The last time Mike Elston called defensive plays for Notre Dame, the circumstances were different. Much different.
Brian Kelly had just fired an assistant for the first time in his Fighting Irish tenure. He let go of defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder after a tumultuous 1-3 start to the 2016 season. Elston called plays in the final eight games of the worst season of Kelly’s 12-year stint in South Bend.
Elston isn’t Notre Dame’s primary defensive play caller in Saturday’s Fiesta Bowl because Kelly let another assistant go. Rather, the opposite. Kelly left for LSU, and defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman was promoted to head coach.
So now Elston, the Irish’s defensive line coach, has the luxury of taking play-calling duties from Freeman for an 11-1 team that has a chance to win Notre Dame’s first New Year’s Six bowl game since the 1993 season. That's just a tad more exciting than the situation five years ago.
“It’s great,” Elston said. “I love the opportunity. It’s been fun.”
The question of who would call Notre Dame’s defensive plays in the Fiesta Bowl came up quite often from the time Freeman was named head coach in early December to the time he stepped off the plane in Phoenix Monday. That’s when he finally answered it by saying it’d be Elston.
He made clear it would be a collaborative effort amongst all Irish defensive staffers, though, and mentioned cornerbacks coach Mike Mickens and safeties coach Chris O’Leary by name. Elston mentioned them again Wednesday.
“It’s collective,” he said. “Certainly not anything I could do on my own. We have an incredible staff, a very talented defensive staff as you've seen throughout this year.”
Elston’s heightened responsibilities aren’t limited to game day duties. He has naturally taken on a more pronounced role in game-planning for Oklahoma State’s offense. Freeman hasn’t been able to get as involved with that process because he’s been busy overseeing the entire operation.
It’s an operation that won’t change much defensively regardless.
“We won’t make any decisions schematically that would be earth-shattering without running them by him,” Elston said. “We want this defense and this game plan to reflect what it has all season which is his vision.”
Freeman’s vision the last two months or so? Simplicity. He backed away from complicated stunts and looks he incorporated early in the season because, well, they just weren’t working. See: 442 yards allowed to Florida State. It was too much too soon for a first-year defensive coordinator to saddle his players with.
When Freeman made game plans simpler and relied less on scheme and more on personnel, the Notre Dame defense hit its stride in the second half of the season minus a couple bumps in the road against USC and North Carolina.
Elston, Mickens and O’Leary were all part of the change in philosophy. It changed then so it doesn’t have to change now. Freeman let go of the reins, but Elston and company grabbed them and kept moving forward. Simplicity will continue to be the name of Notre Dame’s game.
Just like the expectation for Oklahoma State is to not play much differently defensively without defensive coordinator Jim Knowles, who left for Ohio State earlier this month, Notre Dame should be just fine without Freeman barking out orders as he did for all 12 regular-season games.
“When Coach Elston took over, there wasn’t any fall off,” senior defensive end Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa said. “He understands the guys in here just want to play. Put the ball down anywhere and put us in the perfect position to make plays.”
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