Max Bullough is going home, and Notre Dame is losing one of its best coaches.
Actually, make that two commodities.
Sources tell FootballScoop that Bullough is going back to East Lansing, Michigan, where he starred during his player career, to become the Spartans’s co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach.
Additionally, sources tell FootballScoop that Tre Reader — less than a year removed from his playing career but already having helped tutor Notre Dame’s linebackers this past fall — will go with Bullough to Pat Fitzgerald’s Michigan State program.
Reader, sources told FootballScoop on Wednesday, will become Michigan State’s assistant linebackers coach.
The expected move will make Reader among the youngest full-time, assistant position coaches anywhere in college football.
His brother, Troy Reader, is a catcher on Notre Dame’s baseball team.
Notre Dame, per sources, had sought to keep Bullough and offered him an increased compensation package but the lure of returning to his alma mater was too strong.
Reader had the option to remain at Notre Dame, likely in a full-time role in Notre Dame’s recruiting department, but Reader instead is expected to accept Michigan State’s multi-year offer.
Bullough is a former Spartans star who spent multiple years as a player in the NFL, stints with both the Houston Texans and Cleveland Browns, before transitioning to college coaching. He was heralded by previous defensive coordinator Al Golden and also worked for Nick Saban at Alabama.
A Notre Dame football source told FootballScoop, “When Max did Marcus’s ‘Coach of the Week’ deal, it was unbelievable. He’s just really good.”
Freeman deploys every assistant to be the head coach of the week for the Irish as they navigate their schedule, a practice FootballScoop previously chronicled.