Notre Dame football: 3 candidates to replace Clark Lea

Notre Dame football: 3 candidates to replace Clark Lea

Chad Staggs, DC, Coastal Carolina

The current defensive coordinator at Coastal Carolina, Chad Staggs would be an off the radar hire, but still, Staggs would make sense for a few different reasons. First off, Staggs is a young and energetic coach, who could excite both players and recruits. And, speaking of recruiting, Staggs has spent much of his career in the Carolinas, which means that he knows the region and local coaches well.

Those relationships give coaches great inroads to land the region’s top talent and the Carolinas, along with Georgia, have become some of the most important pipelines to recruit for Notre Dame in recent seasons.

More than a boost of energy, Staggs has proven to be an excellent defensive coordinator, with his Black Swarm defense being a major factor in Coastal Carolina’s unbeaten run. Just two weeks ago, after finding out he’d be taking on BYU’s explosive offense midweek and having his son go to the hospital early Saturday, Staggs dominated the Cougars and quarterback Zach Wilson. On the season the Chanticleers are 16th in scoring defense, only giving up 18.73 points per game.

If Staggs can do that with the low-level recruits that Coastal Carolina is limited to, imagine what he could do with the top end talent Notre Dame recruits?

There are a couple of questions with Staggs. First, would Coastal Carolina to Notre Dame be too big a jump for the young coordinator? And would his mullets and WWE style celebrations translate culturally to Notre Dame?