Notre Dame defensive coordinator Chris Ashspoke to local reporters Friday morning. Here’s everything he had to say.
On the advantages of playing a defensive end as a 7-technique
When I got here, this defense wasn’t broken. This defense has been well-coached, it’s performed at a high level, and conceptually they’ve been doing things that I really believe in. My objective was really to identify some things we could do better or put players in positions to help their skill set. Really we’re just taking a look at different ways to play our defensive ends to help them rush the passer, force one-on-one blocks with tight ends a bit more.
We’re just checking things out in the spring. So far so good, I think they like it.
On if that helps against the run
Yeah, certain fronts go against certain coverages, so there’s things we can do with certain coverages but also things we can’t do. It’s situationally and we can allow them to play on the edge with the talent we have, anything to set the edge and rush the passer, and keep the ball inside of them, we like to do that.
On if this is his first time being only a defensive coordinator, not a position coach
In my past i’ve always coached a position-group, this is the first time I’ve coordinated as a walk around guy. There’s pros and cons to every situation. The pro here is you can kind of be the head coach of the defense. You can go into different meetings, you can watch the drills, you get to see all the players rather than the ones you coach outside of the film. I love that I see guys get coached, see who’s listening and responding to coaching, I get to watch different drills, help coaches with their drills from a different perspective, so I think there’s a lot of advantages to it.
On if there are any other tweaks to the Notre Dame defense
There are some terminology things that we’ve adjusted, but for the most part the concepts are the concepts. The fronts are the fronts. I’m not going to say we’re exactly the same but we’re pretty close to mirroring what’s been done here in the past. This spring we’re just looking to enhance some things they had in the packages that they didn’t necessarily need to do because of the way the season unfolded. So make sure that what we do have we can be really efficient at all of it.
On who’s emerging as a leader of the Notre Dame defense
Drayk Bowen as the middle ‘backer is probably the front-runner for leadership of the group. He’ the central communicator. He’s a guy that’s played a lot of football. Well-respected, intelligent guy. It all starts with him right now. There are a number of other guys, but I think he’s going to be the guy that we probably see as the leader of the group.
On the evolution of the rover position in a nickel-based world
Everybody has a different definition of different positions based on their history and experience. To me, simply what I can gather, a Rover is just another linebacker. So whether you’re in Nickel, or a Big Nickel, or a 4-3 structure with three linebackers, it’s all situational. We’re going to be no different. We’ll play primarily Nickel. We’ll have the ability where we can get bigger based on the personnel grouping and situation.
