It is Monday, January 26, and this is Irish Illustrated Insider, Wing-Tee backfield formation

today. I'm Tim O'Malley, joined by Tim Priester and Drew Bend Talk of Irish Illustrated,

John Bryce of Football Scoop. And guys, news on Sunday was always going to happen. Could

happen last year. Could have happened this year. Would have happened next year. But it's probably the worst news for Notre Dame fans in terms of the loss of a position coach that I can recall in all of my years watching or covering Notre Dame football. We'll get to that later. But of course, Mike Mickens to accept a role with the Baltimore Ravens, Notre Dame was lucky to have them as long as they did. Yeah, I was going to say the only, the only news received worse would be if it was the guy in

the seat higher up than Mike Mickens.

Well, then it would be Mike Mickens too.

Yeah, Mike Mickens did a six years at Notre Dame, you know, a handful of coordinators

that he worked for and did a sensational job a couple years ago.

They gave him the title of, well, a couple titles, but coaching the entire secondary and he did a fantastic job.

There, he doesn't get credit for Kyle Hamilton, but I'm sure he had an influence on, on Kyle Hamilton, even before he was working with the safety.

So, yeah, yeah real blow for

notary day no doubt about it it's not at you don't have you know I mean replacing a coordinator

I guess is a bigger deal but the way Mike Mickens is viewed and the job that he's done

it's a serious blow but like you said Tim we knew it was going to happen yeah I mean it's

almost surprising it didn't happen sooner than it did yesterday.

Yeah, and through the years, multiple people in the Goug have told me, multiple people in the program have told me he's the single best evaluator that they've ever seen or worked with.

These are people that have been at other high-level programs, some in the past with some

NFL experience, and they were very quick to praise Mike Mickens. We see the results on the field,

but they talk about how elite he always has been in evaluating talent and then developing that

talent. Obviously, he has an exemplary track record from his six seasons at Notre Dame to to bear that out.

We noted last week on the podcast.

I guess it was Thursday.

...