The job description at nose tackle, per 10th-year Notre Dame defensive line coach Mike Elston, goes beyond assignment correctness and proper technique while working against double-team blocking.
“Coach Elston always says in order to hold a double-team down and be a bad dude in the middle, you have to be a prick,” said Irish junior nose tackle Kurt Hinish matter-of-factly.
While there are many slang and unflattering descriptions of the word, there is one definition from the Urban Dictionary that is apropos in how the 6-2, 295-pound junior approaches his often thankless task: “an annoying or obnoxious person who escalates his behavior the more he is ignored.”
Make no mistake about it, that annoyance is reserved strictly for the opposition — which makes Hinish beloved among his fellow Fighting Irish defenders.
During the 4-0 November, Notre Dame’s defense has permitted only 11.8 points per game, dominated two top-5-ranked rushing attacks (Navy and Boston College) and now ranks No. 3 nationally in fewest passing yards allowed per game.
From an individual standpoint, Hinish’s 14 tackles (17th on the team), with 4.5 for loss (including two sacks) won’t jump out, but Fighting Irish head coach Brian Kelly voluntarily hailed the nose tackle’s efforts this week as one of the most underrated on the team.
“You can't play the kind of defense that we're playing unless you have somebody that you can count on at that shade position like we have with him all year,” Kelly said. “He's been outstanding for us.”
“If I'm having a good day in the jungle, I'm holding my double-teams down," summarized Hinish, whose 33 snaps per contest are the fourth most along the defensive front, and behind only classmate Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa’s 40 per game in the interior. "The linebackers are flowing across making plays and I'm getting out of my double-team making plays.
"I always make fun of Myron and Jayson [Ademilola] because they're always getting single-blocked — and I'm getting double-teamed. I make fun of them saying if they don't make the play, then there is something wrong with them. I'm just waiting for the day I get single blocked so I can make a play, too."
No one on the Notre Dame roster brings a more blue-collar, hard-hat approach to the game than Hinish, in great because of his background. In his high school days working for his father, Kurt Sr., in constuction, the younger Hinish received an early education on bringing your lunch pail to work — if you have time to eat, that is.
“I shoveled 14 tons of stone into a wheelbarrow, wheeled it into a backyard and dumped it,” he recalled. “I did that all in one day. It was one of the worst days of my life.”
The benefit from that work ethic is that when new strength and conditioning coach Matt Balis and his staff arrived in January 2017 following the 4-8 debacle in 2016, the freshman Hinish did not find it the same culture shock as numerous teammates.
When quizzed whether Balis’ workouts were more challenging than his father’s assignments, Hinish diplomatically pled the fifth.
“I don’t want to say,” Hinish said. “[Balis] is going to read this … they’re both extremely taxing in their own ways.”
Hinish would have it no other way. Nowhere is it more evident than in the Tuesday 8 a.m. optional workouts during the season that Balis holds as a potential third workout during the week for players. The roll call for the past three years generally has begun and ended with Hinish. With the exception of a few weeks, it’s been one-on-one sessions between Hinish and Balis.
Through three years in those workouts, the powerfully constructed Hinish increased his lean body mass from 215 pounds to 250, which translates to 35 pounds of added muscle without adding bad weight.
Balis has reminded Hinish that he is under no obligation to be there each week and not to overdo it. However, among the few times Hinish did take a break, his body and mind didn’t feel the same — but in a negative way. Thus, it's part of his DNA.
“I was exposed to that at an early age,” said Hinish of strenuous work. “…I’ll play until I’m blue in the face.”
And beyond, too. It’s part of his overall definition as the nose tackle.
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