Al Golden returns to Miami on ‘business trip’ as Notre Dame tries to reach title game
It has been nearly a decade since Al Golden coached his last game for the Miami Hurricanes. It was a job he took ahead of the 2011 season with aspirations of wining national championships. Instead Golden’s five-year stretch ta UM saw him lead the football team, despite being handcuffed by sanctions due to an NCAA investigation involving a former booster that happened before he was hired, and ended a day following the worst loss in school history, a 58-0 defeat to Clemson on Oct. 24, 2015.
In his nine-plus years since then, he has served on two NFL coaching staffs and is now the defensive coordinator at Notre Dame.
All three of those stops — four years with the Detroit Lions, two with the Cincinnati Bengals and now three with Notre Dame — have led him back to Miami at some point to play at that stadium he once called now.
This time, with Notre Dame, it’s to compete in Thursday’s Orange Bowl — which is doubling as a College Football Playoff semifinal — for a spot in the national championship, a spot they haven’t been in since 2013 and something they haven’t won since 1988. And for another Golden story line, Notre Dame is facing Penn State, Golden’s alma mater.
Golden made it clear Tuesday that he’s not focusing on the past.
While being back in South Florida does have a personal touch for him — Golden said he has heard from “families that you haven’t seen in awhile, my next-door neighbor and little things like that” during the past couple days — when he walks into Hard Rock Stadium on Thursday, there could only be one thing on his mind: Doing whatever he can to make sure Notre Dame has one more game to play this season.
“There’s not a lot of time to reminisce,” Golden said. “We’ve got to be focused. We’re here on a business trip.”
Golden, 55, has done his part this season to get Notre Dame to this point.
Notre Dame enters the Orange Bowl as one of the best defenses in college football this season. The Fighting Irish lead the country in takeaways (31) and are second in scoring defense (13.6 points per game). They have held 12 of 14 opponents to 17 points or fewer. That includes each of their first two playoff games, limiting Indiana to 17 points in the first round and Georgia to 10 in the quarterfinals. Opponents are converting fewer than 30 percent of their third-down attempts against Notre Dame.
“When I hired Al Golden three years ago, it was for two reasons,” Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman said. “One, I believed he had a great defensive mind and could do great things with our defense, but two, at that point we did not have a former head coach on our staff, and I thought it was important to get somebody that had experience where I had none on our staff. The growth we’ve made in three years has been tremendous. Our defense is doing really great things right now, and coach Golden gets all the credit. ... I believe in trying to gain wisdom from other people that have experience. That was a huge part in the decision making of hiring Al Golden.”
Added Golden: “I don’t take anything for granted at my age. I’m very grateful for this opportunity. Just staying focused, just staying humble, just staying in the moment, not worrying about anything. ... I’m just concentrating and just being really, really focused on the moment and being the best I can for these players. They deserve that.”
So the outside noise is being pushed aside. The focus is singular.
And the opportunity in front of him — with a chance to compete for a national championship on the line — is the sole focus.
“Means everything,” Golden said. “I mean, that’s why you do it. To have this opportunity and to navigate what was a challenging road ... it’s hard to get here.”
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