job, didn't know what I was gonna do. Rob Ash at the time offered me an opportunity to stay on at Drake and volunteer. So I was actually a substitute teacher out of college. And I'd get up in the morning, wait for that phone call, um, tell me where I was gonna go work. I would go substitute somewhere, and I'd go over to Drake and work in the afternoon. And then uh after I did that for a year, they uh hired me as a graduate assistant. So I did that for another year for so for two seasons. Uh I was a volunteer and a substitute teacher and then a graduate assistant making, I don't know what it was, $500 a month, something like that. And uh then I was hired at Princeton University out in New Jersey. And that was really my connection to Rutgers in New Jersey, was my short stint at Princeton in and uh New Jersey back in 1997. So I was at Princeton, I got hired, I think it late January, early February of uh 1997. I go through spring ball at um Princeton and Dave Doran, who was the head coach at North Carolina State, uh, he was the D coordinator at Drake. And he got hired with a guy by the name of Paul Hackett out at USC as a graduate assistant. He left uh Drake, went out to uh USC and um was a graduate assistant. Ed Ogiron was out uh on that staff uh at USC. And uh when he left, uh Rob Ash called me and hired me from Princeton to come back to Drake because I knew the defense, I'd been there for a couple years and um uh been around the program and uh thought that was the smoothest transition because uh it was a summer hire. You know, they went the summer, it wasn't like right after the season, you could open up a search, and uh so really it was uh luck and and timing and uh circumstances that it happened when it happened, and I got that phone call. I packed up my car in New Jersey and drove back to Iowa and uh was the coordinator for a couple of years there.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Let's talk about your your how you got to where you are today. Drake Bulldogs, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton Tigers. Iowa State, is that the next stop for you?

SPEAKER_04 21:03

Uh well I went I went Drake, Princeton, back to Drake, and then to Iowa State with Dan McCartney.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

San Diego State with Chuck, uh Wisconsin.

SPEAKER_04 21:12

I went I had another I went back to Iowa State before Wisconsin with Paul Rhodes.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

Yeah, you were Paul, yeah. So then Wisconsin, Arkansas, then Ohio State, then Rutgers, then Texas, then you were with Jacksonville Jaguars, yes, Las Vegas Raiders, and now you're with Notre Dame.

SPEAKER_04 21:29

Yeah. I went back to Jacksonville for a second time as well before I came to Notre Dame.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

You're still a young dude, man. That's a lot of stops on the uh passport. But everything has been going up. All the trajectory has been going up. That's that's pretty awesome. That's uh do you feel old? Or do you still feel like you're a pretty young dude?

SPEAKER_04 21:49

Um, I feel like I'm pretty young. I I I can get it around pretty good. I still work out. Um, I I don't feel old. Uh I don't I don't know if I look it or not, but I don't I don't feel it yet. Not at all. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

So during that journey, let me give you some names. Dan McCartney, Chuck Wong, Brett Bielema, Paul Christ, Urban Meyer, Luke Fickle, Marcus Freeman, Josh Herman, and Josh McDaniel. Those are some pretty heavy names. Out of all those people, what's that been the most interesting coaching room to be in for those?

SPEAKER_04 22:21

Oh boy, uh, you know, I get asked that a lot. And uh, I'll be honest, I've been fortunate. Every place that I've been has been a really cool place. Whether we won, we didn't win, whether uh I was hired to be a head coach or we were fired and I had to pack up and move. Um, I I learned a lot every stop along the way. I learned a lot from every head coach, every coach I worked with. Um obviously the coolest place would have probably been Ohio State at the time because we won the national championship.

SPEAKER_03 22:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:50

But uh, you know, I learned a lot. Uh I when I when I thought I knew everything, I went to Wisconsin at the time with Brett Bielama. Barry Alvarez had just retired. Bielama was the head coach and learned a lot about player development when I went to Wisconsin. Uh I go to Ohio State and I think I know a lot, and then I learn a lot about leadership and culture building and alignment, uh, recruiting at a high level. You know, we're recruiting some of the top uh recruiting classes in America at Ohio State. Uh and then I think I know it all, and I go take the head coaching job at Rutgers, and I get fired in four years. Uh so um, you know, uh everywhere I've gone, I've learned um a lot. And uh it's been a really cool journey. It has not been easy moving and packing up your family. That's why I'm on a solo mission here at Notre Dame. We just had moved too much, and uh, my two younger kids just need they needed some stability uh in their their life, and we just made a decision that that was the best thing to do. But uh, you know, going to the NFL was like going to earn my doctor's uh doctorate degree, you know, in football. Um, went to Jacksonville with Urban Meyer. It was only a one and done, but I learned a lot about being in the league there. And then I go work with Josh McDaniels with the Raiders, and it's probably the one stop I learned the most about X's and O's was with Josh McDaniels. I've been an offensive coordinator for some like 18 years, been to like nine Super Bowls with Bill Belichick and all those years in New England. Uh Josh is one of the smarter coaches I'd ever been around. Learned a lot during my time uh there with the Raiders. So um, you know, it just depends on the stop, you know, what I learned, who I was with. Uh there were a lot of things I learned not to do too along the way. So uh it's been cool. I can't say it's been easy, but uh it's been a really, really fun ride. Met a lot of great people, seen a lot of really good things. Uh living from coast to coast has been really cool uh for my for my family too.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

So I'm gonna back up kind of the beginning of your coaching journey. I know you said you went to Drake because you were familiar with the offense and play or the defense and played in it, knew the system. Um I'm assuming though you had to have had some influences, either stuff you watched growing up or you know, coaches you watched from a distance. Did you put any of your own thumbprint as a 24-year-old coordinator on that defense? Um, or did you pretty much just try to plug and play that first year with what you had played as a player?

SPEAKER_04 25:05

Uh a little bit of both. Uh my first year, uh just because of when we got hired or got hired there at such a late time, there wasn't an opportunity to do a whole lot different than what it was already uh in place. But as you go through the course of the season, uh, you know, you adjust and adapt and do some different things uh along the way. And it was a great opportunity to learn a lot and try some stuff and uh, you know, fail and uh feel pretty comfortable about uh those opportunities. The second year I think it changed quite a bit. Um I just grew, learned, studied, um, you know, knew our players and knew our league and what we needed to do differently and uh probably put a bigger spin, my own spin on it, uh my second year. But you know, I've I've studied the game. I I I still do all the time. I sit here in my office, whether it's NFL, college football, certain coaches uh and schemes. And I just kind of that's kind of been my thing that I've done my whole uh career is uh just been a student of the game and try to teach myself a lot of stuff, make a lot of phone calls to people and ask questions.

SPEAKER_00 26:02

So the jumped in from Drake to Iowa State was that Dan McCarney connecting with you? Yeah, and how did that connection happen? And uh be curious to learn a little bit about your time with Dan.

SPEAKER_04 26:14

Yeah, so uh, you know, in the summer they'd have uh uh football camps at uh Iowa State and some guys at Drake would go up and work a football camp at Iowa State. And the our defensive line coach here at Notre Dame, who we just hired, a guy by the name of Charlie Partridge. Uh we hired him from the Indianapolis Colts, who's also a Drake grad, was also on staff at Drake when I was there. He had actually been hired at Iowa State from Drake before I was. And uh that was really my connection. And uh so he was there. Um Dan loved uh Drake guys and uh the way you know that that they worked. And uh so I got the call, got hired, and um was there as a graduate assistant for two years. Bobby Elliott, who uh had been in Iowa at the time, uh had come over and uh was the defensive back coach. I was a graduate assistant for Bobby for two years. He left and went to Kansas State with Bill Schneider as the D coordinator, and I got promoted to take his job as uh DB coach after he left.

SPEAKER_00 27:11

Okay. Was it hard to get kind of fired up on a practice field with someone as low-key as Dan McCartney?

SPEAKER_04 27:17

The only thing you wanted to do on a practice field with Dan McClorny is stay out of uh out of his way.

SPEAKER_03 27:22

Right.

SPEAKER_04 27:22

You know, he was gonna be spraying bullets everywhere, and he just didn't want to get caught in the crossfires, man, because uh that dude was intense and he didn't care who he was yelling and screaming at, uh, you were gonna get it.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Yeah, right. Um were there a couple things that he uh Dan kind of introduced to you on from a defensive system standpoint that were that you implemented or you took from him because he was a legendary defensive coordinator in his own right?

SPEAKER_04 27:46

Yeah, not not so much defense. Um by the time I got with Dan, he'd been a head coach for I don't know five years at the time and uh hadn't really been involved in defense. What what I took from from Mac, I still talk to Mac uh to this day, and uh I just talked to him about a I don't know, maybe a week and a half ago for like an hour. Um and uh it it was more about uh treating people uh a particular way. I mean he was he was a maniac on the practice field, but he was one of the most um nicest guys. Uh he cared about your family, he cared about everybody in the building. He went out of his way to to make you feel like you were having the best day. Um, you know, I I I took those things away from from Mac. Um that's just a gift that he had. I haven't been around anybody else as upbeat and as positive and energetic and just making you feel uh uh the best you could you could be, you know, uh outside of him.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

Did you uh get to experience a St. Patrick's Day with Dan McCartney?

SPEAKER_04 28:43

Uh I I I did not. I that was intentional. I I tried to say that we were because it was only a matter of time before that would catch up to him and cost him his job, but um I didn't want to be anywhere near that. But yeah, I think legendary legendary.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

It embraces St. Patrick's Day with the same enthusiasm he does game day, from what I've heard.

SPEAKER_04 29:00

Yes. Oh, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

We do have I'm gonna ask it. We have several people that listen to the show that are Iowa State fans. Tell us a great memory of that time because that was a great era for Iowa State football. Uh signature moment at either Jack Trice or a big win that you got to experience uh from the Cyclone sideline.

SPEAKER_04 29:17

Yeah, there there really are a couple of them. Um the first one that comes to mind uh would have been 2001, Seneca Wallace. Uh yeah who's the quarterback at Kinnock. And I think it was a 24-7 game.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

Okay, that's fine. Thanks.

SPEAKER_04 29:34

I went with that one intentionally.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:38

But that was a great game. Uh the following year, uh, the 9-11 year, uh, where the the Iowa Iowa game was uh at the end of the season, uh was another fantastic game uh in Ames that year. Uh we went down and uh beat Texas AM. And uh Todd Blythe was a receiver, Brett Meyer was a quarterback, uh uh Todd Blythe just uh smoked Texas AM that day. That was probably like the you know, beating a true blue blood program like AM uh down at college station was another memorable day. Uh we beat the first time we beat Nebraska, uh Frank Solich was the head coach, you know, in Ames. Those were some of the biggest games that I was a part of.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

That was a transformational time for that program. So today I'm sorry I asked. Uh and then you jumped to Wisconsin, right? And I got to believe that Dan McCartney was kind of a conduit to the Barry Alvarez in that group.

SPEAKER_04 30:28

Uh no, I I was the head coach and I knew Brett. Okay. Brett from his time at Iowa. Um, and then Bobby Elliott and Brett uh were together at Iowa for such a long time. They were together at Kansas State. So I had been connected with uh uh Brett and then Dave Doran, again, who was at Drake that I just talked about, who's a head coach at NC State. He was the D coordinator at Wisconsin. And he and I were at Drake together, we played together. So I knew Brett, I knew Dave. They called, um, went up there, and uh it was a great three years, three Big Ten uh titles in a row and three Rose Bowls, and uh had an absolute blast in Madison.

SPEAKER_00 31:03

Uh New Glaris, are you a New Glaris fan still to this day after your short time up there?

SPEAKER_04 31:07

Spotted Cow is the greatest. Anytime uh we can go into Wisconsin, when I say we, my wife and I, and we can get out of there with some Spotted Cow or we can have someone bring it to us, we're doing it. Yeah. I uh when I last time I I had Spotted Cow, uh this kind of off topic, I was in Jacksonville. So I worked in the NFL as a coach and on the personnel side, and I was doing some advanced scouting, and I had to go to a Houston Texans Green Bay Packers game up in Lambeau in 2024. And in the airport, they were after you got through security, they were selling 12-pack cans of spotted cow. There you go. And uh I took some home from to my wife. So um All right.

SPEAKER_00 31:44

I'm gonna yield to the other two because I get off track to asking too many football questions. I'm gonna ask you one last thing. You spent a cup of coffee in Arkansas. Your impressions of the Arkansas fan base and what that culture is like compared to other places you've been.

SPEAKER_04 31:57

Woo pig Suey. Yeah. The the the catfish hole and Woo Pig Suey and uh Northwest Arkansas there in Fayetteville. Uh, you know, we did not have a great year. It was a very difficult year, but man, they those are some passionate fans. Um, it's a different part of the country. We still have friends to this day that we talk to. And one of my greatest moments, Sam Pittman was the head coach at Arkansas this last year. Sam was the offensive line coach at Arkansas when I was there. We were at Notre Dame this year. We went and played at Arkansas and we smoked them. And uh Arkansas actually had a pretty good offense with Bobby Petrino, but we smoked them this year. It was the first time I'd been back to Fayetteville since we'd left there to go to Ohio State, and it was a great uh way to go back.

SPEAKER_02 32:37

Yeah, I bet. I had a similar question, uh John, that you teed up. You asked about the fan base. So out outside of Arkansas, who was the most enthusiastic uh or memorable fan base that you've uh coached it within?

SPEAKER_04 32:50

Yeah, good way or bad way.

SPEAKER_02 32:51

Either one. Either one. Yeah. Uh best fan.

SPEAKER_04 32:56

A team that I've been a part of or just anywhere I've gone to coach?

SPEAKER_02 32:59

A team that you've been a part of, but take both.

SPEAKER_04 33:02

Yeah, um, you know, it it's hard to say that anybody's better than the fans that at Ohio State, you know, when you can pack uh 100,000 in, you know, every Saturday and uh dot the eye and you know all the traditions that go on there. Uh and I'm gonna be honest with you, the ones here at Notre Dame are as good as there is in America as well. Game day here is is unbelievable. Uh this fan base is global, it's not just uh national. Uh it's it's really cool here. Those two jump out uh right away. You know, um that's they're all different, but the these two are uh as good as it gets.

SPEAKER_02 33:35

They're at the top. What about the worst?

SPEAKER_04 33:36

Oh boy. Um, you know, I was at San Diego State and we didn't have any fans, so that was tough. I had a great time at San Diego. I love San Diego State. I love San Diego. Uh we played at the old Qualcomm Stadium there, uh, where the Chargers used to play.

SPEAKER_01 33:50

And you guys used to play when there weren't people there, it was noticeable.

SPEAKER_04 33:54

I mean, you guys had a big stadium. They they'd put the tarp around the top, you know, so you couldn't sit up there and there there just weren't many fans there.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

But the seeds were red, so it looked good on TV.

SPEAKER_04 34:04

It looked like, you know, from a I loved it out there, but uh you know, we'd play a Saturday night, and uh nobody uh outside of San Diego would see you, and there was nobody in a stands.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

Well, what's the day look like the day after you win a national championship? Are you just answering text and phone calls and emails?

SPEAKER_04 34:22

Well, that's usually the night uh that that you get all those, you know, right after the game's over. Uh you just get blown up with the hundreds of texts and and then uh you're trying to respond to them, you know, through the night and the next morning. But when you work with uh a guy like Urban Meyer, there really is no uh time to celebrate and there's no day off. You know, uh the next breaking down film the next morning. You you got recruiting, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're gonna fly back home, you're gonna have a recruiting meeting, you're getting ready to go on the road recruiting, and it's all about what's next, you know. So uh really we when we won the national title, uh, that was when it was the 14 playoff the first year. And uh we were in Dallas. Uh we wanted uh down there, and uh, you know, we'd celebrate that night, and the next morning we were up, we were talking about recruiting, uh, talking about uh you know what we're gonna do the spring. We had to load up the plane, fly back to Columbus, and get ready to go recruiting. So there wasn't a whole lot of celebrating.

SPEAKER_01 35:14

But yeah, I mean, do you really have to sell Ohio State?

SPEAKER_04 35:17

Who, you know, I mean Yeah, so here's the uh thing about recruiting. Uh, when you're at a place like Ohio State, Notre Dame, uh, everyone thinks recruiting's easy. It's not, you know why? Because the top players, all the top teams want them. Yeah, and it's a dog fight to get the best players. You know, it's in and everybody cares about recruiting rankings. Everybody, the fans, and uh with all the the podcast and and the message boards, you know, uh perception's important and you you gotta be in that dog fight and you got to go recruit and battle with all the other top teams. And at San Diego State, you don't have to worry about that. You know, you go out and get the best guys that you can get, guys that you can develop you think are gonna fit, and you know, can in two, three, four years be really good players for you. And there's not a lot of people talking about it, so it's completely different. Uh recruiting's recruiting, but the the dog fights at the big places, the big boys for the top players, I mean, it's a it's a fight. It's a real deal. Yeah, it's a marathon too.

SPEAKER_01 36:14

And you have to keep track of where everybody's going, who who talked to Alabama, who's you know, who's talking to who. And I'm sure it's probably a lot different now in social media. Do you have to just have people that pay attention to social media or is that a position on the other?

SPEAKER_04 36:28

Uh yeah, um in this day and age, the way recruiting is in NIL, the the biggest thing that's changed is the size of the recruiting departments. Yeah, I mean, recruiting doesn't stop. Here at a place like Notre Dame, it's national recruiting. You got the academic requirement, so you really have to dig to find really good players that fit here and can make it academically. And it just never stops. Communication never stops. When we're coaching, we have to coach, we have to have people that can communicate and recruit and evaluate. And so we we have a whole team of people that do that.

SPEAKER_02 36:58

I I'm not an expert in Notre Dame football, but a good buddy of mine, Jed Davidson. You've probably known him, he's a big donor. I'm kidding. He's a he's a listener and he's a longtime fan. He's been a season, he's a graduate of Notre Dame, he's been a season ticket holder for a long time. I actually spent my uh my anniversary at a Notre Dame football game by mistake. Jed invited me to go see Notre Dame play uh Michigan State, and it was on um September 6th, and he sent me this note and I told my wife, um, hey, is anything going on on September 6th? Um Jed wants to Jed wants to take me to a Notre Dame football game, and I'm I'm it's a Big Ten game, I'm I'm gonna go to it. And she's like, Well, if you don't have anything planned for November 6th, I don't have anything planned. We go back and forth, back and forth, and and at the end of it, she's like, If you if you don't have any plans, if you don't have anything on your calendar for September 6th, then I'd say you should go. So he pulls up in the driveway, he gave me the Notre Dame football t-shirt of the day or whatever it was. Yeah, I went to say goodbye to my wife, and she's like, Well, happy anniversary, have a good time. So anyway, that's I I I I don't I don't know that I would do that again, but it was a really good experience. But Jed, I I told Jed that you were gonna be on, so I'm I'm putting this out for Jed Davison, my buddy. He wants to know how does the succession plan look to replace the secondary next year? Talent from the 26th class or upperclassman talent, losing gray more for sure, likely Shuler as well. Football question from Brad. Yeah. All right. Yeah, it's planted planted by Jed. Tris, this is a big deal.

SPEAKER_04 38:30

All right. Yeah, yeah. Well, thankfully, we have some really good players in the program right now, and we'll see how this year goes and what decisions uh certain guys make. But we think we've recruited really uh well also with some uh younger players that we can develop and uh get ready to replace them. And right now we kind of got a lot of momentum in recruiting. We're recruiting, I think, uh at a high level, and I think we have some really good players in the program. And you guys know how it is in this day and age, the portal is always an option for some great players too, if you need them. We don't uh dabble in that a whole lot. We'll go get uh players as needed if we we have some holes to fill, but Notre Dame's just not a portal type of place, so you know we try to stay out of that as much as we can. But we have good players, uh we're gonna lose good players every year, and we're we need to go recruit and develop uh great players too.

SPEAKER_00 39:15

So for you, is the scheme the scheme and uh you you coach them up and put them in place every year, or do you tweak schematically based on who's coming back and what you have?

SPEAKER_04 39:24

And yeah, yeah, we we look at every year is a new year, um you know, and uh every group is a new group, and you know, we've built a package that we think can adjust and adapt to the people that we have. And uh if somebody gets hurt like uh as happened to us last year, we we played a game, we had three new starters in the secondary. Yeah, and uh, you know, we we can't uh lose a guy like Leonard Moore who could be a first-round draft pick and replace him with a true freshman, expect the results to be the same. So we've got to be able to adjust our scheme to the people that we have out there.

SPEAKER_00 39:53

Is there any uh offensive scheme, uh either existing or kind of emerging scheme that you find really challenging as a defensive coordinator that really stretches uh the defensive scheme? Something innovative out there that's you know, the run and gun and stuff like that, and the RPO stuff, you know, when it first came on the scene, seems like it was uh really challenging defenses at the college level. Anything kind of new emerging or what really gives you fits as a coordinator.

SPEAKER_04 40:17

This is new, it's not really new, but we play Navy every year. And uh I do not like playing the triple option.

SPEAKER_00 40:23

Okay, go back to the old school is what's challenging now.

SPEAKER_04 40:25

Yeah, that that that's challenging. Yeah, we did play him in Venom uh very well last year, but it's a real pain. I hate to do it. It's a completely different uh preparation than what you would do for uh a normal opponent.

SPEAKER_03 40:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:37

Uh you know, in this day and age, honestly, there's there's only so many things you can do schematically. You pretty much see uh everything from everybody. That's really the the biggest difference in college and the NFL. The NFL, everything's pretty similar in college. You can go from Navy one week to uh four wide, throw it around the the field uh the next, and you better have a system that can adjust us and adapt to to face both. But uh yeah, it it's a challenge. And and the hard part about Notre Dame is you're not a league, so you don't play. You've got some consistent opponents, but you got you could have half your schedules brand new the next year, and sure any of those teams. So um, you know, you better be adjustable and be able to um, you know, uh be flexible with what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 41:17

I think it's interesting that um everybody always talked about the when the Big Ten and the the West started you know seeing Big Ten schools out there, they're like the Big Ten just doesn't do very good when they have to get on a plane and go. Notre Dame's been doing it forever.

SPEAKER_04 41:32

I mean there was a like there's so much that you just I don't even want to go down this path, but there's so much that people bitch about in college football, whether it's nine-game leagues, traveling from coast to coast. What do you think they do in the NFL? Right, right. Yeah, that's what the NFL does every week. They play really good teams. When the season's over, guess what they do? They go right into the playoffs. Yeah, no one complains about how tough their schedule was. Nobody complains about going to play in the playoffs right after. It is what it is. And you know, there's so much complaining and bitching in college football. I wish coaches just worry about coaching their team.

SPEAKER_00 42:05

Yeah, good point. Well said. Well, one of the things we always ask coaches, I have to ask you, are you superstitious? Do you have any game day rituals, anything that you have to do on game day or superstition at all?

SPEAKER_04 42:16

I'm not, I'm not. Uh I have a kind of a morning routine. I make sure the season during the season it's hard to work out. I like to work out, I usually do it every day. During the season, when it's hot and heavy on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays, it's hard. So I'm always looking forward to a good Saturday morning workout. Um, that's probably my favorite thing to do. I have to do that. And then uh when the game's over, hopefully win and I'm walking out of the locker room with a cold beer. You know, that's it. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 42:38

The next question is what's the celebration like on Saturday night? Yeah, is that a cold beer? Is that the go-to?

SPEAKER_04 42:43

Is that that is it? You know, uh my situation here that um I'm without my family at Notre Dame. When they come up, uh I try to have we go to dinner and have a lot of fun. If I'm by myself, I'll go get a cold beer and I'll go watch the film. You know, that's my wedding Saturday night.

SPEAKER_02 42:58

Any particular brand?

SPEAKER_04 43:00

Uh no, not really. I'm not real picky.

SPEAKER_02 43:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 43:03

As long as it's cold.

SPEAKER_02 43:04

Whatever's cold and available. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:07

Notre Dame is actually its own little town, I think. It's an unincorporated part of uh South Bend. So I'm guessing there's probably not a lot of bars and stuff kind of close to the lot.

SPEAKER_04 43:18

Yeah, I mean it's a cool little area. Yeah, it's not like uh most places, but there's some good local uh little bars. There's some dive bars uh right around here too. The linebacker lounge, it's a famous uh bar right uh um off close to campus. Uh last year when we played USC Joe Montana was pouring beers at the linebacker lounge.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

Okay, I think Jed might have taken me there.

SPEAKER_04 43:39

Yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

Are you still are you still new enough to the program where you can kind of walk around without being noticed, or you notice now?

SPEAKER_04 43:46

No, no. Um we lost two games last year that went away fast. Right. We lost two the first two games last year. Everybody figured out who I was and I I couldn't go too many places.

SPEAKER_01 43:57

Right.

SPEAKER_00 43:57

A couple just a couple other quick ones around that you kind.

SPEAKER_04 44:00

reference this earlier but always interested when we talk to people uh such as yourself what do you look to for inspiration or you know motivation around things around culture leadership do you have some resources you tap into either books or other coaches or anything like that yeah uh both you know um uh I stay in touch with a lot of coaches uh I talk to a lot of coaches um former co head coaches that I've worked with uh other coaches that I've worked with um people that I've met along the the way uh on the road recruiting that are you successful I talk to to guys all the time uh talk to a lot of guys in the NFL I do read uh I just actually did a little presentation to our staff here at Notre Dame uh yesterday and uh part of that was on three books I just read here this summer and uh so um yeah I I talk to people um I watch videos I read books uh I really trying to you know stay on top of whatever I can and learn uh something new all the time yeah and in your football journey one person friend foe otherwise that you would like to take to Bubba's and sit down and have a few beers with and just shoot the breeze oh friend or foe yeah that that's uh that's a I I'd love to do that with Nick Saban. Oh man yeah Nick Saban in a Tumble Iowa that'd be yeah that'd be pretty cool that'd be cool take him to Bubba's get him some popcorn and a and a cold beer and you know uh pick his brain on uh his career yeah that's a great answer all right I'm curious about the three books what are the three books you were uh just lecturing on uh it takes what it takes um okay Trevor More I did it's uh a book about neutral thinking uh training the mind never getting too high never getting too low uh he's a uh mental strategist that works with pro athletes he's worked with Alabama Georgia um worked with NFL teams and uh Russell I was at Wisconsin with Russell Wilson and um he's Russell Wilson's personal uh mental uh coach and okay um so that was one John Gordon's uh power of positive habits you know success is found in your daily habits uh read that one this summer okay uh and the last one with John Maxwell um you know uh getting a return on a failure uh how to look at at missed opportunities or failures how to evaluate and how to leverage them you know in in the future and uh so I was intentional about those three books um you know because uh just the season's coming up and um want to make sure I can try to stay neutral in my mindset you know never get too high and never get too low. Uh try to make sure I can continue to work on some of my habits to to uh help me along the journey and then you know we're gonna have some adversity and making sure that uh I can look at it in a a certain way and make sure we can improve from whatever we face. So I was intentional about those three books.

SPEAKER_01 46:50

That's awesome. What book would you write? What's your book about what are you gonna do? I I don't know man if if I uh if I had a uh if I wrote a book when I'm over uh it's over about my career I mean there'd be a lot of chapters about a lot of uh cool stuff I think no nothing in particular though fantastic uh I have yeah I got it right you ready to finish this up all right so Chris with every podcast we finish it with a little game here Chris you're you're headed into your second season with Notre Dame and I can assume you spent most of your offseason this summer brushing up on the patron saints so this week's game is called I'm no saint I'm gonna give you the names of six saints three saints are real and three saints I made up in my mushy brain your challenge will be to see through all the flowing robes and tell me which are the real saints and which are made up so I'll give you at least one pass to hear all the saint names and then uh we'll circle back around and uh you will then take your guess so um are you prepared for your challenge uh no I'm not but go ahead and you also have to you note if they're Jesuit or Franciscan right Franciscan yes you you just do have a lot of stuff there so right right I'm from Otum I'm I'm not very smart right so I'm gonna give you six names here and um what they are the patron saint of and then I'm gonna come back through and you'll tell me whether or not they're real so Saint Polly the patron saint of nugs and positive vibes Saint Drago the patron saint of unattractive people Saint Isidora of Seville the patron saint of internet and computer users Saint Otley the patron saint of ill-given gifts but good intention three of these are real three are real three are fake Saint Blanche of Eldon the patron saint of squeaky wheels and Saint Polycarp the patron saint of dysentery are you I mean are you this is like real yeah right three are real three are not so the first one Saint Polly the patron saint of nugs and positive vibes uh real Saint Pauli is not that's Saint Polly got it Saint Polly girl that's Saint no that's Saint Polly sure oh the patron saint of nugs and positive vibes there you go uh Saint Drago the patron saint of unattractive people real that is real yeah he is the patron saint of unattractive people legend has it he was so disfigured people would avoid him Saint Isidore of Seville the patron saint of the internet and computer users uh fake that is real Pope John Paul II proposed him because of his vast collection of knowledge okay Saint Otley the patron saint of ill given gifts but good intentions fake that is fake but could you imagine like Saint Otley people pray into that during every wedding gift that they've ever given yeah Saint Blanche of Eldon the patron saint of squeaky wheels real that is not real Saint Blanche of Eldon is a real person but she's not a saint and she lives in Eldon Iowa and Saint Polycarp the patron saint of dysentery fake that is real right I threw that in for notes all right yeah it's uh there's a actually you know where I got the real ones was off the Notre Dame website there you guys have a an entire page dedicated to patron saints on the Notre Dame the the university website oh okay I truly do I'm coaching football right now though right yeah I was gonna say you got till Monday to brush up on your saints and then it's all football. Right. All right boys did you get on all of your system? I think so. Chris thanks for joining us make sure to uh like and subscribe so you don't miss any new content. If you want to talk to uh us or the other deep divers you can do so on the our deep dive podcast Facebook page uh you can also email us at deepdivepod2025 at gmail.com until next time bye bye thanks BlockRest thanks Chris take care