Potential Notre Dame Offensive Coordinator Candidates
There were various points during Notre Dame’s season where Gerad Parker looked like he could be a one-and-done offensive coordinator in South Bend.
That turned out to be the case, though not the way many fans envisioned it.
Parker was named the head coach at Troy, which means Marcus Freeman now has to hire a new offensive coordinator for the second year in a row. The coaches who were finalists for the job last season are no longer options, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of good ones out there.
The list starts with a familiar name.
(Note: a reminder that these lists are a combination of who we’re hearing and some others who feel like they could be strong candidates that have caught my attention.)
Mike Denbrock - LSU offensive coordinator/tight ends
Didn’t he just sign a three year extension to stay at LSU? Insert Lee Corso’s “Not so fast, my friend” because I’m not sure that is officially done quite yet. Finalizing a deal isn’t the same as that being signed. Unless that changes, then he’s a candidate and an obvious fit for a variety of reasons.
The first is that he is extremely familiar with the program. He had two previous stints as an assistant, including during the Brian Kelly era when he called plays on offense from 2014-2016. It didn’t end well with too many cooks in ‘16, but the 2014 offense finished 14th in OF+ (combined FEI and SP+ ranking) and they finished 7th in 2015. That’s the highest finish for a Notre Dame offense since they've tracked F+ over the last decade.
Denbrock moved on to Cincinnati as their OC and that’s where he has a connection with Marcus Freeman (as well as Mike Brown and Gino Guidugli). That Cincinnati offense peaked at 17th in OF+ during their College Football Playoff season in 2021.
Kelly clearly didn’t put the blame on Denbrock for what happened in ‘16 because he hired him away from Cincinnati when Kelly went to LSU where Denbrock’s offense finished 10th in his first season and 1st this past season. Led by Heisman winner Jayden Daniels, LSU had the most explosive offense in the country.
A good recruiter who knows how to recruit to Notre Dame, Denbrock is a dang good ball coach and he could fit right in coaching tight ends as well. Luring him away from Baton Rouge wouldn’t be cheap, but neither is going into the portal to sign quality quarterbacks.
Kirby Moore - Missouri offensive coordinator/quarterbacks
The brother of San Diego Chargers OC Kellen Moore, Kirby is a rising star who generated a ton of buzz in his first season at Mizzou. They finished 16th in OF+ and 16th in points per drive with the passing offense standing out (18th in EPA per dropback). Mizzou finished top-20 in explosive passing this season and Moore’s Fresno State offense finished in the top-20 in 2022 as well.
Though they were an offense that was primarily spreading defenses out, they ran the ball well with RB Cody Schrader exploding for 1,499 yards on the ground.
A former wide receiver at Boise State, Moore has mostly coached WRs and QBs. So how that fits with the current staff isn’t quite clear and there may need to be some shuffling if this is the guy. Moore would have to adjust to play a bit heavier with his personnel at Notre Dame too and probably run a lot less outside zone in the run game.
With that said, Moore looks to be on an exciting career trajectory after only being a coordinator for two seasons. He started out as a graduate assistant under Chris Petersen and Jonathan Smith at Washington before moving to Fresno with Jeff Tedford and then staying on staff for the transition to Kalen DeBoer then back to Tedford.
I’m not sure anyone could find better mentors to work with on offense and Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz can be added to that group as well.
Buster Faulkner - Georgia Tech offensive coordinator/tight ends
It’s been a longer road for Faulkner than some others. He had been an OC at six different programs before being hired by Georgia Tech with his first chance to call plays at a Power 5 program.
All he did in Atlanta was help usher a turn around from 114th in OF+ in ‘22 to 38th this season.
Directly before being hired at GT, Faulkner was a quality control coach at Georgia for their championship seasons and Stetson Bennett was very complimentary of the job Faulkner did with his role working with the quarterbacks.
I like the fit with Faulkner’s offense based on what I saw from GT this past fall. They finished 12th in EPA per rush and he did a nice job incorporating the QB run game with Haynes King.
I’d put Faulkner in the dark horse category and he’s not someone GT would want to lose.
Liam Coen - Kentucky offensive coordinator/quarterbacks
Coen wasn’t working with the best material in the SEC and his offense still managed to finish 43rd in OF+ last season. They finished 23rd in 2021, which was Coen’s first season in Lexington. QB Will Levis shined that season.
Both of those results look even more amazing when looking at the rest of the offenses at Kentucky during the time Mark Stoops has been the head coach. He’s been on the job since 2013 and they had never finished in the top-50 even once.
A disciple of former UMASS coach Mark Whipple and Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay, Coen spent some time as an assistant with the Rams including the 2022 season as offensive coordinator. That season didn’t go great, but that had a lot more to do with horrific injuries on the O-line and to Matt Stafford.
Coen also didn’t call plays then (McVay runs that show) and I think him going back to Kentucky had more to do with what Coen wanted than being pushed out.
There’s a lot of good concepts in Coen’s offense and the influence from his mentors shows up. I think Coen is probably pretty happy getting paid a lot working at Kentucky, but if he wants to fast track his way into running his own program sometime soon, the opportunity at Notre Dame would have to be attractive to him.
Alex Atkins - Florida State offensive coordinator/offensive line
I think there are things you can point to the last two seasons with Atkins as OC at FSU where the numbers look awesome. Top-20 in OF+ both years, top-15 in explosive passing in both years as well, and 10th in points per drive in 2022 are fantastic markers to look at for Atkins.
However, Atkins isn’t calling plays. Mike Norvell runs the offense like he has since he became a head coach at Memphis. If Notre Dame were to hire him, they’d be hiring the promise of Atkins running the offense rather than the results being mostly attributed to him.
I’m going to hit you with another however here in saying that it hasn’t seemed to matter all that much with coordinators who learned under Norvell. Chip Long, Kevin Johns, and Kenny Dillingham have done well when they had the chance to call plays after working with Norvell. (Long’s reasons for not continuing at Notre Dame had nothing to do with his game plans)
Atkins has called plays before as well. He was the OC for Charlotte in 2019, so he technically would not be a first time play-caller. I’m not sure how the fit would work because Atkins has done such a good job coaching the FSU O-line that it would seem strange to bring him in to coach tight ends, but it is one of those things that can be figured out if Atkins was a top candidate.
Atkins is originally from Chicago, so add that in as a bonus to his resume.
Kevin Johns - Duke offensive coordinator/quarterbacks
Johns has the familiarity with Riley Leonard and he knows how to utilize Leonard’s skill set as a runner. He also runs a pro-style offense and did a great job of turning bad situations (very little returning production in 2022 and terrible injury luck in 2023) into positive outcomes that could have been a lot worse in his two years at Duke.
Johns has had to adapt to many different personnel combinations. Things looked a lot different at Memphis in 2019 (6th in OF+) than they did at Duke. They also looked a lot different when he was coaching the Air Raid at Texas Tech in 2018 (29th in OF+).
Johns would not be the flashiest hire, but he’s been a coordinator in the ACC, Big 12, and Big Ten (Indiana) and the offenses he’s worked with have been diverse with their schemes. He’d be an interesting hire to see him work with the talent on hand at Notre Dame.
Jason Candle - Toledo Head Coach
Could Candle be this year’s Sean Lewis? He was almost last year’s as another MAC head coach who could take an OC job.
Candle has been toiling away at Toledo seeing his roster get raided in recent years and all he did this past season was win 11 games with no real traction to show for it in terms of becoming a Power 5 (soon to be Power 4) head coach.
From Mount Union’s impressive coaching tree, Candle was the OC at Toledo before being promoted. He’s had plenty of good offenses over the years with Toledo ending up in the top-20 in yards per play in two of the last three seasons in addition to being top-10 in YPP in 2016 and 2017.
He’s had dual-threat quarterbacks who have been really good for him and it’s easy to see how he would utilize the athletes Notre Dame has at quarterback.
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