Notre Dame has always been a special place in my mind. I've journeyed around, like a lot of coaches, but I always said if I had a chance [to coach at Notre Dame] I would do everything I could.

Playing for Coach Lauro really made you feel prepared for college. That's a scary feeling when you're a 17-year-old kid leaving New Castle to go to Virginia Tech, but you just knew you were prepared because he worked you so hard you were going to survive that.

He was still in the playoffs when he threw us the playbook and told us to learn it. We all had to learn a new system and that's what we wanted, because, obviously, that system is so successful at the highest level that that's what you want to learn.