LBs coach Max Bullough ready to keep building for Notre Dame football
SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Max Bullough already had most of the typical responsibilities of a linebackers coach last year while technically working as a graduate assistant for Notre Dame football.
Now that he’s been officially promoted to linebackers coach this month, not much has changed on a daily basis.
“Better office, parking spot,” Bullough joked. “Those are the perks. To be honest with you, the office, I was looking forward to that more than anything.”
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The biggest change in Bullough’s job will be off-campus recruiting, which he happened to get his first taste of in the final two weeks of the recent contact period that ended Feb. 3. He took defensive coordinator Al Golden’s spot on the road while Golden was at home recovering from a medical procedure.
“That was my first time ever doing it,” Bullough said. “You’re just showing up at these schools. You don’t know where to go for half of them. I didn’t know anybody I was going to. I learned a ton those two weeks — just in terms of how it operates, who you talk to, where you go in the schools. So that was a really big learning experience for me, and I’m excited to do it again here in a couple months.”
That all happened before safeties coach Chris O’Leary left Notre Dame for the Los Angeles Chargers, which took place behind the scenes the weekend of Feb. 10. O’Leary’s departure created an opening for Bullough to be promoted as long as head coach Marcus Freeman wanted to expand cornerbacks coach Mike Mickens’ responsibilities to the entire secondary.
If those decisions weren’t made, Bullough, 32, could have pursued other opportunities to become a linebackers coach elsewhere. Notably, Bullough played for the Houston Texans when new Boston College head coach Bill O’Brien was the head coach of that NFL franchise. But Bullough was ready to pitch himself to Freeman as soon as he got word of O’Leary’s decision.
Bullough called it a “crazy, crazy weekend.”
“To be honest with you, on my part, I was talking to CO behind the scenes to try to find out when it happened, because I knew as soon as a spot at Notre Dame is open, you never know who's going to call,” Bullough said. “It can be anybody. [Former Tennessee Titans head coach Mike] Vrabel or somebody. Who knows? Then it's someone you can't say 'no' to. I don't know.
“You guys laugh, but like, who knows? I just wanted to get to Free as fast as I could and hopefully ... He was great about going in this direction as opposed to another one."
The opportunity to coach at Notre Dame is personal for Bullough. His maternal grandfather, Jim Morse, played football for the Irish and finished his career in 1956 as a captain for coach Terry Brennan. And Bullough’s mother, Lee Ann, graduated from Notre Dame as well.
Even though Bullough followed his father’s path in playing at Michigan State, Notre Dame meant a lot to him too. Morse, a longtime Notre Dame benefactor, died in October.
“For my late grandfather, who just passed away, this would have been huge,” Bullough said. “He wanted me, one of my brothers, the other brother, my sister, one of us to go to Notre Dame. And none of us ever did. A couple of us had a chance, but the other two didn’t really, but it’s big. It’s really big. I think it’s big for my mom right now going through losing her father. It’s kind of been cool to make that full circle within a timely fashion.”
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Bullough came to Notre Dame last year with the promise that his graduate assistant position at Notre Dame would be a hands-on one. Bullough, who had just been promoted by Alabama head coach Nick Saban to analyst after three seasons of being a graduate assistant, wanted to impact players directly.
“It’s the reason I came to Notre Dame, because it was [hands-on],” Bullough said. “Coach Saban kinda got pissed that I left. He told me, 'it's not a training ground.' Because he thought it was a lateral move.
“You guys know me as a linebackers coach here, but before last year, I was just a GA. I was good at it and all that, but this is what I love. This is what I do. I'm good on the computers. I got really good at it, but you guys see me out there. That's what I do. That's who I am. That's how I affect people.”
In his first season with the Irish, Bullough had to learn the defense while also coaching it. But leading a position with three starters who were graduate students — mike JD Bertrand, will Marist Liufau and rover Jack Kiser — made that a lot easier. That trio combined to make 182 tackles last season with Bertrand (76) leading the team for a third consecutive season.
Bertrand and Liufau are off chasing NFL careers this year, but Kiser elected to return for a sixth season. The 6-foot-2, 227-pound Kiser will move inside in 2024 with his rover linebacker days behind him. He will be the only scholarship linebacker on Notre Dame’s roster this spring who has played more than two seasons of college football.
“More of the onus is on me,” Bullough said. “JD and Marist, I could have not said anything, and they're going to go out there and they can play football in this system. We're from scratch now. Whatever's out there, you're either coaching or letting it happen."
Bullough will enter the spring looking to find out where to best utilize the talents of his young linebackers. Some guys, like junior Jaylen Sneed and sophomore Jaiden Ausberry, will be asked to play rover in the base defense and move to a money linebacker role in the nickel defense. Guys like Kiser and sophomore Drayk Bowen, who will both stay inside, will have their roles determined by who they’re playing alongside.
The preference for Bullough is to have the most inexperienced players, like freshman Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa and sophomore Kahanu Kia, who just returned from a two-year mission with the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, learning one position first to get comfortable before being asked to do more.
Bullough, who said there’s never a slow moment in his head, wants to see what his linebacker room can become. He wants to bring in talent as a recruiter and develop that talent as a coach.
And he can do so with a much shorter walk to the Guglielmino Athletics Complex.
“I’m excited for that stuff,” Bullough said. “The guys that I worked with for a year and then let’s go do it again and see how much better we can be. That’s what fires me up.”
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