Notre Dame Coaches: Just Like Us

The Notre Dame coaching staff played a big role in Jack Lamb‍’s decision to commit to the Irish, especially the plan linebackers coach Clark Lea has for the 2018 California linebacker.

On Tuesday, Lamb had the chance to see a different side of Lea, along with head coach Brian Kelly and assistant Brian Polian as he hosted the trio of Irish coaches for an in-home visit.

“It was really good,” the 6-foot-4, 220-pound Lamb said afterward.

“It was just nice to get to talk to the coaches as people and not really as coaches; getting them in your house in like a casual setting, not in their office or on the football field. It’s kind of cool to talk to them when they’re your friends and not like your boss. It was kind of cool to get to know their personal sides.”

Lamb got a good feel for the coaches as people.

“They’re just really laid-back people when you think about what they do off the field and not being coaches,” he said. “They’re normal people. You see them on TV and think, ‘These dudes are probably crazy.’ But they’re not.

“They’re just normal people like my parents. They like to do things parents do and they are all parents. It’s kind of funny that they aren’t as different as we think they are.”

Lamb’s father, Dan, echoed those sentiments in a message to Irish Sports Daily, calling the coaches “sincere and humble guys” and adding, “With every meeting, I feel better and better about Jack's choice to be Irish!"

Lamb feels the same way.

“Just getting to talk to them and know them better is really reassuring for me picking Notre Dame over a couple other schools,” he said. “It’s like, ‘Man, I really made the right decision getting into this four-year commitment with guys who are going to help me through it and guys I trust.’”

Notre Dame’s season didn’t end on a positive note, but Lamb saw dramatic improvement overall.

“I think it was great for them to go from a 4-8 season to 9-3,” he said. “It’s a good start and I think the future of the program is only going up from here. There were a few mistakes that cost them some games, but I don’t think that’s going to happen in the future with the class we have coming in, we should be able to fix some of that stuff.”

Lamb’s own year featured ups and downs as he suffered a knee injury in the opening game of his senior season with Great Oak High School. Initially, it looked like there was a chance he could miss virtually his entire season, but Lamb worked hard to get back.

“It went really smoothly, actually better than I expected,” he said of his rehab process. “I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to come back for the season. I wound up playing pretty well when I came back. It was really relieving to get back out there.

“A lot of guys get injured and they never come back the same. It was good to get back out there and do what I was doing before I got hurt. It was fun.”

Many of Lamb’s high school teammates are guys he’s played with since they were little kids and he didn’t want his time with them to end via injury.

“Getting hurt in that first game, I didn’t want that to be the memory I had of the guys I’ve played with for so many years. I didn’t want to think, ‘I’m letting you down by not playing for the rest of the season.’ Getting back out there and playing the last five games with them was really fun.”