The "Golden Era" of Defense

The “Golden Era” of Defense

Al Golden was Marcus Freeman’s choice to become his defensive coordinator after Freeman became Head Coach. Golden has turned out to be a wonderful choice. His leadership experience coaching both at the NFL and college level has resulted in a scheme that is player driven and uses the defenses strengths to limit the high-powered spread passing attacks that have become popular across the nation.

                Golden’s first strength was that he recognized that this was meant to be the “Notre Dame Defense” not the “Al Golden Defense”. Marcus Freeman got elevated to head coach after one season of being Notre Dame’s defensive coordinator.  Notre Dame’s former Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick recognized with Freeman’s energy, magnetism and recruiting success that he would be a top name on other team’s wish list. When Brian Kelly left for LSU, Jack took the risk and elevated Freeman before another team could hire him away. Freeman realized he would need coordinators that had more coaching experience than he did. Al Golden had both college and NFL coaching experience and loves Notre Dame.

The first thing Golden and Freeman agreed on is the importance of man-to-man defense. During a lot of the Weis and then Kelly Era Notre Dame began to accept a “bend but don’t break” defensive philosophy. Schematically this means you’re in a two deep zone set up for about eighty yards of the field. The object of “bend but don’t break” defense is to allow yardage in non-scoring areas of the field then as soon as your opponent enters scoring range you begin to be more aggressive. This passive approach allows teams to win the field position game and control time of possession. Freeman, Golden and the defensive staff reject “bend but don’t break defense” in favor of a more aggressive style of defense that depends on great coverage from the secondary and active, fast, and aggressive linebackers.

On any given Saturday with seventy-five yards to go you will see Golden’s defense with a single safety deep, his corners in press man coverage and his other safety disguising what he’s doing. Risky? Yes. . But in his 4-2-5 they almost always have a nickel defensive back inside and the linebackers are lighter and faster than usual.  The pressed corners are taught that they have help inside so deep routes are forced out of bounds with outside leverage and everything inside is met with multiple hustling defenders.

This defense is easily in the top ten and some metrics have it in the top 5. Ask Florida State who passed for just 88 net yards last week, facing a Golden Era defense is no easy task. As Al Golden likely earns himself another shot at head coaching somewhere soon it’s important that we appreciate this “Golden Era” of defense.

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