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Report: Notre Dame to hire new assistant wide receivers coach from Big Ten school

IMG_9992by: Tyler Horka02/18/25tbhorka
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(Photo by Chad Weaver/BGI)

Notre Dame recently lost wide receivers coach Mike Brown’s right-hand man, offensive analyst Michael Bearden, to the Cleveland Browns. According to a report from John Brice of FootballScoop, the Fighting Irish will replace him with Northwestern’s Dom Spalding.

Spalding is a native of Canton, Mich. He graduated from Youngstown State in Ohio. His brother, Devon, has been the running backs coach at Wisconsin since the 2023 season. Devon Spalding started his coaching career at Cincinnati as a graduate assistant in 2019. Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman was still the defensive coordinator for the Bearcats at that time. The elder Spalding reports to Luke Fickell at Wisconsin, who was Freeman’s boss in Cincy.

Spalding is the second analyst to join the Notre Dame staff in as many days. Monday, On3’s Pete Nakos confirmed a report from 247 Sports that the Irish were bringing in West Virginia’s Jevaughn Codlin to help defensive backs coach Mike Mickens coach the Notre Dame secondary.

Codlin is essentially a replacement for Mike Moon, who followed former Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden to the Cincinnati Bengals just like Spalding is a replacement for Bearden linking up with former Notre Dame offensive coordinator Tommy Rees in Cleveland. Golden is now the Bengals’ defensive coordinator, and Rees is in charge of the Browns’ offense.

All things considered, Notre Dame survived “silly season,” a term often used to describe the movement of coaches from one university to another or from college to the NFL and vice versa, quite nicely. Yes, Golden leaving was never the desired outcome. But it was an expected one to a degree, and the Irish replaced him with a veteran former defensive coordinator in Chris Ash.

The only other on-field assistant coach to leave Notre Dame this offseason was running backs coach Deland McCullough. He assumed the same position with the Las Vegas Raiders, assuming very favorable compensation to be a part of Pete Carroll’s staff there in the process. Notre Dame stole away former Penn State running backs coach Ja’Juan Seider to fill the vacancy left by McCullough’s departure.

Perhaps the most shocking silly season move involving Notre Dame was general manager Chad Bowden’s lateral move to USC. He also received a hefty pay raise, per reports, to help Trojans head coach Lincoln Riley get that program back on track. Freeman and the Irish courted Mike Martin of the Detroit Lions to take Bowden’s place as the GM.

All of ND’s new hires should be in place by the start of spring practices next month.

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