Mike Denbrock was Marcus Freeman's 'No. 1 guy' for Notre Dame OC role
EL PASO, Texas — Notre Dame football head coach Marcus Freeman didn’t need any intermediaries to reach out to Mike Denbrock about Notre Dame’s offensive coordinator opening.
Freeman himself reached out to Denbrock, then LSU’s offensive coordinator, earlier this month after Irish offensive coordinator Gerad Parker took the head coaching position at Troy. Freeman’s pursuit of Denbrock started with a phone call.
“’Hey, man, I want to get you here,’” Freeman recalled of that conversation. “Obviously, we had further dialogue after that.”
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That wasn’t a call Freeman made earlier this year when Notre Dame needed a replacement for offensive coordinator Tommy Rees when he left to take the same job at Alabama in February. But this time around, Freeman saw Denbrock as the No. 1 option.
“It was so important to get that position filled with the No. 1 guy that I wanted,” Freeman said. “The minute it came open, because I said this at the press conference [on Dec. 20], it’s a unique situation when your offensive coordinator is a tight ends coach. That’s why as I looked for a No. 1, an offensive coordinator that was a tight ends coach, Mike Denbrock came to the top.
“It doesn’t hurt that it was the No. 1 offense in the country either. He was my top choice. To get him here is tremendous.”
LSU led the FBS this season in total offense with 547.8 yards per game, scoring offense with 46.4 points per game, team passing efficiency at 196.51 and yards per play with 8.53. LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels won the Heisman Trophy after throwing for 3,812 yards and 40 touchdowns with just four interceptions and rushing for 1,134 yards and 10 touchdowns.
Denbrock, who already coached at Notre Dame under Tyrone Willingham (2002-04) and Brian Kelly (2010-16), was officially announced as Notre Dame’s next offensive coordinator on Wednesday, nine days after Parker was officially named Troy’s head coach. As Inside ND Sports first reported, Denbrock made his final decision to return to Notre Dame last Friday after informing Kelly, LSU’s head coach.
After Notre Dame publicly stumbled its way through an offensive coordinator search with Utah’s Andy Ludwig in February before settling on Parker, the Irish worked with much better precision in hiring Denbrock. He agreed to take the job less than a week after it opened.
“I’m really pleased with how quickly it worked out,” Freeman said. “Honestly, I want to give credit to our administration and [athletic director] Jack [Swarbrick] and the commitment they’ve made to make sure we can hire the best possible candidates to come into this program. Me and Mike go back —four years together at Cincinnati. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, the great offensive coordinator that he is. To get him here and a part of our program is exciting.”
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Denbrock was hired as Cincinnati’s offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach in 2017 after he departed Notre Dame. Freeman joined the staff in 2018 as the program’s defensive coordinator, and Denbrock handed over quarterback responsibilities to Gino Guidugli, who is now Notre Dame's quarterbacks coach. Denbrock has coached tight ends in addition to being offensive coordinator in every season since then.
Denbrock and Freeman were on staff together through the 2020 season. Freeman then left to become Notre Dame’s defensive coordinator. Denbrock stayed one more season at Cincinnati, which ended with a College Football Playoff semifinal appearance, before joining Kelly at LSU.
Freeman described coaching against Denbrock in practices at Cincinnati as competitive battles.
“You talk about in the spring and fall camp, it’s offense vs. defense, there’s a couple glances across the field that you can non-verbally get a message across to somebody,” Freeman said. “I know we had a couple of those. But go into the locker room, he’s a team guy.
“That’s what I respect about Mike Denbrock. He is a competitive person. He finds a way to get his best players involved in what it’s going to take to have success. It wasn’t, hey, here’s my system, let’s recruit to it. It’s, OK, who are the best players and how do we get them the ball? How do we find ways to do things that fit their skill set?”
Denbrock flew to El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday to meet with Notre Dame’s coaching staff and players as they prepare for Friday’s Sun Bowl (2 p.m. EST on CBS) against No. 19 Oregon State (8-4). Both Denbrock and new director of football performance Loren Landow briefly addressed the team.
“My biggest thing is I want you to see,” Freeman said of why he had them meet with the players already. “I don’t want you to read on the internet. I want you guys to be able to meet the people that our going to be leading certain things in our program.”
Denbrock is not coaching for LSU in the Reliaquest Bowl on Monday, but he has already left El Paso. He’ll start the process of moving back to the South Bend, Ind., area to be with the program in January.
“He loves this place,” Freeman said of Denbrock’s desire to return to Notre Dame. “He loves it. You hear the way Mike, his wife, Dianne, and his son, Chance, I don’t know how much Chance remembers about South Bend, but you hear the way they talk about the community, the people. And then you hear the way people talk about them.
“I told him, ‘You’ve had a huge impact in your time at Notre Dame, because of the way people talk about you when you were there.’ He can’t wait to get moved back to South Bend and get his family here too.”
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