SOUTH BEND — No, Mike Mickens hasn’t cloned himself. It has only seemed that way leading up to Saturday’s Blue-Gold Game for Notre Dame football.
Entering his fifth season on the Irish coaching staff, Mickens already had a well-deserved reputation as a Cornerback Whisperer. After all, that was the position he played (and later coached) at the University of Cincinnati and the path he took to the NFL after being drafted by the Dallas Cowboys in the seventh round in 2009.
Now, in addition to his role as Notre Dame’s defensive pass game coordinator, Mickens has taken on the responsibility of coaching all Irish defensive backs. That was the solution his boss and former Wayne High School teammate Marcus Freeman landed on after well-regarded safeties coach Chris O’Leary jumped to the NFL’s Los Angeles Chargers in February.
“I look at it as an advantage,” the 36-year-old Mickens said. “The advantage of it is you hear one voice.”
His.
“Everybody’s hearing the same thing, and the communication is always going to be there with it,” Mickens said. “Also, it grows the knowledge of everybody, right? Now the safeties understand truly what the corner is doing and how he’s playing his technique based off what he’s doing.”
And vice versa.
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“It grows their knowledge as football players as well,” Mickens said, “just being able to hear the whole philosophy, the whole back end, the system of it — not just only position-specific work.”
As closely as he worked with O’Leary over the past four seasons, Mickens sees the benefits of this new workflow.
“I love it,” Mickens said. “I love being around the back end and being with all those guys. I used to tell CO all the time: ‘Hey, it’s like gumbo.’ We’re all back there. We’re all in this thing together. No matter what, we’re on the same page. They hear one voice now, that’s all.”
As former Notre Dame captain Cam Hart prepared for the NFL Draft, working through whiteboard explanations during extensive interviews with professional coaches, scouts and executives, he realized once more just how fortunate he’d been.
After switching from receiver to cornerback as a freshman in 2019, his first full spring on the defensive side coincided with Mickens’ arrival.
“That sophomore year was really my first legit year at corner, and that’s when Coach Mickens came in,” Hart said. “Our relationship grew since then. He did a really good job of preparing me to play any position in the NFL. I know safety in and out. I know what the linebackers are doing in and out in our defense, and then I especially know boundary, field corner and the nickel. I have a great understanding of playing inside.”
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From Hart’s perspective, having Mickens take on complete oversight of the nation’s top-rated pass defense from 2023 made perfect sense.
“Coach Mickens, I feel like he can coach any position on the defensive back end,” Hart said. “It’s going to be good to have them all in one room, hearing the same terminology, getting the same coaching. I think it will be better for them.”
Sophomore cornerback Christian Gray, battling Jaden Mickey for the starting job opposite All-America candidate Benjamin Morrison, likes the new arrangement as well.
“It’s actually really great,” Gray said. “We’re learning everything about the defense: where our help is, who’s got our back, who doesn’t have our back, what the coverages are and everything. It’s very, very teachable. We have a strong connection with the safeties.”
As Mickens works to create a seamless defensive backfield, one that often uses five and six defenders at a time in the secondary, he has plenty of helpers.
Marty Biagi, the special-teams coordinator who has coached defensive backs at Southern University (2012-14) and South Dakota (2015), has taken on the duties of assistant defensive backs coach for Notre Dame.
There’s also defensive analyst/safeties coach Casey McHugh, who holds a master’s degree in engineering from Old Dominion and spent last season as a defensive grad assistant at Oklahoma State, where he worked with the linebackers; and GA Bryce Dempsey, previously the defensive coordinator and safeties coach at Division II Mercyhurst in Erie, Pa.
“I’ve got plenty of help,” Mickens said. “I’ve got great support. Everybody’s on the same page. We’ve got a lot back there, a lot of eyes on them, so there’s nowhere to hide, I tell them.”
With defensive coordinator Al Golden signed to an extension through 2027, Notre Dame might not be able to stash a rising talent like Mickens much longer.
Freeman adamantly stated last October that Mickens was “ready to be a defensive coordinator,” calling him a “tremendous football coach, schematically and in the fundamentals of playing the cornerback position.”
Now that “brilliant mind” is whirring nonstop as the Irish, who return Nagurski Trophy winner Xavier Watts at safety, seek to incorporate grad transfers Jordan Clark (Arizona State) and Rod Heard II (Northwestern) while dealing with the departures of starters Hart, DJ Brown and Thomas Harper and former multiyear starter Clarence Lewis, who announced his commitment to Syracuse as a grad transfer on April 16.
After the Irish pass defense hauled in 16 interceptions a year ago while allowing just eight touchdown passes, the latter figure tied with Michigan for fewest in the country, the bar is set extremely high.
“I love challenges,” Mickens said. “It’s not much of a learning curve for me. I like to be knowledgeable for everything. I’ve thought that for a long time. To me it’s not too much of adapting to that coaching-wise. I might say it differently than Coach O’Leary said it in the past, so I’m making sure they understand the teaching of it, and that’s it.”
And the players?
“You’re in the run game, you’re in the pass game, so you see the whole picture of it right there,” he said. “That’s the great part about it. You talk all of that, you teach all of that, and some of those corners may not have known all of that. Now they hear what the safeties have to do, and the same thing with the safeties hearing what the corners have to do.”
Eventually, Mickens knows his professional growth could lead to an opportunity elsewhere that’s simply too good to ignore. In the meantime, he’s in the daily flow of chasing a national championship alongside his friend of more than two decades.
“The first thing is I love it here,” Mickens said. “I love working for Coach Freeman. I love his culture. I love everything that he represents. I love Notre Dame. I love what Notre Dame represents. I love the kids that come here and the mentality that they have. That’s a big piece.”
Wife Jessica and their young daughter Millie are immersed in the area as well.
“If anybody comes after me, I still always think about the pros that are here,” Mickens said. “I tell guys in recruiting all the time: I’m not just jumping to jump into a job. I’m not that type of guy. It has to be the right fit, the right place for me to ever think about leaving.”
Mike Berardino covers Notre Dame football for NDInsider.com and is on social media @MikeBerardino.
