After Notre Dame dodged several bullets with Marcus Freeman saying no to several new jobs, Fighting Irish fans have seen the second departure of an assistant coach this week. On Thursday evening, Al Washington followed Mike Mickens out the door.
According to John Brice of FootballScoop, Washington is headed to the Miami Dolphins. There he'll have a Boston College reunion of sorts with the Dolphins' new head coach, former Eagles head man, Jeff Hafley. He'll also be coaching alongside Sean Duggan, who played at Boston College and was coached by Washington when he was on the Eagles staff.
Notre Dame loses second assistant coach in Al Washington
Earlier this week, Mickens -Notre Dame's former co-defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach - took a job with the Baltimore Ravens on their new staff headed by Jesse Minter.
The hunt for Mickens' replacement is just a few days old, and now, the Irish will also have to find a new linebackers coach.
Washington's departure is perhaps even more surprising than Mickens' exit considering he just took on a new job description in South Bend after serving the last few years as the defensive line coach. He moved over to linebacker and run game coordinator when Max Bullough left for Michigan State.
Washington was replaced on the defensive line by Charlie Partridge, who also joined the staff earlier this month.
This is the third straight winter where Notre Dame has had to shuffle its staff under Marcus Freeman. Last year, the big departure was defensive coordinator Al Golden (replaced by Chris Ash) and the winter before that Mike Denbrock was brought in as offensive coordinator to replace fired OC Gerad Parker.