In Mike Denbrock’s first tour of duty as a Notre Dame assistant football coach, he marveled at not only the on-field development of a young offensive lineman from McKinney, Texas, but how well and how often the player could put that process into his own words.
Even now, as Denbrock is back for his third tour of duty with the Irish, the ND offensive coordinator still connects with that former Irish O-lineman and still refers to him as: Bob “Quote-A-Minute” Morton.
And starting late Saturday night — live — shortly after the curtain comes down on No. 7 Notre Dame’s primetime season opener at 20th-ranked Texas A&M, Morton will be dishing out his quotable insights and observations as part of the Inside ND Sports Team.
Into the eNDzone makes its debut on our Inside ND Sports YouTube channel roughly five minutes after the final snap, guesstimating about 11 p.m. EDT. Bob and I — Eric “No Nickname: Hansen — will share our immediate reactions from the game, then field questions live from viewers in sort of a lightning-round fashion.
If you miss the show, you can catch live, you can catch up anytime on YouTube.
My colleague Tyler James and I will then return later — after interviews have been done, stories have been filed and caffeine has been absorbed — with our Postgame Takeaways show that will be posted in the wee hours of the morning. So, if you subscribe to the channel (for free), you can get a notification and check it out with your morning coffee on Sunday.
And if you don’t subscribe, you can still find us on your own.
Our plan is to air Postgame Takeaways hours after every Notre Dame football game, and Into the eNDzone with Bob Morton live and almost immediately after every road game as well as the Shamrock Series game at Yankee Stadium.
Bob has been an intermittent regular on the Inside ND Sports Podcast over the past few years and was a popular fill-in co-host for our aspiring-to-be-viral Football Never Sleeps show three times this summer when vacations shuffled our hosting lineup.
As a high school senior, Morton was a four-star prospect and ranked the No. 1 center nationally in Rivals’ first-ever national recruiting class. Bob originally verbally committed to Texas A&M, then flipped his commitment and signed with the Irish as a member of the 2002 recruiting class.
He redshirted as a freshman under coach Tyrone Willingham, then was a four-year offensive line regular in the final two Willingham years (2003-04) and the first two years of the Charlie Weis Era (2005-06).
Morton decided to push away the NFL dream in the days that followed ND's 41-14 loss to LSU at the Sugar Bowl, Jan. 3, 2007 in New Orleans. Instead, he initially pursued a career in the ministry, initially working with teenagers.
"I did go play in the Hula Bowl," Morton said at the time of the annual college all-star game staged in Hawaii as a showcase for pro scouts. "I mean, it's Hawaii. I'm not stupid.
“And I got to meet a lot of people from all over the country and share a lot of things. But I pretty much let teams know then, in the questionnaires, that I've chosen a path where I can make the biggest difference, and that's not the NFL.
"I think most teams caught on when I wasn't at the [NFL Scouting] Combine or the Notre Dame pro days," Morton said. "Still, I did get some calls. And when I did, I'd simply tell them no thanks or ask them what the 40-time requirement is for their chaplain.”
From ministry work, Morton found his way back to Notre Dame in the spring 2018 and is currently a director of regional development for the school. He, his wife and four kids reside in nearby Berrien Springs, Mich.
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