Notre Dame football: 5 Reasons the Irish will win the 2017 national title

2. A brand new coaching staff pushes all the right buttons

With both offensive coordinator Mike Sanford and defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder not returning for the 2017 season, it is clear that many changes are in store for a young team. Luckily for the Irish, young is the key word in that sentence.

While the phrase “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” doesn’t often apply to veteran athletes, the fact that these changes come alongside a young core is somewhat of a perfect storm. The new coaching staff will likely be able to instill their particular ideas into the heads of their players, allowing the entire group to start fresh from the past year.

Chip Long

Looking into how the season will take shape with the new coordinators, first up is offensive coordinator Chip Long. Long was most recently the offensive coordinator for the Memphis Tigers, a team that put up closely 40 points per game in comparison to Notre Dame’s 27.8 PPG.

Not-so-coincidentally, Long was a tight ends coach at both Illinois and Memphis, a great fit on a Notre Dame team that has enjoyed so much success from the position. Since the departure of Troy Niklas in 2014, Notre Dame has yet to find a tight end to match the success that he, Tyler Eifert, and Kyle Rudolph enjoyed during their years at the school.

Alize Mack was hailed as their replacement out of high school, but played second fiddle to Durham Smythe in his first year before being ruled academically ineligible in 2016. Notre Dame hopes that Mack can turn things around under Long, and if not him, the recent commit in Cole Kmet.

Mike Elko

On the defensive side of the ball, defensive coordinator Mike Elko hopes to complete a complete turnaround of the recent Irish defense, one that has been sent home whimpering on too many occasion over the last couple years.

As mentioned before, this turnaround all starts with turnovers. Forcing over two turnovers a game was Elko’s claim to fame last season, and could seriously help the Irish in making things easier for a developing offense over the 2017 season.

In regard to playing style, Mike Elko’s Wake Forest team exhibited a consistent bend but don’t break strategy. Despite letting up 371 YPG, Elko’s defense still managed to hold opposing offenses to 22 PPG, a solid number compared to most other schools.

With a near complete rebranding of Notre Dame’s coaching staff, some growing pains are to be expected as new styles and approaches are implemented. It will be interesting to see how the team reacts to these changes, hopefully well enough to take the Irish to their ultimate goal.