Notre Dame officially promotes Max Bullough, Mike Mickens
Notre Dame had a plan the day safeties coach Chris O’Leary left for the Los Angeles Chargers, and now, that plan is complete. Cornerbacks coach Mike Mickens will now coach the entire secondary and defensive graduate assistant Max Bullough has been promoted to linebackers coach, the team announced Tuesday.
Irish defensive coordinator Al Golden, who recently signed a four-year contract extension, will no longer coach a position group.
If you watched Notre Dame’s practices throughout the 2023 season, you would have thought Bullough was already the linebackers coach. He spent the most time with the position group throughout individual drills, while Golden took a CEO-type role in managing the entire defense. That dynamic is now official, and Bullough now has an on-field assistant coach job.
Working with the linebackers in 2023, Bullough helped JD Bertrand and Marist Liufau perform well enough to earn Senior Bowl and NFL Scouting Combine invites. Jack Kiser, who returned to Notre Dame for the 2024 season, was Pro Football Focus’ second-highest-graded linebacker in rotational snaps last year, too.
Bullough held graduate assistant jobs at Cincinnati in 2019 — where he worked with Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman and several current Irish assistants, including Mickens — and Alabama from 2020-22 before coming to South Bend. The Traverse City, Mich. native played college football at Michigan State, where he was a team captain and first-team All-Big Ten linebacker his senior year.
After leaving the Spartans, Bullough signed with the Houston Texans as an undrafted free agent and played in the NFL for three years.
With O’Leary’s departure, Mickens became Notre Dame’s longest-tenured coach (excluding offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock, who was with the Irish from 2002-04 and 2010-16). Beginning in 2023, Mickens has held the title of defensive pass game coordinator as well. He has coached cornerbacks with the Irish since 2020 after doing so at Idaho, Bowling Green and Cincinnati.
Under Mickens’ direction, Cam Hart developed from a seldom-used, injured redshirt freshman coming off injury to a lockdown cornerback who will almost certainly hear his name called in the upcoming NFL Draft. He also recruited Benjamin Morrison and oversaw his breakout freshman season. Morrison is a projected first-round pick when he becomes draft-eligible in 2025.
Additionally, Mickens stocked the cornerback room with young, emerging talent such as Jaden Mickey and Christian Gray. He’ll have the chance to do the same with the safeties after O’Leary’s successful three-year run.
