Reports: Notre Dame to hire Virginia Tech offensive line coach Joe Rudolph in same role

Marcus Freeman’s second staff at Notre Dame is complete, barring any unexpected departures in the next few weeks before spring practices commence on March 22. Per multiple Monday reports, the Irish will hire Joe Rudolph as their offensive line coach to replace Harry Hiestand who retired following Tommy Rees’s departure for Alabama.

Irish Illustrated first reported Rudolph’s imminent hire.

Rudolph spent the last season as the offensive line coach and running game coordinator at Virginia Tech, part of Brent Pry’s debut staff, a group of coaches intentionally picked by Pry with a long-term build in mind. When Pry put together that staff a year ago, he reportedly bypassed some flashier candidates to hire coaches who would grind in Blacksburg for the long haul. Freeman and Notre Dame pulling Rudolph out of that plan speaks to the allure of the Irish offensive line with a pair of tackles expected to someday be first-round draft picks in rising junior left tackle Joe Alt and rising junior right tackle Blake Fisher.

Before heading to Virginia Tech, Rudolph spent the previous seven seasons coaching Wisconsin’s offensive line and coordinating its offense. A former captain with the Badgers, that was Rudolph’s second stint as a coach in Madison, previously coaching the tight ends from 2008 to 2011.

Between those two gigs, he was the offensive coordinator at Pittsburgh for three seasons, working under Paul Chryst, who Rudolph then followed back to Wisconsin.

To summarize that: Rudolph was Chryst’s offensive coordinator for a decade, coaching the offensive line for seven of those years. He also has experience at Nebraska and Pittsburgh.

He began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Ohio State from 2004 to