The game within the game Saturday in Notre Dame Stadium is Notre Dame offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock trying to nudge another incremental step from the Irish offense — with two new starters — while matching X’s and O’s with Miami (Ohio) head coach Chuck Martin.
The two longtime friends spent the first four seasons of the Brian Kelly coaching era at ND together (2010-13) on Kelly’s staff, and meet once again Saturday on opposite sidelines.
“Chuck is a close, personal friend, somebody that I've respected forever,” Denbrock said earlier this week. “Admire him as a family man. Admire him as a football coach, and just the way his brain kind of functions is pretty unique.
“And I've just always enjoyed him, and we have kept in touch every step of the way since we were together here at Notre Dame. And so, it's kind of weird. You know what I mean?
"It's always uneasy for me going against people that I know really well, as well as I know Chuck and his family, not to mention [Miami offensive coordinator] Pat Welsh and [defensive coordinator] Bill Brechin and several others that have gone through there and been on Chuck's staff over the years.”
Start time Saturday on NBC/Peacock for the third-ever football meeting between the two schools is 3:30 p.m. EDT.
The WSBT Gameday SportsBeat pregame radio show precedes the game from noon to 2:30 (wsbtradio.com/96.1 FM). Inside ND Sports has you covered after the game with our Postgame Takeaways show on our YouTube channel, dropping late Saturday night with Eric Hansen and Tyler James.
Denbrock and Martin were on opposite sides of the ball in the first two years under Kelly, with Denbrock coaching tight ends and Martin coaching DBs in 2010 and safeties in 2011. But in 2012, Kelly moved Martin over to the offense and made him coordinator and QBs coach, while Denbrock shifted to coach the wide receivers.
When Martin left to take the Miami job after the 2013 season, Denbrock succeeded him in the offensive coordinator role in 2014, with Kelly finally giving Denbrock a chance to call offensive plays in the Music City Bowl win over LSU at the end of that season.
He’s been an offensive play-caller ever since, at ND, Cincinnati, LSU and back to ND.
The two both had long coaching stints at Division II power Grand Valley State but never overlapped there. But where they do overlap is talking football in the offseason and everything else.
“When it comes time for the game, then kind of the competitor in you kicks in,” Denbrock said of facing Martin, “and I'm sure he wants to beat me as bad as I want to beat him,”
Denbrock has gotten the best of it so far. When he was Cincinnati’s offensive coordinator (2017-21), the teams met in all but the pandemic-altered 2020 season during that run, with Denbrock and the Bearcats going 4-0.
Beyond the coaching intrigue, there are plenty of individual players worth highlighting in this matchup. Our practice at Inside ND Sports is to funnel those down to four, two for each team. Here they are:
Notre Dame wide receiver Jordan Faison
With Miami surprisingly struggling to stop the run in its first two games of the season (ranking 109th coming into the weekend in rush defense), the Irish have to strike on offense between testing and attacking the RedHawks’ apparent weakness while paying some attention to long-term goals with the ND offense.
Specifically upgrading the passing game, and doing so against the third-best pass-efficiency defense (47th overall) among the remaining nine Irish regular-season opponents.
A healthy wide receiver Jordan Faison would be a welcome asset in doing so. The Irish have gotten a modest eight catches for the outside (field) receiver position — four from FIU transfer Kris Mitchell, two from sophomore KK Smith and two from Faison before he suffered an ankle injury during the Aug, 31 season opener at Texas A&M.
Smith’s two catches both came against Purdue in by far the most playing time he’s received in his career (43 snaps).
“I think we're a few connections and confidence-builders away from breaking through,” Denbrock said of the passing game. “And you can see signs of it. It's painful to watch at times for all of us, but I do think there's progress being made there.
“I think there's a better connection than there's ever been between [QB Riley Leonard] and the wide receivers and the rest of the group. So, we're going to continue to try to do some things to help prompt that along as much as we possibly can. And, hopefully, maybe this is the week where it breaks through the way we all need it to.”
Miami linebacker Matt Salopek
The reigning MAC Defensive Player of the Year helped the Redhawks finish eighth nationally in scoring defense in 2023 (15.9 ppg) and is the key to Miami gaining some traction toward recapturing their defensive prowess from a season ago.
The 6-foot-1, 230-pound sixth-year grad senior came to Miami as a two-star safety prospect who has grown into one of the most prolific tacklers in school history after switching to linebacker in 2021.
With 411 career tackles, he ranks 10th in the Miami (Ohio) career record books, and he’s aiming to become the first RedHawk ever to surpass 100 tackles in four consecutive seasons. In high school Salopek played on four Ohio state championship teams with Akron Archbishop Hoban and in college has been a part of two MAC title teams (2019 and 2023).
Miami wide receiver Cole McDonald
The former zero-star recruit started his football career at Michigan State as a walk-on in 2019 and is one of 19 players on the Miami roster who transferred in at some point.
The 5-foot-11, 200-pounder is in his second season with the Redhawks and sixth overall, and off to a prolific start for an offense that’s 132nd in scoring offense of the 133 FBS teams the NCAA charts statistically.
Heading into the ND matchup, McDonald ranked sixth nationally in both receptions per game (8) and in receiving yards per game (120). He also returns punts, and in 2023 he ranked seventh nationally (12.7 yards per return).
He’s catching passes mainly from sixth-year grad senior Brett Gabbert, the younger brother of NFL QB and former Missouri star Blaine Gabbert. The younger Gabbert has been slowed by injuries the past couple of seasons, but he started all 14 games as a freshman in 2019, including one against Cincinnati in 2019 when current ND head coach Marcus Freeman was the Bearcats’ defensive coordinator.
Notre Dame vyper end Junior Tuihakamaka
This is a more of a composite pick of both defensive ends positions for the Irish, than a specifically focused on Junior Tuihalamaka, though the junior vyper’s role is set to expand.
The bigger picture at both the vyper and the field end focuses on the season-ending knee injury to starting vyper Jordan Botelho, suffered in the Purdue game last Saturday, and the continuing flat growth curve for starting field end and Duke transfer RJ Oben.
The latter situation is complicated by junior field end Josh Burnham being deemed as questionable (ankle) in the Monday injury report for the second straight week (which will be updated an hour before kickoff on Saturday).
Whether Burnham is healthy enough to see action or not, freshman prodigy Bryce Young got some valuable game snaps last week at Purdue and got a run at expanding that role in practice this week.
Back to Tuihalamaka on the vyper side — after playing 166 snaps in a three-man rotation last season at vyper, the converted linebacker’s first game action in 2024 at something other than special teams came Saturday at Purdue (18 snaps) and with a well-below-average grade from Pro Football Focus.
With Botelho out, and only undersized but dynamically quick freshman Loghan Thomas available to rotate in with Tuihalamaka behind new starter Boubacar Traore, defensive coordinator Al Golden needs quantity snaps and quality from the 6-2, 255-pound junior.
“Loghan will be available and has a chance to play on Saturday,” Irish head coach Marcus Freeman said on Thursday. “Had a good week of practice. Boubacar’s done a really good job in stepping up in the starting role.
“And then Junior has had probably one of his best weeks of practice. So, looking forward to seeing all three of them out there on Saturday being competitive and getting their job done.”
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