In his last meeting with the media in a Notre Dame capacity, with the heartbreak of what could have been still fresh and stinging, Al Golden answered all the hard questions thrown at him and then made a bold prediction about the future of ND football.
“It’s not a team or a culture that was — how do you say it? — it wasn’t store-bought,” said the third-year Irish defensive coordinator after ND’s 34-23 loss to Ohio State in the CFP National Championship Game, Jan. 20 in Atlanta.
“It was from the ground up,” he continued. “And it’s built with bricks. It’s built with mortar. And it’s built to last. It’s built for the long haul. That’s culture, and that’s the biggest thing.”
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Less than a week later, Golden left that culture behind for an opportunity to go back to the NFL and be the defensive coordinator for the Cincinnati Bengals. And on Thursday night, he was given a reminder of what he contributed to that culture during the first three years of head coach Marcus Freeman’s regime.
The Broyles Award.
First awarded in 1996 and presented in Little Rock, Ark., at the Downtown Rotary Club the award is given annually to the nation’s top college football assistant coach.
The other four 2024 finalists were Arizona State offensive coordinator Marcus Arroyo, Tennessee defensive coordinator Tim Banks, Indiana defensive coordinator Bryant Haines, and Texas defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski.
Golden is the second Notre Dame coach to win the award while with the Irish, joining Bob Diaco, ND’s defensive coordinator on its 2012 national runner-up team.
Chris Ash has been hired to replace Golden on Freeman’s staff. Freeman preceded Golden as defensive coordinator, in 2021, Brian Kelly’s final season as head coach.
“We had an incredibly tough loss in week 2,” Golden said during his speech Thursday night of the 16-14 upset by Northern Illinois on Sept. 7. “An incredibly humbling loss.
“We decided that we were going to do everything we could to reach our full potential and be the best version that we could possibly be, day in and day out, and did not worry about anything else but the moment.
“It’s very hard to do anything for the first time at Notre Dame, but we were able to win 13 in a row. We were able to win the Orange Bowl. We were able to win the Sugar Bowl and were able to play for a national title. We hosted our first College Football Playoff game. All of those things. But all of that would not have happened if it wasn’t for the players, for the student-athletes.”
Those student-athletes, with Golden, helped Notre Dame lead the country in 2024 in pass-efficiency defense (104.4 rating), defensive TDs scored (6) and takeaways (33).
The Irish were fourth in scoring defense (15.5 ppg) and11th in total defense (307.4 yards per game).
But for Golden, the numbers were only part of the story.
“People ask me all the time in this age of transactional sports, what it’s like to coach at Notre Dame?” he said. “And I’ll say this, it was the greatest 1,000 days of my career to be associated with and to wake up and coach those young men every day.
“Because there’s a place in Northern Indiana where young men go, that still think it’s important to be great in the community. They still think it’s important to be awesome in the classroom. They still think it’s important and vital to have a spiritual component in your life. And it’s all fostered by a head coach that provides a culture.
“And I was just blessed to be a part of that for just a brief moment, and for that I’m grateful.”
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