If you’ve ever been to the Jersey Shore, you can feel it.
The breeze coming off the shore. The smells of cotton candy and funnel cakes wafting through the air. A Bruce Springsteen song playing over the loudspeakers.
For Al Golden, this is paradise.
This is the place that shaped him, that made him into one of the best defensive minds in football. The place that helped him handle the highs and lows of a career in football. The place that served as the perfect respite from the stress of a physically and mentally taxing job, knowing that down the Jersey Shore, everything would be all right.
“Some people go on trips. Some people go take vacations. Some people go to Europe. I go to New Jersey,” Golden said. “That’s it. Man, leave me alone. People see me with my cigar on the boardwalk, and that’s it.”
Notre Dame isn’t one win away from its first national championship since 1988 without its Colts Neck native defensive coordinator. “The Godfather” of Notre Dame’s defense, as some of his players call him, has his group playing at an exceptionally high level right now. They limited No. 2 Georgia to only 10 points and completely swung the game when RJ Oben, who grew up in Montclair, New Jersey, stripped Gunner Stockton deep in the Bulldogs’ territory with less than a minute remaining in the first half. One play later, Notre Dame was up 13-3, a lead it would never relinquish.
Against Penn State, cornerback Christian Gray delivered the heroics, intercepting Penn State quarterback Drew Allar with only 33 seconds left in the game. It improbably turned a game that felt destined for overtime into a thrilling 27-24 win after Mitch Jeter kicked a 41-yard field goal.
The toughest test for Golden and his crew comes Monday night against Ohio State. Notre Dame ranks No. 1 in passing defense efficiency and No. 2 in scoring defense (14.3 ppg), which will surely be put to the test Monday against the Buckeyes’ high-flying offense that includes star receivers Jeremiah Smith, Emeka Egbuka, and Carnell Tate.
But Golden is ready for this moment.
From starting as the offensive coordinator at Red Bank Catholic, his high school alma mater, the 55-year-old Colts Neck native has been everywhere from Boston College to the Detroit Lions before joining Marcus Freeman’s staff in 2022. Everywhere he goes, he brings the same fiery attitude that players say has them ready to run through a brick wall for him at a moment’s notice.
“He brings that Jersey attitude,” Notre Dame linebackers coach Max Bullough told CBS Sports. “Everyone knows what that means. It’s stubborn, it’s hard-nosed, and it’s lethal when it’s pointed in the right direction. That’s how he’s lived his life, and from the day I met him, that’s how he’s attacked our job and our defense.”
A Jersey connection
Fifth-year senior Kevin Bauman has been hearing about Golden for a long time.
Bauman, a Red Bank native, had Golden’s sister-in-law as his kindergarten and first-grade teacher. She’d frequently talk about her famous brother-in-law and said one day Bauman would play for him.
He followed Golden’s path and played high school football at Red Bank Catholic, but a college reunion felt unlikely. When Bauman, a highly rated tight end, committed to Brian Kelly and Notre Dame in 2018, Golden was a linebackers coach with the Detroit Lions and hadn’t been in college football since being fired at Miami in 2015.
That changed when Golden came on board as Notre Dame’s DC in 2022 and quickly made the connection with Bauman.
“He loves saying I’m the second-best tight end to come out of RBC, him being the first,” Bauman told CBS Sports.
“He knows the area. It’s like having a piece of home out here. Not to mention the football mind that he is, he’s a genius.”
Bauman is one of five New Jersey natives on Notre Dame’s roster this season. They’ve heard Golden talk about his love of “The Godfather,” “The Sopranos,” and the New York Yankees.
“Getting a lot of Sopranos, a lot of Meadowlands, Hoboken,” said defensive tackle Howard Cross III, who hails from Paramus. “Talking about we’re going to pop their kneecaps, you know what I mean? But it’s a lot of fun for sure.”
Said Bauman: “He loves Sopranos quotes. He’s a Jersey guy through and through.”
With a cigar in his mouth, damn if it isn’t easy to see Golden slipping into a booth at Vesuvio with Tony, Paulie, Sil, and the rest of his favorite Sopranos characters. This current version of Golden even looks the part now that the shirt and tie combo he famously wore at Miami is gone.
It’s not worth spending much time reminiscing about Golden’s time at Miami — “remember when” is the lowest form of conversation, after all — but he has embarked on a remarkable journey to get back to this moment. Before ever coaching a game at Miami, Golden had to handle the fallout of the Nevin Shapiro scandal that hampered his program. He still managed a winning record (32-25), but after being fired midway through his fifth season in Coral Gables, Golden all but dropped off the map. The low point may have been when then-Detroit Lions coach Matt Patricia fired him in 2019.
And yet, he persevered. He landed with the Cincinnati Bengals, fared well in two seasons, and then got his invite to return to college football. His name has recently been linked to the Bengals’ defensive coordinator opening, a subject he didn’t have much interest in delving into two days before the national championship.
He’s too focused on trying to help Freeman and the rest of the Notre Dame football program win a national championship.
He knows, no matter what happens Monday night, he wouldn’t be here without the Garden State.
“You’ve got to rise above,” Golden said. “I don’t think I am where I am, I don’t think I’ve made the journey without being raised there, going to Red Bank Catholic High School, listening to Bruce Springsteen, it’s all part of it. That’s who we are, where we’re from. And Jon Bon Jovi, I can keep going on and on. But the guys back home will know what I’m talking about.”
