Notre Dame Football: Irish to make Gerard Parker new offensive coordinator

Notre Dame’s wild coaching search for their next offensive coordinator is coming to an end, and the man for the job is current tight ends coach, Gerard Parker.

Notre Dame has put this search through the ringer. Through all of the rumors, Notre Dame’s search centered on Sean Lewis (Colorado Buffaloes), Andy Ludwig (Utah Utes), and Collin Klein (Kansas State Wildcats). After an underwhelming visit/interview with Klein, there was momentum for Andy Ludwig — and his offensive line coach, Jim Harding.

Whatever version of the Ludwig story that you want to believe, the absolute truth is that there were multiple screw-ups and mishandlings with his situation. All of that ultimately led to Notre Dame interviewing an in-house candidate in tight ends coach, Gerard Parker yesterday — and today he got the job.

Parker played wide receiver for the Kentucky Wildcats from 2000-2004. His real coaching career began at UT-Martin from 2008-2010. In 2011 he went to coach wide receivers for a couple of years at Marshall. In 2013 he took a job with the Purdue Boilermakers (where his relationship with Marcus Freeman began). While at Purdue, he coached tight ends from 2013-2014 and then the wide receivers from 2015-2016. During his entire tenure at Purdue he was the running game coordinator as well.

Parker took over as the interim head coach halfway through Purdue’s 2016 season after Darrell Hazell was fired, and went 0-6 during that time.

Gerard then bounced around three more times (Duke Blue Devils, Penn State Nittany Lions, West Virginia Mountaineers) before landing at Notre Dame in Marcus Freeman’s first season.

This isn’t a hire that many Irish fans wanted, but it’s here now, and something we will have to keep a close eye on as the Irish figure to be a top 15 preseason team with a legitimate Heisman candidate at quarterback in Sam Hartman.