Gerad Parker Talks Offensive Philosophy, Sam Hartman, Tyler Buchner, Play Calling

Gerad Parker likes to talk. It’s not an assumption, it is a self-proclaimed fact. “I'm a little bit you all learn, and (Notre Dame Head) Coach (Marcus Freeman) gives me a hard time, I'm a little bit of a talker,” Parker said during Monday’s press conference that introduced him at Notre Dame’s new offensive coordinator.

Parker speaks with a West Virginia drawl in a cadence that is much more quick-time than that of the late Bobby Bowden. The words sometimes run together, but he is still easy to understand.

It is easy to see how Parker and Freeman were drawn to each other in the one season (2016) they spent together at Purdue when they carpooled to practice each day while daydreaming out loud about who would work for whom once one of them became a head coach.

That day has arrived. After being reunited with his old friend as Notre Dame’s tight ends coach last season, Parker is now Freeman’s second offensive coordinator. He is also the first offensive coordinator Freeman has hired.

Parker commanded the room, not just with his folksy West Virginia twang and his sharp wit in his roughly 25 minutes at the podium fielding questions, but more importantly with his deep knowledge of offense.

Parker won the press conference, but winning football games is what is vastly more important. That fact is not lost on him as he jumps in with both feet in preparation for the start of spring practice next month.

"Leadership's a very lonely role I've learned throughout my career,” Parker said. “The first job I have is to lead a group of men that are very, very motivated to be great. .... When you lead you have to hold everybody accountable to the standards set forth from the head coach, and then from me in this offense. So holding staff and players accountable is one of the toughest things to transform to. 

"I know early in my career, that looked like really wanting to be a pleaser in some ways, and make sure that everybody likes you," continued Parker. "Certainly, you want to treat people with respect that at the end of the day, they know that. But at the same time, we're doing them an injustice if we don't hold people accountable to the standards of it. So, this offense moving forward is a collaborative effort, but it certainly falls on my name first."

Build around player strengths is key for Parker.

“I think the motivation moving forward will be what can our players do best and how do we make the ball go forward and gain yards and score points,” Parker stated. “If the answer to that question is yes, with any scheme we broach then we're going to do it. If the answer collaboratively is no or it's too much, then we'll dump it. 

"We'll move forward, keep things simple as we can and continue to let our guys make our plays work," he continued. "Which is going to be a big thing that I've shared already with the guys. We want our guys to take care of the football, we want them to have effort with physicality and want them to play with great details and make our plays work. So sometimes we'll cut the amount of plays and more look at making our plays work against multiple fronts and coverages so our guys are confident and play fast.”

Wide Receiver Growth

Parker is less experienced as a coordinator than the other two candidates who interviewed for the job. But what he lacks in experience, Parker makes up for with his knowledge of the roster and his own perceived strengths and weaknesses of the offensive operation.

He is a former wide receiver, having played college football at Kentucky, and he coached wideouts for much of his career. That is a position that Parker expects to see growth from, and it should come early.

"The growth of our wide receivers and all those things are going to be critical to us this spring, this summer and getting into fall,” Parker explained. ".... There's no secret no matter who it is, and I'll say the same thing in year two, like we want to score more points than we did last year and next year, we're going to want to score more points than we did last year. So that's the deal, and I think too, like one thing I want to make sure to say before my time is done here, that we also have great players and trust in our players and I want them to feel that trust. I want them to feel empowered to grow so we can do things better week one to week two, three to four, so on and so forth.”

Connecting With Sam Hartman

Notre Dame picked up who many across college football think is the best “free agent” acquisition of the offseason in former Wake Forest quarterback Sam Hartman. But Hartman transferred to Notre Dame when Rees was the offensive coordinator. Connecting with Hartman has been a top priority for Parker in his short time on the job.

“Sam and all of them,” Parker proclaimed. “They're all critical because now you're not building relationships with eight guys in the tight end room. You're building relationships with an entire offensive unit. I understand the question about Sam because of the nature of him coming here, then him getting here and it was it was big news. But he is driven by ball and driven to get better and come here to have what he wants to have success here at Notre Dame. 

"So, there's been communication with all of them, but especially with him to obviously sit down and talk to him about the direction of the offense to maybe ease some anxieties because with change comes a lot of thoughts and things that you want to get addressed," Parker continued. "So, we've addressed it with the entire offensive unit, the staff and we'll continue to, to give our guys confidence and let them know that the direction is to move forward as Coach Freeman says.”

Fitting Hartman And Tyler Buchner’s Skillsets To Parker’s Plan

Hartman is Notre Dame’s likely quarterback of “now”, with Tyler Buchner as his potential one-year understudy prepping for the future. Hartman is more mobile than former one-year Irish grad transfer Jack Coan, but Buchner’s running ability sets him apart. Parker’s task is to maximize the skillset of each of them to meet his vision.

"I think it's our job to know what their skills are and make them better,” Parker said. "But not get away from something that maybe it's not what fits them. So, it's going to be our job to tailor this thing around, in a pro style form as Coach Freeman said, but we're going to do what our players can do best and then find ways to enhance. So yes, some of them, there's some certain differences in the two so it's our job to play off those differences of who it may be with Sam and the same thing of Tyler just as we did in the bowl game. We want to do what our guys are good at and then get better at doing them.”

QB Responsibilities As A Non-QB Coach Offensive Coordinator

Like Rees’s predecessor, Chip Long, Parker will not be the quarterbacks coach. He will continue to work with tight ends. Notre Dame is expected to announce Gino Guidugli as its new quarterbacks coach soon, but Parker covered what his role will be, as offensive coordinator, working with Guidugli and the quarterbacks on the roster.

"In my mind how I've already thought about it will be like anything that is technician-based, we're going to have a pro that's going to do that part,” Parker described. "My part will be to make sure we have unit meetings to watch past phases of our offense and different things to make sure we're seeing the whole scope together through the same lens. More importantly, let those guys feel my confidence in what we want to call because they also love it. So, I think just tying it all together as a group, so we're speaking the same language.

"In the future (when) we're able to announce officially our quarterbacks coach, I don't want to be able to walk in and say something different than what he's saying,” Parker continued. "If we're not on the same page, speaking the same language and we have an issue and that will not be something we'll want to do. So just being able to speak the same language. How do you do that? You got to be able to communicate in the same room a lot of times, so we'll find ways to cheat that time together, if that makes sense.”

Clarifying Play Calling Duties At West Virginia

Parker’s only previous time as offensive coordinator was in 2020 and 2021 while working for Neal Brown at West Virginia. There is at least some dispute as to what Parker’s play calling duties were and whether or not he had them stripped from him at some point. He clarified what he thought was worthy of clarifying without airing any potential dirty laundry.

"I'll paint a very honest picture and in due respect by all parties involved, that's about all I would put with it is that a very clear message was put across when I took the job that I would run unit meetings and do a lot of things,” Parker explained. "I was involved in every facet of building an offensive game plan, controlling the players over there and unit meetings and all those things; that was clearly portrayed. During that time, I was offered by Coach (Neal) Brown an opportunity to be able to call plays at different times during year one. Those will be different moments red zone in different areas, when my number was called, be prepared. When it wasn't, serve the head coach to serve our offense, that was done.

"Year two at a certain time at that point, things changed for a multitude of reasons,” Parker continued. "When my number was called, I was prepared to call those games and call them in entirety. So, at that point, that's when things maybe changed to a full scope of calling complete games. The details of that I don't think are fair to anything moving forward. But I was tremendously grateful for that opportunity. It prepared me for what this one is going to be. That's really about all I would say to it.”

Red Zone Philosophy

Notre Dame ranked 50th in the nation in red zone scores in 2022 at 86%, with a 70% red zone touchdown rate. Parker is focused on improving the red zone offense.

"It was a really good focus for me at West Virginia and other places,” Parker said of his red zone focus. "To be collaborative is something huge, because I think in my opinion, it does two things for your staff. Number one, it makes them matter. There's nothing better as an assistant coach to be able to see a play work during the game that you helped implement and put in and provides them with ownership. You don't want to have a staff that just where you take on everything and before you know it, it may create something where they don't grow. 

"You want to have a collaborative effort where they own it," continued the Irish coordinator. "I think doing that at West Virginia helped me to where then if the red zone had a bad day on game day, you just didn't say well, I did well, I just coached the wide outs or the tight ends or whatever. No, we failed. If you really own it, it's on you, too. That's how I felt. So, moving forward, I hope we have the same relationship with our staff in certain areas that they'll provide studies on a weekly basis. We'll put a plan together, we'll trust the plan, trust our players and attack it.”

What If Spring Practice Started Tomorrow?

Parker has a vision for the Notre Dame offense, but for now it is still a vision. He has a few weeks to prepare for the start of spring practice, but what if it started tomorrow?

"If we dial one up tomorrow, I'd probably be in there a little bit late tonight and the Gug, but we'd get it done,” Parker laughed. “The beauty is our guys .... I mean, this place these guys how they study and being able to overcome a huge hurdle, which is, you know, half the battle is lining up being able to strike a cadence, get the ball snapped and everybody knowing what to do and line up. We can do that right now. What we decide to add or subtract is going to be fun to do. So to really answer your question, if we did it, we will get the job done. I probably wouldn't sleep much, but our guys would have confidence to be able to go out there and line up in base formations and do some things and that is going to help this transition be somewhat smooth.”