Notre Dame's Brian Mason named FootballScoop Special Teams Coach of the Year
Brian Mason capped his first season as Notre Dame special teams coordinator by helping his unit outplay this season’s standard bearer for excellence in that phase. He also ends it with a national award given to him by his colleagues.
Mason was named the FootballScoop Special Teams Coach of the Year Sunday, as voted by his peers and some of the 15 previous award winners. He was a finalist for it last season when he held the same job at Cincinnati.
“I think it’s one thing to be able to know all the details of a scheme, but to then implement and teach it, that is another story,” Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman told FootballScoop. “He’s able to capture those guys, has great meetings, keeps them engaged.
“And, he has a little fun with them. There’s a real investment. The guys in those special teams meetings, with Mase, they feel the importance of getting the job done.”
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Mason’s best work was turning Notre Dame’s punt block team into a game-changing weapon. The Irish tied for the national lead in blocked kicks with 7. All were rejections of punts, and six of them came in a five-game span.
Mason measures success using the Fremeau Efficiency Index’s special teams ranking (STR), in which Notre Dame is ranked No. 6 this year. That marks the Irish’s best finish in the STR since the metric’s 2007 inception. The No. 1 team is South Carolina, which Notre Dame beat 45-38 Friday in the Gator Bowl.
The Irish ran a successful fake punt in the fourth quarter on a go-ahead drive against the Gamecocks, their first attempted fake of the year. They allowed a fake field goal touchdown in the first quarter, but won special teams from there. They averaged 51.2 yards punt and committed zero penalties in that phase, while South Carolina was called for five.
Notre Dame hired Mason away from Cincinnati in January 2022 after he spent five seasons there, including four with Freeman. The Bearcats were No. 12 in the STR each of his last two seasons. They were tied for the most blocked kicks in the FBS (6) in 2021.
“It goes back to presentation and to how you present it in front of that room and gain, really, the trust of those guys to feel like, ‘Man, this is so important,’” Freeman said. “It’s not just another phase. They truly have a buy-in.”
Mason had previous coaching stops as a grad assistant at Ohio State (2015), Purdue (2013-14) and Kent State (2012), overlapping with Freeman in the latter two. Kent State held the No. 1 spot in the STR in his lone season there.
Mason was one of 51 nominees for the Broyles Award, which goes to the nation’s best assistant coach. Three of those 51 were special teams coordinators.
