A little over a decade ago, Mark Dantonio led Michigan State football to the Rose Bowl where they capped off a special 13-1 season with a lone loss to Notre Dame.
Max Bullough was on that team as a captain, but Dantonio held him back from the Rose Bowl because he broke team rules, but nothing ever came to light about that situation. You know it tore Bullough up to miss the Rose Bowl after working his entire career to get to that point, but the linebacker just put his head down and worked toward his NFL future.
While he never really stuck in the NFL, he bounced around a bit and then decided to take a shot at coaching where he's since earned the linebackers coach role at -- you guessed it -- Notre Dame.
The program that spoiled a potential national title appearance in 2013 thanks to a plethora of phantom pass interference calls is now home to Bullough.
And he's thriving.
Max Bullough: No nonsense, as always.
— Tyler Horka (@tbhorka) August 10, 2025
The Notre Dame linebackers coach is fired up for the next phase of camp. Miami is coming up quick.
“We need to have good knee bend and finish square on the tackle when we’re hot, when we’re tired. When the shit’s hard.”
Football guy. pic.twitter.com/7bLx9Tn4dO
Bullough has become one of the best young assistants on Notre Dame's staff and it feels like it's only a matter of time before he earns a defensive coordinator role before working his way up to a potential head coaching job. He has a lot of work to do, but he's been managing an elite group of linebackers since 2024. Before that, he was a grad assistant with Cincinnati, Alabama, and then the Irish.
He's rapidly rising in the ranks.
And after watching the video above, it's clear why his players seem to love him and why the Notre Dame linebackers were a strength in last year's national title run. He almost helped lead the Irish to a national championship which is wild seeing as the Irish held him back from his only chance to make one as a player 12 years ago.
The video above also tells me one thing: it's time to bring Max home.
We've seen former players excel in coaching positions elsewhere, but Bullough is the one guy who feels like he would fit in perfectly. Plus, it would take some work off Joe Rossi's plate who is the defensive coordinator as well as the linebackers coach. If he had a full-time linebackers coach to help him out, the defense would only improve more rapidly.
A position coach would need to leave after the 2025 season to make room for Bullough, but I feel like if there's an open spot on the staff in the 2026 offseason, Bullough needs to be the top target.
Bring him home. He'd bring that Dantonio toughness to Jonathan Smith's staff.