Notre Dame football nabs defensive analyst from Okey State

The Notre Dame football team continues to reshape its staff. Some of the hires to do that have been big ones, like bringing Mike Denbrock aboard as the offensive coordinator. Some of them have been a bit smaller.

On Monday, the Fighting Irish added another defensive analyst to a growing list of new hires. In doing so, Marcus Freeman apparently saw or heard something that made him decide Casey McHugh was someone he needed to get to South Bend.

So Freeman went out and hired McHugh away from Oklahoma State. While it appears to be a lateral move for the most part, it’s clear that McHugh has now stepped up a level. He’ll now get to come to work with the Notre Dame football team. 

He’ll get to come to work and help plan for a run to the National Title. That seems like it wouldn’t be able to be a realistic goal for the Big 12 school even if they did go 10-4 in 2023.

McHugh also arrives with some very special knowledge of the very first opponent on the 2024 Notre Dame football schedule. One of those 10 wins by Okey State was over Texas A&M. The Aggies, of course, are the Fighting Irish’s first opponent next season.

Notre Dame football adds another analyst

Casey McHugh earned a master of engineering from Old Dominion in 2020. Befre joining Oklahoma State last year ee was an offensive quality control coach at ODU in 2019 and a defensive graduate assistant there from 2020-22. He worked with the linebackers for two years and the safeties for one. Before joining ODU, McHugh broke into coaching as the quarterbacks coach at Delaware Valley University in 2018.

McHugh is the second analyst the Notre Dame football program has added since the start of the month. Last week, Freeman hired Trent Miles as an offensive analyst.