Redfield ready to Max-imize talent

When you're a five-star prospect coming out of high school, you envision great things for yourself on the collegiate level.

Sooner rather than later.

But as the days, weeks and games slowly passed by during the 2013 season, freshman safety Max Redfield's blood boiled a little bit hotter.

"I was devastated," said the 6-foot-1, 198-pounder of his bit role during his rookie season at Notre Dame. "I would be the first one to tell you that. It was hard to stay motivated throughout the year.

"I felt like I was trying to do everything I could to get on the field, but we continued to make some mistakes because the defense was so detailed and so in-depth. It was very frustrating."

Redfield's new lease on life came about as late in a football season as it could come when defensive coordinator Bob Diaco departed for the Connecticut head-coaching job shortly after Notre Dame's regular-season finale against Stanford.

Cornerbacks coach Kerry Cooks, safeties coach Bob Elliott and defensive line coach Mike Elston took over preparations for the Pinstripe Bowl against Rutgers, and like a man seeing sunshine for the first time in months, Redfield peered out from the darkness and gravitated to the light.

"I started getting more reps toward the end of the season," said Redfield, who was a regular contributor on the Irish coverage units. "They said playing time would come even as soon as the USC game (game 7), and then the Stanford game (game 12). It just didn't happen.

"Eventually during the bowl game, they put me in a starting role. They didn't make a huge deal about it and I didn't either. Obviously I was real excited and tried to make the most of it."

From Day One of Brian VanGorder's arrival as defensive coordinator, the decision - or perhaps it was more of a mandate - to elevate Redfield to the starting lineup was clear. The Irish had plenty of heady safeties in guys like Austin Collinsworth and Matthias Farley. What they needed was a dynamic athlete, and few fit the bill better than Redfield.

But with so many veteran players returning on the back end of the Notre Dame defense, not to mention a couple of budding talents like Elijah Shumate and Eilar Hardy, playing time was extremely difficult to come by in '13.

Redfield couldn't help but feel distraught over his lack of activity.

"Coaches obviously have a reason for everything," Redfield said. "I'm not going to second-guess what the coaches have to say. If they felt I shouldn't have been on the field, then I guess I shouldn't have been on the field.

"I obviously wanted to and tried to do everything I could to change that. But I felt like I almost wasn't good enough, which obviously wasn't a good feeling. It kind of just humbled me that whole year. I just stuck to my roots and kept going."

Despite his desire to play, Redfield - Rivals' No. 30 overall player and at one time a Southern California verbal commitment -- can admit that his head was swimming at times last season. For any offense/quarterback, one of the first reads is the safety alignment. On the flip side, the safety must then adjust to the pre-snap and post-snap decision-making process of the quarterback/receivers.

So what did Redfield see when he looked across the line of scrimmage?

"On a play-to-play basis, you're looking at what the formation is, what side of the defense you have to be on, how you're going to react to a route that the person is running…" Redfield said.

"And then once they run the route, you have a different job. You might have to look at three different receivers on a play-to-play basis. It starts with sight every single play and you have to trust your eyes and make sure they're in the right place."

Redfield has learned to have much greater trust in what his eyes are seeing, particularly now that he's in VanGorder's system, which is complicated from the standpoint that VanGorder has a vast background on the collegiate and professional level, but not so complex that it prevents Redfield from maximizing his opportunities to make plays.

"To a certain extent, (VanGorder's defense) is simpler, but not extremely simpler," Redfield said. "It lets us fly around and get lined up a little quicker and do a lot more things, which is a lot better.

"In this defense, he gives us a lot of opportunities to use our reactions. He puts us in the right place that is advantageous to the players. It works to the talents of the defense. We're a very talented defense and we're athletic as well. He realizes that and shapes the defense that way. He lets us run around and react to the ball, and we like that."

What Redfield doesn't like - in addition to not being in the starting lineup - is being told what he can't do.

When Brian Kelly was asked about Redfield's "quarterbacking" duties on the back end of the defense, the Irish head coach abruptly cut the question short.

"There's no quarterbacking for Max," Kelly said. "Austin Collinsworth will do the quarterbacking back there, and then if Austin went down, Matthias Farley would go back there to be the quarterback.

"We're not going to put much on Max's plate. We're going to ask him to do his job, do it fast and really not put a lot on his plate."

Not only does Redfield want more on his plate, he wants extra helpings. Heaping helpings.

"I wasn't aware that he said that," said Redfield of Kelly. "I feel like our defense doesn't see it as that. We all communicate all the calls and we all basically talk to each other every play. If that's what he said, that's great.

"Me and Austin communicate all the time. I fix him sometimes; he fixes me sometimes. It's a defense in which we all work together. I don't think any of us see it like that."

Collinsworth recently came to Redfield's defense regarding his knowledge of the defense and ability to make adjustments within the scheme.

"He corrects me sometimes, too," said Collinsworth of Redfield. "We work together and get it right. We really think of ourselves as a unit. If we're not working together and clicking on all cylinders together, we're not going to be a good defensive backfield."

Through his experiences preparing for the Pinstripe Bowl, running with the first team throughout the spring, and right back with the No. 1 unit through the first week of pre-season practice, Redfield's confidence level is back on the rise, comparable to his days at Mission Viejo High School when he was named a second-team USA Today All-American.

"I feel like I've elevated my communication as well as confidence being a starter," Redfield said. "Being a backup, your confidence obviously changes. Being on the field you have to have a hundred percent confidence in your calls and a hundred percent knowledge of the defense to make those calls."

Not all of Kelly's comments about Redfield indicate uncertainty over the talented young safety.

"He's made a good jump," Kelly said. "Max is an extremely gifted player. We've just got to continue on the learning curve. We have days where you miss an assignment and you can't miss an assignment back there. That's where some of our inexperience (shows).

"We have to be vigilant in making sure that we're clean back there. But he is, as we all know, an extremely gifted player."

And a player who once again sees himself as a five-star talent.

"It gave me the confirmation that I was doing something right," said Redfield of his elevation to the starting lineup. "The new defensive coordinator that came in gave us a fresh start. We got to learn the defense together, grow within that defense and learn as a whole unit, which was really advantageous for the whole defense as well as me.

"Now, I have a hundred percent confidence in my abilities as well as the defense."