I think this is an EXCELLENT HIRE!!! 
Let’s guess who he hires as the LB Coach.
Notre Dame Fans Next Season: “Why are the defenders playing so far off the line of scrimmage??? … And why do we seem willing to so easily concede yardage between the 20’s???”
Notre Dame Beat Reporter: “Coach Golden, do you know who you be adding to the defensive staff?”
Golden: “I dono”
AG was the DC at UVA before he became the HC at Temple.
Absolutely! 
good for him i guess. he might still have been the HC here had he fired Donofrio.
Very accurate statement
I had no clue he was even with the Bengals
Last i heard…Lions
It’s hard to fire your best friend especially when he is your brother-in-law.
I figure ND’s HC must want to get fired within two years so he can implement the “Brian Flores Plan To Achieving Wealth”
I will always like Al Golden. Guy needed to do 1 thing and he’d probably still be here.
I guess in a way you can say he’s a stand up guy. Protected his friend. I get it.
Good for him. He’s a good coach. There’s no denying it. And ND is going to get a hell of a recruiter too.
And he’s a good man. It’s unfortunate that things turned out the way that they did. All he had to do was fire his DC.
You guys have short memories.
At best, an average HC IMHO. Over five seasons at Miami, he was less than .500 in ACC play, slightly over .500 overall and 0 for 5 against FSU. Sued Miami after being fired and pursued other jobs while he was HC. Virtually everyone here wanted him fired. Yeah, he was great.
Pretty good recruiter, good bullshitter and that was about it IMHO.
Notice that no other team has hired him as a HC and it’s been 6 years since Miami canned him. That speaks volumes.
And he doesn’t get a pass because of Dono. Dono implemented Golden’s defense to the letter.
Maybe he’ll make it as a DC at ND. But, I won’t be shocked if he is fired within two years.
Frankly, I think this is an insane hire by Freeman. There had to be better options given ND’s budget. But, Al probably whipped out the binder and Freeman had no chance after that.
I wondered if it was covered in Shamrocks. I said he’s a good man because he genuinely cared about his players as people.
“Deserve shamrocks”
“Deserve echoes”
“Deserve grottoes”
“Deserve entitlement”
“Deserve over-ranking”
“Deserve everything”
This has the be the most accurate thing ever!
A lot of people in the Miami fanbase forget that he left the cabinet stocked with some legit talent after he left. Richt didn’t win 19 games in his first two years with a bunch of JAGs. Had Golden been more of a savage in regards to firing people, he would have been fine. Then again, I’m convinced that had he found a way to keep Fisch around, he would have been better off. Fisch was able to hit on Kaaya, and was a better overall playcaller. You get a legit DC to team with that, and Miami would have been doing quite well. He had a ceiling, but a lot of us would have been fine with being 9-10 wins per year with the occasional huge year, especially coming off of Randy and Coker.
What puts him over his Miami peers in the last 20 years is that organizationally, he was actually a HC. Between Coker, Shannon, golden, Richt, Diaz…I’m sure most here would rank management of the program as Richt>golden>>Coker/shannon>Diaz. The key stuff people harp on is roster management, recruiting, evals, coaching hires. And when ranked with those HC qualities you get the above. Richt obviously more experienced/refined in this stint. But golden was the only other coach in the last 20 years that exhibited HC qualities.
Diaz was clearly over his head. Couldn’t even manage half a roster as DC and had no overall vision for the program. Shannon decent recruiting and getting guys in the program in the right #s but not good with development. Coker asleep at the wheel and only remembered fondly because he started at the top. If he started somewhere in the last 15 years would have been fired in year 3.
So against that field, golden looks good in retrospect and that’s what folks remember. Overall, he’s the Great Value Brand HC…good for a low P5 but not gonna take the next step.
There’s a reason why he’s been bouncing around the NFL as an LB coach and just got a college DC job