Sucks Prister wrote it, but this is good stuff. Elston is going to be the guy the players from Kelly's (especially early) tenure will emotionally attach to as their coach. Also sounds like he introduced Kelly to chilling the fuck out.
so Lovie Jenkins, one of the few DBs every mod once felt comfortable about just committed to the Vols
Keeping him from taking a not great head coaching position is the challenge moving forward. We’ve sucked at that in the past, but hopefully we’ve learned our lesson.
I'm guessing his quality of life ($) is better here than it would be at a MAC school. Seems like we have fixed that issue.
Eh. He was seriously thinking about going to Bowling Green if they weren’t insistent on having their coach start before bowl season. The good news is Swarbrick has made a concerted effort over the last two seasons to keep up with the Joneses when it comes to keeping assistants happy. We just have to hope it works/worked.
Notre Dame canceled his OV. Seems he is/was down the board a bit Offord the CB from Mississippi just visited this past weekend and is coming back 6/21 for an official. Looks good for a commit that weekend
along with Bartleson...so that's 3 DBs in the class who all offer some level of position flexibility because they are all 6' types that can grow to Safety if they don't pan out at CB at that point, i think they calm down a bit and see what happens w/ the top guys
this might be the best article Prister has ever written - Why Elston has stayed loyal to BK Spoiler The 2003 college football season had come to a close and so would 28-year-old Mike Elston’s defensive line coaching job at Eastern Michigan. Head coach Jeff Woodruff’s four-year record of 11-35 warranted a change. There was little chance Elston would be retained by the next staff that arrived in Ypsilanti. So when Elston – an outside linebacker under Michigan head coaches Gary Moeller and Lloyd Carr from 1993-96 – began his job search, he welcomed a phone call from John Jancek. Jancek – seven years Elston’s elder, a defensive line coach and a defensive coordinator at Wayne State, Hillsdale and Grand Valley State -- had worked the Michigan football camps with Elston. When Jancek called Elston and asked if there was anything he could do to help him find another coaching job, Elston mentioned that Eastern Michigan wouldn’t be paying for his trip to the annual college football coaches convention in Florida. “If you’re going down, maybe I can shack up with you,” said Elston to Jancek, who was serving as defensive line coach at Central Michigan at the time. Before Elston knew his exact fate with Eastern Michigan, a rising head-coaching star – 41-year-old Brian Kelly from Division II Grand Valley State – interviewed for the position with the Eagles. The eager Elston made sure that he introduced himself to Kelly, but he was sure that the handshake barely registered a blip on Kelly’s coaching radar. Kelly’s job with Eastern Michigan fell through. But after a couple of Division II national championships, he was in high demand, eventually landing the Central Michigan job where Jancek had been coaching the defensive line since coordinating Kelly’s defenses at Grand Valley State. Kelly retained him. When Elston got to the coaches convention and checked into the room with Jancek, his old camp buddy informed him that they would be sharing the hotel room. “Brian Kelly is staying with his family in Orlando,” Jancek told Elston. “He’s not staying in this hotel, so he’s going to run the interviews out of this room.” Jancek cleared out so Kelly could conduct his first coaching interview at 11:00 a.m. But Elston stayed behind. When Kelly knocked, it was Elston who answered the door. “I know this is kind of unorthodox, but I would love to interview with you,” said Elston to Kelly. Fifteen years after Kelly hired Elston at Central Michigan, the now 44-year-old associate head coach/defensive line coach represents the only member on Kelly’s current Notre Dame staff to have been with him since his first year with the Irish in 2010. In fact, Elston spent three years with Kelly at Central Michigan, made the move to Cincinnati in 2007, and transitioned to Notre Dame three years after that. A total of 24 assistant coaches have worked for Kelly at Notre Dame. Only one has been with him every step of the way with the Irish. “It hasn’t been without its tough moments,” said Elston of his relationship with Kelly for the last decade-and-a-half. “He and I have had our moments like any relationship has. “The thing about Coach Kelly and me is that we’ve always been able to shut the door, sit down, work through things if either one of us has an issue with what we’re doing or not doing, and move on. “There have been times when I have had to eat a crap sandwich to keep doing what I want to do and that’s okay. That’s a decision that I’ve made in this profession.” TAKING (MORE THAN) ONE FOR THE TEAM (Photo: Matt Cashore, 247Sports) In Elston’s second season at Central Michigan, Kelly elevated him to co-defensive coordinator with another talented young coach by the name of Bob Diaco. When Diaco left one season later to take over as linebackers coach at Virginia, Kelly passed over Elston for the coordinator’s job. When Kelly went to Cincinnati, he brought Diaco back to run the defense. When Diaco left Notre Dame to be head coach at Connecticut, Kelly tabbed an old Grand Valley State cohort – Brian VanGorder – to run his defense. And when VanGorder was fired four games into the 2016 season, former Notre Dame linebacker and Florida State assistant coach Greg Hudson was brought in to “run the defense” when, in fact, it was Elston who was orchestrating the defensive game plans and approach over the final eight games. Kelly picked Wake Forest’s Mike Elko to replace VanGorder on a full-time basis. Elko left after one season to work for Texas A&M. Linebackers coach Clark Lea – once again, not Elston – replaced Elko in 2018. Elston even moved to linebackers coach for a couple of years to accommodate the hiring of defensive line coach Keith Gilmore. It takes a rare individual to withstand these repeated “snubs” and remain loyal. “It is difficult at times,” admitted Elston, who added associate head coach to his nameplate when Elko was hired. “But I don’t care about holding titles. I’m as impactful on the defensive staff as anyone. My input with Coach Lea and at one point with Coach Elko and at one point with Brian VanGorder and Bob Diaco…The same thing. “I don’t need the recognition of a title to know that a job I’m fulfilling is valued as somebody very important on this staff.” FAMILY FIRST (Photo: Matt Cashore, 247Sports) Parents of three girls ages 13 (Olivia), 11 (Sophia) and 9 (Isabella), Elston and his wife Beth (“our first date was in eighth grade”) have pursued a fairly uncommon path in the coaching world. “Whether it’s the defensive coordinator or the associate head coach, people want those titles to move on to other things and to become a head coach,” Elston said. “That’s not what drives me right now. My drive is to be the best defensive line coach in the country. Recruit and develop these players into the best, and then give my family some stability and leadership that a lot of people in this profession fall short of.” Elston has wanted coordinator jobs. He’s interviewed for head-coaching positions. It’s not that he doesn’t want to be a defensive coordinator or a head coach. In that respect, he’s like many others. But there a line drawn in the sand that he’s not willing to cross. “I’m different from a lot of coaches in that I put a lot of stock into quality of life,” Elston said. “The quality of life working on Brian Kelly’s staff, I would imagine, is as good as it gets. He details out for you what your job description is and what his expectations are for you in that role, and then he doesn’t micromanage you. “He allows you to grow in that role. He allows you to put your footprint on the program. He gives you feedback when needed, but I don’t feel like I’m looking over my shoulder every single day for every single pen mark I make on my paper to find out if I’m doing it right or I’m doing it wrong.” Kelly’s management style as it pertains to his assistant coaches and their family’s presence within the program largely was born of his wife Paqui’s two bouts with breast cancer, first at Grand Valley State and again at Cincinnati. “Paqui and I had to deal with cancer early in our career,” Kelly said. “Me being away from the office and having her and the kids around quite a bit taught me the life lessons early on about how important it is to have your family part of what you’re doing. “I learned early in my career how important it is to keep your family central to what you do. I’ve always instilled that within all the coaches I’ve hired that I want your family to be a part of what we do.” During a June workday, Isabella may be in her father’s office coloring while Sophia is writing on the white board and Olivia is visiting with a friend as their father is tending to his work. “Brian has always been very open to that,” Elston said. “I don’t know that I could go anywhere else and be the kind of father I want to be and the kind of leader for my family I want to be. It’s tough to think that I’m going to find that anywhere else. That’s more important to me than my career.” When Kelly and his staff were at Cincinnati, Elston’s middle daughter Sophia was attacked by a little boy at daycare, viciously biting her nose. Beth Elston, a psychologist and the Elston family’s breadwinner during her husband’s early years as a coach, was now at a crossroads in her career. “I said to my wife, ‘What are we doing? We’re venturing off what we said we wanted to do,’” Elston recalled. “These are our daughters. We’re the ones raising them. You’re trying to work your job and I’m doing mine and we’re sending them off to daycare for a good portion of the day.” So Beth stepped away from her work. When Elston approached Kelly about his family’s dilemma, his boss made financial adjustments to his contract to allow Beth to transition into stay-at-home mom. “People wonder why I’m so loyal to him,” said Elston of Kelly. “Whenever I’ve come to him with something, there’s been this friendship, trust and loyalty that he’s always backed me with. I owe that to him.” WHAT’S IN IT FOR KELLY (Photo: Matt Cashore, 247Sports) So Elston has been loyal to Kelly. Short of elevating Elston to defensive coordinator, Kelly has taken good care of Elston. The Notre Dame head coach believes he’s gotten just as much in return. “First of all, going all the way back, his ability to coach on both sides of the ball for me,” said Kelly of Elston’s value. “He was a tight ends coach for me, special teams coordinator, recruiting coordinator, a number of positions on defense… “He’s served in a number of different roles. He’s provided for me as a head coach so many different roles on our staff when I’ve needed him. Loyalty is one thing, but providing that consistency of performance year-in and year-out is invaluable.” When Notre Dame sunk to a 4-8 record in 2016, which demanded not only a shakeup of the coaching staff but a different approach with his team by Kelly, Elston came through again with his naming as associate head coach. While skepticism about titles is common because it generally means a pay increase and no real added responsibilities, Kelly’s naming of Elston as associate head coach prior to the 2017 season truly helped the Irish head coach. It allowed him to turn his attention away from some of the administrative work and focus more on his team and the needs of his players. Several of Kelly’s players – including two-time captain and first-round draft choice Mike McGlinchey -- have attributed Notre Dame’s 22-4 record the last two years to Kelly’s time spent in developing relationships with his players. Elston came through again. “We have a pretty large support staff and (Elston) meets with them regularly,” Kelly said. “You’ve got to be able to trust somebody that is representing you and your interests. “Because he’s been with me, he knows my philosophy, he knows what I’m looking for with regard to culture, and you don’t get that by reading about it. You get that by relationships. He’s been with me so long that he knows exactly what I’m looking for in terms of creating that morale within the building on a day-to-day basis.” THE NOTRE DAME APPEAL (Photo: Matt Cashore, 247Sports) Pop on Mike or Beth Elston’s Twitter accounts and you’ll see multiple tweets detailing the relationship between their family and Notre Dame’s defensive linemen, who will occasionally stop by the house for a meal and the Elston ladies’ homemade cookies – the latter of which are provided during game weeks, too. It is a relationship they revel in and summarizes the “quality of life” of which Elston speaks. While the girls are several years away from going to college, there’s already a clear path etched out with an eye on the future. “I have two daughters that are sure they want to go to the University of Notre Dame,” Elston said. “One wants to be in volleyball or swimming and the other one wants to be on the fencing team. They’ll turn down every other opportunity in the world to do those things. “If I can make that happen for my family, then why wouldn’t I try to do my very best to do that? If I can stay at the University of Notre Dame until my children get through their schooling – because they are intertwined into this university with everything that they do from swimming to fencing to you name it – I would consider that a success.” While some coaches would view Elston’s attitude toward Notre Dame as a limiting factor, he doesn’t see it that way. “I’m not doing it at the expense of my career,” Elston said. “I believe that my career is on a trajectory that I can do whatever I want to do when I choose to do it. It’s just that right now, this is what I choose to do. “There are a lot of coaches that think, ‘What’s the next step? My step here is I’m focused on building the best defensive line in the country and being a great leader and a great mentor for my people and my family.” Can Elston follow through with a fulfilling football coaching career without ever being a head coach? “Absolutely,” Elston said. “At the end of the day, what I got into this profession for was to develop young people, to help them through their academics, to help them through football, and take that next step in life. “I want to take the baton when their family gives it to me to raise them, and then to turn them back over when they graduate into this young man that everybody is going to be proud of. That’s why I do it. I could easily go my whole career without holding any different title than I have right now and be great with it.” And yet every time the defensive coordinator or defensive line coach position opens up at Michigan, his alma mater, there’s speculation that the Wolverines are going to coerce Elston to “come back home.” “I would never leave Notre Dame to go to Michigan,” Elston said. “Ever. Who in their right mind would think I would leave Notre Dame to be the d-line coach at Michigan?” What about defensive coordinator? “Not right now in my career,” Elston said. “I’m not ready to move my family until I absolutely have to. Not until Jack Swarbrick or Brian Kelly comes through this door and says, ‘You’ve got to find another job.’” When it’s mentioned to Elston that Kelly recently indicated a desire to have his current contract (two years remain) extended by another three years, Elston says: “That’s fine by me.” “It’s not about where I go next; it’s going to be about who I work for,” he said. “That puts a lot of thought into what my next move is going to be because I know I’m not going to find somebody I enjoy working for more than Brian Kelly. “So why would I leave him before I have to? Unless he’s going to Michigan, I’m not either.” What Elston suspected when Kelly hired him 15 years ago has been substantiated along the journey. “From the first week I spent with him, I realized the difference between him and other head coaches,” Elston said “It was always a great relationship and it always allowed me the ability to grow in whatever role I’ve been put in, whether it was the tight ends coach, special teams coordinator, recruiting coordinator, academic advisor, academic mentor at Cincinnati… “I’ve held so many titles, it has always made me feel good that when he asks me to take on something new, he believes that I can do it. He’s allowed me to grow in those areas and that’s been good.” 36COMMENTS Good for Mike Elston, good for Brian Kelly, good for Notre Dame. also seems like an incredible human being/parent/coach this is the best line: And yet every time the defensive coordinator or defensive line coach position opens up at Michigan, his alma mater, there’s speculation that the Wolverines are going to coerce Elston to “come back home.” “I would never leave Notre Dame to go to Michigan,” Elston said. “Ever. Who in their right mind would think I would leave Notre Dame to be the d-line coach at Michigan?”
Very smart article https://www.espn.com/blog/los-angel...ell-advocates-for-a-timeout-from-social-media
Blue and Gold has some sort of free fathers day promo so I did it Good lord is that messageboard a cess pool, cannot believe how much doom and gloom comes out of there. My favorite was WR recruiting was an embarrassment which was echoed by numerous posters. ND has a fucking 5 star WR committed
Missed this. Rochell is a cool guy, he played with my daughter at the airport waiting for a flight and was comically to large to fit on a CRJ.
Evidently Corbys took a bunch of fakes from underaged players this weekend. Luckily they just confiscate but we're at the players doing dumb shit stage of the off-season.
Loy posted this morning that ND is moving on from Cullen Coleman I think that’s a mistake but he also said ND has a silent from someone not named Carmody. It has to be Mitchell Melton
Cullen Coleman is good I still wonder if they eventually decide to take Simon, I’d rather have him than Coleman
I don’t know who it is honestly. I just don’t think it’s Melton. I also know our staff has no idea if he’s an OLB or DE. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if the kid ends up at ND but I doubt he’s the silent.
We also fucked up again and announced a commitment on the official twitter before it’s out. Crazy that can happen after van