Here to stay: Why Cincinnati poses toughest test for Notre Dame football
If ESPN’s College GameDay had chosen to go to South Bend this week to preview No. 7 Cincinnati (3-0) versus No. 9 Notre Dame (4-0) instead of settling in at Soldier Field Chicago last week for the Fighting Irish’s Shamrock Series victory over Wisconsin, then host Rece Davis and his colleagues would have needed to block off a considerable portion of the show just to thoroughly cover the ties between the coaches of the two programs.
Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly coached at Cincinnati from 2007-09. Irish defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman was the Bearcats’ defensive coordinator from 2018-20. Notre Dame cornerbacks coach Mike Mickens played at Cincinnati from 2005-08 and was the cornerbacks coach there from 2018-19.
Irish director of strength and conditioning Jacob Flint was a member of Kelly’s strength and conditioning staff at Cincinnati from 2007-09. Notre Dame defensive line coach Mike Elston and offensive line coach Jeff Quinn coached the Bearcats under Kelly, too.
From the other side, Cincinnati offensive coordinator and tight ends coach Mike Denbrock coached in South Bend from 2010-16 in a variety of roles. Denbrock and Kelly connected at Grand Valley State when the two were graduate assistants there in 1987.
Kelly became the head coach at GVSU in 1991, and Denbrock became his offensive coordinator in 1992. They remained together in Allendale, Mich., through 1998 before reconnecting in South Bend when Kelly took the Notre Dame job ahead of the 2010 season.
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