Instant Reaction: Clark Lea Promoted to Defensive Coordinator
There were some outside candidates that I liked, but I’m pretty excited about the hiring of Clark Lea to be Notre Dame’s defensive coordinator. I think he is a very good coach that did a tremendous job with the linebackers at all of his previous stops. That carried over to Notre Dame where Te’Von Coney and Drue Tranquill had breakout seasons under his guidance.
He was on track to become a defensive coordinator somewhere in the near future. The future just happened to get accelerated because of Mike Elko’s departure. Elko knows better than anyone what kind of coach Lea is, though. There is a reason why he wanted to continue to work with him after Bowling Green at Wake Forest then Notre Dame. And he wanted to bring him to Texas A&M as well.
This hiring ensures that the scheme, for the most part, will remain intact. I think that’s super important. I talked about year two of Elko hopefully being a point where Notre Dame will improve on the defensive side, but now the name of the guy running it changes, but the terminology won’t. I can’t tell you how comforting that is for the players who just experienced learning a new system last year.
The same fundamentals they worked on won’t change. While there will be tweaks, I don’t think there will be very much change in the way they prepare either. This will be a very similar defense. Just with a new leader.
That’s going to be the biggest difference. Elko is much more fiery than Lea. Lea is not a yeller. He’s a teacher. Some may think of that as a bad thing who want their defense to be fueled by the emotion of the coordinator, but I don’t agree with that. There have been plenty of successful coordinators with calm demeanors. Tony Dungy is one example. The architect of Stanford’s defensive turnaround and current Chicago's Bears DC Vic Fangio stand out as another that has been extremely successful. Both commanded respect, but had no bluster. Lea is closer to them than Elko as a personality.
The best word to describe Lea as a coach is meticulous. In that way, he and Elko are the same, which is probably why Elko valued having Lea on his staff so much. I really like this move by Brian Kelly. It keeps stability, but that would only matter if the coach he was promoting from within was good. Lea is very good. The Irish now have a chance to build on the defensive success they experienced last season and hopefully this move helps with the eventual decisions of Jerry Tillery and Te’Von Coney regarding their NFL Draft status as well.