19 year coaching veteran Joe Rudolph paved the way with a twitter post for his expected hiring as ND’s new offensive line coach. “Sometimes, the moment you feel at home and comfortable, God pushes you in a new direction and presents you with new challenges,” Rudolph stated on the post Monday.
Here is the complete tweet:
Rudolph did not make any reference to Notre Dame in the tweet, but by Tuesday morning, Rudolph’s coaching bio had been removed from the Virginia Tech football website.
Rudolph reportedly is on campus today to meet with University President John Jenkins and Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick, presumably the last step in the hiring process.
The 50 year old Rudolph is highly regarded both as a coach and recruiter. An alumnus of the University of Wisconsin, he had a short NFL career before entering coaching as a graduate assistant at Ohio State in 2004. After three years at OSU and a year coaching tight ends at Nebraska he moved on to his alma mater from 2008-2011, again coaching tight ends. From 2012-2014 he served under Paul Chryst at Pittsburgh as assistant head coach and offensive coordinator. During that time span the Panthers matched up against ND four times, winning two and losing two. When Paul Chryst moved to Wisconsin in 2014, Rudolph served for one game as Pittsburgh’s interim head coach.
Rudolph then followed Cryst to Wisconsin in 2015 and spent the next seven seasons as the Badger assistant head coach, offensive coordinator and offensive line coach. While in Madison, the Badgers had five first team all-American offensive lineman from lines that paved the way for, among others, Jonathan Taylor. Taylor finished his three year collegiate career with 6, 174 rushing yards and 50 TDs and was the first player in collegiate history to rush for over 6,000 yards in a three year time span. In 2021 Rudolph’s Badgers lost to ND in a game played at Soldier Field, 41-13.
After Chryst was fired at UW after the 2021 season, Rudolph moved on to Virginia Tech where he spent last season as the Hokie run game coordinator and offensive line coach.
Rudolph brings significant experience to ND’s revamped offensive staff. Barring more turns of the coaching carousel, Marcus Freeman’s new offensive slate will include, along with Gerad Parker’s promotion to offensive coordinator, two newcomers in Rudolph and quarterbacks coach Gino Guidugli.