Notre Dame RB Coach Ja'Juan Seider Notebook | Feb. 26
New Irish running backs coach Ja'Juan Seider spoke with reporters on Wednesday.
What made ND job attractive?
“It was never easy. You've been in a place seven years. The type of room that we had built at Penn State, the culture with those kids, it is timing, right? It is never the right time. There's never a bad time. Sometimes, you have the back end when you don't have control of it and the staff gets let go and you've got to leave or on a staff where you win and you don't have to leave. But we talked about it, being a family, it was just like, 'You say no every year.' You also don't want to also be complacent either. It was Notre Dame. it was Marcus Freeman. We built a relationship 14 years ago when we were young coaches in this profession through Gerad Parker, who used to be here, had just went to Purdue and we were on the road together and kind of hit it off.
“I tell my wife sometimes it's like talking to myself. I talk to him like I'm talking to myself. We just stayed in touch. We just stayed in touch. We always said it had to take something special for us to leave, right? Whether it's a head coach or coordinator position, there were some chances with some NFL teams, but when this opportunity came, we thought hard about it. We turned the phone off for a couple days. The only person we really talked to was Marcus a little bit here and there. We just said it was time to do something different. Go challenge yourself, go walk in different shoes. I felt comfortable doing that because at the end of the season last year, when I met with my two kids that came back, I told them, 'Do not come back to Penn State for me. Make sure if you come back, you come back for your own selfish reasons. Or you leave for your own selfish reasons I'll support you in any manner I can.'”
What’s your philosophy on keeping multiple running backs on the depth chart engaged?
“Well to me as a coach, I always believe you coach the bottom of your roster no different than you coach the top of your roster. That's how you build depth. Because your fifth can become your one. You've got to prepare like that throughout the week. So I always believe throughout the weeks in season that you have to try to get four guys ready. It's hard to get five and six guys ready, but have four guys in a rotation where they can learn, they can have a process to be ready to play in the game because there's injuries. We play a physical game. We are the one position where every play somebody's trying to hit you. So, we have to have guys ready and willing to adapt to be able to get to the championship, which Notre Dame did. You've got to have depth. Injuries happen. I thought one of the greatest thing to go play against this team last year from my offensive point of view, they had a lot of injuries and you never knew the difference who was in the game. Whether a guy got injured or this guy had been playing all year. That's a testament to this program and what Coach Freeman built.”
Impressions of campus today versus being here as a backup quarterback at West Virginia in 1997.
“It's very different. I was on the winning side this time. We ended up losing that game close. I really didn't get the chance to feel Notre Dame. When you come in as a visiting team, because you just come in for business. You come to play the game, win and lose, go home, right? Like Chris (Ash) said, when I got here it was first class. When you come on this campus you feel Notre Dame. Whatever it is, I don't know what it is, how to explain it, but it just felt different. You walk different, you talk different, you stand up different, you sit different. And I just think it's from the top, meeting with Father Bob, meeting with Sarge in academics, me with Freeman and him coming to pick us up from the airport. It was just first class. You understand why now. You feel the why of Notre Dame. It is special and that's why it's only one Notre Dame.”
Thoughts on coaching Jeremiyah Love and did you see his touchdown run in the Orange Bowl?
“You see everything when you compete when there's a game going back and forth. I really didn't have a chance to look at it that way because I was trying to make sure I handled the 'byes' where I come from the right way. Meeting with those kids to make them understand why behind this decision, right? They coming back wanting to be coached again by me and that was hard because they're not just my football player, they become part of your family. They become part of my kids. Once I could make them understand the reason behind the why I'm leaving, the opportunity that I have in front of me, I told them the same way, 'When you go to the NFL, you're going to leave, right? This is an opportunity for me to step out and do something different.' To your point of Jeremiyah Love, yeah, I saw that touchdown. It was a big part of the game, but now I get to dive into these kids and kind see what they do well and errors we can clean up. They've been coached really well, DMAC was a really good coach who I have a ton of respect for it.
“Like I told the kids, 'You've been coached well. Now you get to be coached again and now you get to learn something different from somebody else. Now you can add that to your arsenal and make you an even better player.'”
How important do you think rotation at the running back position is in the modern day of college football?
“When you go recruit these kids and you sit down and you talk to the family, you're talking about taking care of their kids. We're talking about the one position that everybody trying to hit you. All 11, at some point are trying to hit you at this position whether you are running the ball, blocking you, catching the ball. There is a part of us, if we get these high level players that's going to play on Sundays, we've got to make sure these kids are leaving with tread on their tires. You may play 60 snaps a game, but I've got to make sure my best players are in for the right 30, 40 snaps of the game. So when you can take a Jeremiyah Love and get him the break that's needed to have him strong enough in that fourth quarter to go win a game like he did versus us in the Orange Bowl. That's smart coaching.
“It's like game-planning. You don't always call a pass play. You're going to mix and runs. You're going to mix some screens. It's the same way with navigating a room. You've got to earn what you get. I believe that if you can go out there and show me you can pass protect on third down because to me, that's where the trust comes in. Knowing you can protect our quarterback. Every guy in that room want to play on Sundays. Well, if you can't protect Pat Mahomes, you're not going to be on the field. We're always going to start off with the foundation of protection. If I'm teaching you how to run, we recruited the wrong guys and I'm an ex-quarterback so I can kind of tell them and explain what it's like to play next to that guy at quarterback. It makes them understand the little things that you do and why you've got to do them.”
How would you describe your strengths as a recruiter?
“It's about relationships. I think establish a relationship, establishing trust with the players. But it's not just the player, it's the family. Those kids didn't get there by themselves. It's the mom, the dad. It may be the grandparent that's raising that kid. It may be the uncle. It may be that person at the school that you don't think about. It may be that custodian that's really close to that guy or whoever that may be. To me, it's just finding out the decision-makers. Who are they? Who's helping this kid to make decisions, right? Because it's a transitional world we in right now with NIL and revenue sharing has come along. But at some point it's got to be even, right? What's going to separate when Notre Dame can pay this and Ohio State can pay this, Penn State can pay that? It's relationships because we can all say we got the same things, but the end of the day that kid can come to me because I built the best relationship. That's a little bit of trust and a little bit of, 'OK, I can trust this coach going to develop me. He's going to be there through my tough time.' Because every kid going to go through homesickness, right? Whether you're 15 minutes down the road, you are on your own for the first time. Mom's not there making your bed and fixing your breakfast. It comes down to relationships and then it come down to outworking people. If you're going to sit around and not going to communicate with the kid and the parent, well somebody else is. To me, one thing I'll never change is I'm going to outwork you. I take recruiting the same way I take coaching, the same way I play. I want be the best at it and I hate losing, so I'm going do everything I can to get the opportunity to win.”
Who have been the foundation of your coaching accomplishments and achievements?
“It started with parents, both parents were coaches down in Florida. Doc Holiday who recruited me to West Virginia was a big reason why I got into college coaching. I tried to run from it and he wouldn't let me run. He came and got me, and brought me to West Virginia. I was married with three kids. I had an opportunity to come in there and be a GA. He allowed me to coach the quarterbacks. So Doc, a guy named Calvin Magee, who's not here any more, was a big mentor to me as a running back coach. I was a dual-threat quarterback, but I never was a running back. He taught me the game and he was one the best in the game. I kind of built myself as a coach by the people I was around. Doc, to me, was the best recruiter I ever been around, relentless. So I take that approach. I learned from him. I worked with Dana Holgerson, who I think is one of the brightest offensive minds I've ever been around, who made football easy. I learned X's & O's from him. You take bits and pieces. I didn't work with McElwain long, I was with him a year down the University of Florida, but super smart. You just embraced everything he did at Alabama and all other places and learn a little bit from him. Then you go with James Franklin. I've been there for seven years, who I think in my career at this point, was the best CEO I've been around. He just had his hands on everything throughout the program. You learn and you observe from the people in front of you. That's kind of how I built myself as a coach, so you can step out in different areas and learn how to handle whether it's calling and plays, right? Learn recruiting, learn to run your room. He was big on being a head coach in your room. We always believe in high production, low maintenance and that's the type of kids I want in my room. If you're chasing the kid off the field, he's not handling his business, how is he going to handle it on the field? That's kind of the foundation of how I coach.”
Quick film review of Jeremiyah Love, JD Price and Aneyas Williams?
“J-Love has got pretty much, he can do it all. He can make you miss in a phone booth. Aneyas, for a young kid, is just solid. You really watch him play in the game and the way he attacked blocking, he's got elite ball skills. I can't remember what down it was, but we were in Man defense and I saw a middle linebacker run out with him, he catches a 40-yard pass. That was a big part of the game. So a ton of respect for him. Jadarian, he's an explosive kid. Anytime the ball in his hand, he can take it a distance. That's kind of what I see in the kids. I don't have a true breakdown on all they can do yet because again, I'm just getting into it. I'm trying to learn right from left at this point. I'll tell you, the kids are really eager. The best thing we talked about right now is being uncomfortable in a good way. I'm uncomfortable, right? This is new for me. I haven't done it in seven years. To do it again and the kids being uncomfortable with a different style of coaching; I might be playing with their footwork, I might be talking about their hand placement and I say, 'That's all good because when you leave here and you go to the NFL, guess what? You're going to be coached different. So learn it now. Learn how to adapt.' I think the kids, having a chance to work with them the last two days this week and it's been really awesome.”
Did you talk to Gerad Parker during this process?
“Really, it was more about for us at this point in the relationship, right? Whether you work at Penn State and Notre Dame, the demands are the same, right? The expectation is to win at these two places. I think he was the middleman for me and Freeman. It was good to just have somebody who understands both of us; who understands Notre Dame and worked at Penn State. When you're making a tough decision like this, it's always good to have a friend that don't try to talk you into something, don't try to talk you out of something, but just listen and kind of go through his experience of what he'd been through and how special he felt Notre Dame was for him and his family. It was easy, not just for me, but for my wife having Kandi to talk to who's been through this process. It was a family decision and we're happy with the decision we made.”
What do you think of JD Price's new NIL deal?
“I was joking with him this morning, calling him Mr. TMZ. I said, 'Man, you famous already. Can you hook the room up?' I told him don't tell my wife and kids about this jewelery, though.”
How do you hope to maybe impact the offense beyond your running backs room?
“I think first of all, you've got to come in and be a sponge because I've been around people and I never wanted to be that guy, 'Hey Mike, you're doing it this way? But we did it that way.' Well, it ain't about what I did at that place, it's about what we're doing here at Notre Dame. Just trying to be a piece of the puzzle and then when he asks maybe an opinion or example, 'Hey Jay, how do you guys do this at Penn State? That kind of fit what we are doing.' Anytime you can fit something that's already similar to the situation, the system that we're already in, it's easy to implement something. I think my value is going to be able to come with the running backs and be able to teach them how quarterbacks see the game. We're always talking in our room about playing from the neck up just like quarterbacks. You see safety rotations that kind of tell you what the defense doing; the progression of 'Hey, it's going to be Cover-2, spin to Cover3, whatever.' Being able to teach the backs to see that it's going to allow them to play smarter, right? We are already talented enough in that room so if we can play from the neck up, can anticipate the front changes from three-down to four-down or a blitz or an ID changes; now the shade goes away, the five-technique comes inside. Being able to teach those kids that and make them understand it, now we've got a chance to be maybe a little bit more explosive in the area where we wasn't because maybe they wouldn't train that way. I don't know that because I'm just learning the kids. I'm just giving the background on how I would coach them.”
Beyond teaching what do you hope to learn about your group during spring practice?
“To me, you kind of know some of the stuff they do well already. I want to know what they do not do well. I want to know the weakness, so I can help them grow in that area. One thing I told them after we broke this morning, 'I'd like for you guys to text me three to five things individually that you want to grow in that area.' A lot of times when you get that information, you may design a drill that can help; it may be contact balance, it may be hand placement and protection, but you are only going to know your blind spots if you really recognize them and you own it. 'Hey, I may be a guy who can only run with the ball in my right hand. Maybe I need to work a little bit more of my left hand.'
“You just try to find those little details and help them grow. When I was a young coach, the best thing I did was spend time with the o-line. I wanted to know why a big guy can kick back and move as fast as he can. He'd play on his in step. A lot of times you go watch back's block, they play and their weight is on the outside foot of their toes. So you can't move. Now you're on your heels and you get bullrushed. I learned that so I can incorporate it in the room. Little things like that. And even offseason, I always make the running backs go run routes with the receivers. Who run routes better than the receivers? Maybe a tight end, but at least you learn that part game so you continue to grow your game. The guys that want to play on Sunday have to be three-down backs. Those are the guys who are going to make the money. That's the Saquons ones of the world or that's the kid who is in Detroit. You try to give examples because that's who they want to be in the future.”
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