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The problem is as a HC his offenses outside of 2000 (33ppg) couldn't score much more than 22-23.

I am 52 years old, so I lived through and cherish the Lou Holtz years. Alvarez for sure had some greatly talented athletes, but I think he was a great coach. His defenses were attacking, played hard smashmouth, and we had some great DB play back then too.

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ND has won 2 NC’s in the last 50 years (most sadly)…Yonto was DC for one of them…

He was the beneficiary of a veteran, well-developed defense from Bob Davie. Those players basically coached themselves.

He played "stuff the box with 8 and stop the run" against everyone in 2002, and while it worked well for most of our opponents, we were badly exposed by USC.

When we lost all of those veteran linemen, along with Shane Walton in 2003, Baer's ineptitude was exposed even further.


Right now, the best three we've had were Golden, Alvarez, and Lea.

Freeman was very good, Rick Minter during his first stint was very good, and Bob Davie was actually decent, as was Greg Mattison. Mike Elko was also very good, given that he turned a horrible defense into a very solid one in one season.

Diaco was decent, too.

I think Minter could have been good the second time around, if he weren't working with a skeleton crew.


The worst ones in recent times? Not including Chris Ash...

Brian Van Gorder - Worst of all time, bar none.
Jon Tenuta - He was the downfall of Charlie Weis. Had he kept Minter, or even let Corwin Brown call the plays, 2009's team would have at least gone to a BCS bowl.
Kent Baer - Continued his ineptitude at Washington
Gary Darnell - Special case.

In the case of Darnell, I'm a bit more forgiving, since the defensive front seven was more of an infirmary in 1991. Three of our best linemen were out for various reasons, during the season. George "Boo" Williams was kicked off the team before the season started (that hurt the most). Bryant Young was hobbled after an Air Force blocker dove at his knees and sprained one. Eric Jones (our best pass rusher) almost had his foot severed by an Air Force chop block. Jim Flanagan was a year away from being ready to play DT, and Bryant Young, our best lineman, was barely 255 lbs.

During that Sugar Bowl, Lou fired Darnell, and took command of the defense. He gambled on Steve Spurrier's arrogance, rushed only 3, and dropped 8. He basically guessed that Spurrier was too arrogant to try to run the ball with Errict Rhett (a very good RB), and he was right. Spurrier kept trying to force the ball downfield against an 8 man zone. Had Spurrier actually run the ball 50% of the time, Florida probably walks away with a win, since at least 3 of those 5 field goals would have been TD's.

I guess that puts Lou as one of our best DC's as well. :)

Davie's defenses sucked when he was there. They had brief periods of competence against weak competition, but nothing else.

Baer is a competent football mind who worked into his 70's. The guy knew what he was doing. Was he elite? No, but he was by far the best of Ty's assistants.

Again, he had one good year (2002), and that was much more due to the players already being well coached and experienced. The next year, we went from 9th in the nation on defense to 53rd.

At Washington, his defenses ranked 91th in 2005, 85th in 2006, and 93rd in 2007.

Once he became a DC again...

2013 Colorado: defense ranked 105th out of 125 teams
2014 Colorado: defense ranked 99th out of 128 teams
2015 UNLV: 100th out of 128 teams
2016 UNLV: 112th out of 128 teams
2017 UNLV: 93rd out of 130 teams

By the time he had left Notre Dame, every team already knew how to defeat his defensive strategy.

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First, and foremost, we easily the luckiest defense in the nation. Every break (defensively) went our way all the way up to the end of the BC game, where the offense utterly melted down into a stinking heap.

Second, Baer's defensive scheme was solely focused on stopping the run. He got away with it because we had NFL draft picks along the defensive line, and also at every starting defensive back position. Once those linemen as well as Walton, Sapp, and Earl left, all we had was Vontez Duff (very good player), and he couldn't carry the defensive team like a full backfield could.

Most of the teams that tried to pass against us that year had a lot of pressure coming after them just from those 4 down linemen, but against USC, which had a very good offensive line, along with a 3 time NFL Pro Bowl QB, 4 NFL WR's, etc. They made absolute mincemeat out of our defense, and badly exposed us for our limitations.

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He went back and got his ND degree.

He's teaching PE in high school these days.

john ray

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