Eric Hansen

SOUTH BEND, Ind. - Notre Dame’s newest defensive graduate assistant coach delivered his first punch line before he picked out the mandatory four and a half hours of graduate courses that he will be required to take this fall per NCAA guidelines.

"Do all the graduate assistants get this much attention?" quipped Bryant Young, the former Notre Dame All-American, and retired 14-year NFL standout.

He was hardly an afterthought on a day ND fifth-year head coach Charlie Weis belatedly introduced two of his newest assistant coaches and Young, announced some significant responsibility changes on the staff, anointed himself — to no one’s surprise — offensive coordinator, and created a labyrinth of new titles to correspond with it all.

The only thing missing was Randy Hart, Weis’ new defensive line coach, who, because of the school’s post-George O’Leary FBI-esque vetting system, couldn’t be formally introduced until he cleared the process. He has, and is officially on board.

The moves made this past month aren’t ancillary -- they’re transformational, the most notable of which are:

1. Weis reordaining himself as the primary offensive-play caller, and finally giving himself the title of coordinator -- and possibly doing it all from the press box on Saturdays.

2. Jon Tenuta moving from an advisory role on the defense to defensive coordinator, and primary play-caller.

3. Former defensive coordinator Corwin Brown becoming associate head coach/co-defensive coordinator/defensive backs coach and orchestrating things on the sideline on game days -- if the needle continues to move in the direction of Weis heeding his wife’s advice and moving upstairs.

4. Bryant being groomed as the defensive line coach of the future under Hart, a 60-year-old Woody Hayes disciple, who spent the last 21 years at the University of Washington.

5. Dynamic Tony Alford becoming running backs coach and, as significantly, being unleashed on the recruiting trail in some of ND’s most fertile and highly contested hotbeds.

6. New offensive line coach Frank Verducci taking on the additional title of running game coordinator.

“He'll have the primary responsibility of researching to make suggestions,” Weis said of what constitutes the difference between an offensive line coach and one with the running game coordinator label attached. “So that when we get together as a staff, you're either rubber stamping it, saying, ‘No, we need to do this, need to do that.’ That doesn't mean everything he says we end up doing, but usually the majority of what he ends up recommending gives you the best chance of being successful in that game.”

From an X’s and O’s standpoint, Weis addressed through his hirings and purges the two areas in which ND looked the least like a BCS team during the post-Tyrone Willingham Era -- even in the two Weis years when the Irish made it to that elite platform. That’s run offense and run defense.

The Irish were 100th in rushing offense in 2008, up from 115th in 2007, and 45th in run defense, up from 96th. Still Weis is well aware that of the 38 teams that have played in BCS bowl games since he cannon-balled into the college game from the NFL, all but four have ranked among the top 25 nationally in either rushing offense, rushing defense or both.

The exceptions? The 2007 Hawaii squad, the 2005 Georgia Bulldogs, and Weis’ first two ND teams (2005 and 2006). In fact, the ’06 Irish squad (72nd in rushing offense, 61st in rushing defense) is the only BCS team of the past four years that didn’t ranked in the top 50 nationally in either run offense or run defense, and the only one in the BCS Era (1998-present) that didn’t rank in the top 60 in either.

From a personnel standpoint, the realignment means, theoretically at least, putting coaches in the best position to help the team with Brown a dynamic leader running things from the sideline, Weis calling offensive plays from the best-possible vantage point, and Tenuta bringing more experience to the defensive play-calling.

"Jon Tenuta calling the plays on defense is the best move Charlie Weis has made," ESPN college football analyst Lee Corso remarked. "Tenuta in that role is as good as it gets. And Charlie calling offensive plays is second to none. And if he wants to call them from the press box, I’ve got no problem with that at all. Those two moves will be very good for Irish football."

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