Notre Dame Football: Mike Elston Doing Well As Recruiting Coordinator

As the Notre Dame football team participates in spring practice, we’ll take a look at the coaching staff and start with Mike Elston, the Fighting Irish linebacker coach and recruiting coordinator.

Mike Elston is from St. Mary’s Ohio and is a 1998 graduate of the University of Michigan. Elston was a linebacker on the Michigan team and lettered on the 1994-96 teams whose record was 25-12. He was a Graduate Assistant there during the 1999-2000 seasons. His first full time coaching job was at Eastern Michigan University from 2001-2003. He was the defensive line coach and recruiting coordinator there.

In 2004, Elston joined head coach Brian Kelly’s Central Michigan team. Elston first was the defensive line coach then coached the linebackers and special teams. Mike has been coaching for Brian Kelly’s team since Kelly went to the University of Cincinnati in 2007. Elston was the tight end and special teams coach. While at Cincinnati, he was also the recruiting coordinator.

Elston came to Notre Dame with Brian Kelly. Elston was the defensive line coach the first few years. He has coached up numerous defensive linemen including Stephen Tuitt and Louis Nix. Both of them were early round NFL draft picks. Elston also developed Kapron Louis-Moore who was a late round NFL pick. During the 2013 season, Sheldon Day, Stephen Tuitt, and Louis Nix were injured. At that point, Elson worked on developing Jarron Jones, Kona Schwenke, and Isasc Rochell.

In the last year, Elston became the recruiting coordinator and linebacker coach. Elston has been innovative as the recruiting coordinator. He has led the staff in making early offers to high school players. This year Notre Dame has made scholarship offers to students who are currently sophomores. He has added more Junior Days. Notre Dame had their second Junior Day of the year this past weekend and during this event Avery Davis a four-star quarterback from Texas gave his verbal commitment to Notre Dame.

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Despite just being the head of recruiting for a year, Elston helped recruit 23 players this past February. The class was ranked between the 10-15th best class in the country. Recruitment, of course, is the life blood of all football programs. In Elston, it appears that Notre Dame fans can have confidence that the Fighting Irish will recruit well for years to come.