It started when Pat Coogan didn’t, which is sort of the point. Because when Notre Dame kicked off the longest football season in school history back at Texas A&M, Coogan gave the same kind of juiced-up, four-letter-fueled speech that’s become appointment viewing in the College Football Playoff.
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It’s just that nobody noticed when it came from a backup guard — other than the people who mattered.
Six months later, the audience has changed because Notre Dame is two wins away from its first national championship since 1988 and the orator is more central to the story. Before last week’s Sugar Bowl win over Georgia, before Coogan took the field holding the American flag, the Irish center held court outside the Notre Dame tunnel and unleashed a 42-second blast that included at least 17 F-bombs, punctuated by, “It’s God, it’s country, it’s motherf—ing Notre Dame.”
The entire offensive line surrounded Coogan, who plays the part of team captain whether he has a “C” on his jersey or not.
“I’ve kind of been an emotional kid my whole life,” Coogan said. “It’s easy to get fired up and stuff like that because of how much I love this university and how much I care for these guys. That’s really, truly what it is. It’s nothing for clicks or anything like that. It’s truly just a moment with the guys, and now it’s 2025 and everyone brings their phones out.”
Coogan doesn’t remember what it’s like not to be a Notre Dame fan because there’s nothing else to remember. Around the age of 12, Coogan asked for tickets to a Notre Dame-Duke basketball game for his birthday. Because what else does an Irish-Catholic kid want other than a reason to get back to Notre Dame? He wore a green No. 1 Notre Dame jersey for so many of those trips to South Bend in elementary school, taking pictures with the Irish guard, growing up around the program he now leads.
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The Coogan family is pure subway alumni from the South Side of Chicago, other than an uncle who attended Notre Dame Law. Pat graduated from Marist High, just like his dad, Mike, whose senior football season overlapped with the last time Notre Dame won it all. Mike doesn’t remember life before Notre Dame football either, with parents Bill and Rosemarie counting themselves as Notre Dame fans before their kids had a choice not to be.
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Rosemarie heard her grandson’s pregame speech for the first time in December, during the weekend of Notre Dame’s year-end awards banquet. Pat wasn’t sure they should do it. Mike insisted.
“These were her actual words,” Mike said. “‘I love the enthusiasm.’”
How could anyone not?
Pat Coogan has started the past 11 games at center. (Dale Zanine / Imagn Images)
What gives Coogan’s speeches bite isn’t word choice; it’s the career arc of the guy delivering them. When former Notre Dame offensive coordinator Tommy Rees recruited Coogan, he was blunt about where the offensive lineman stood on their board. Notre Dame liked four-star Garrett Dellinger from Clarkston, Mich., more. Dellinger was also high school teammates with Rocco Spindler, Notre Dame’s top interior line target that cycle.
So if Coogan wanted to chase the dream at Notre Dame, he’d have to wait on it. But when Dellinger committed to LSU, Rees doubled back, offering a scholarship in March of the lineman’s junior year. Coogan waited a couple of days to accept, probably just to make sure it wasn’t too good to be true. Then he called Rees to commit. He caught the offensive coordinator shopping at Costco, which was as good a place as any to receive the news.
“Always, always, always, with an emphasis on three times, the dream was ‘play at Notre Dame,’” Mike said. “We all knew that.”
Coogan enrolled in the same 2021 recruiting class as early-round NFL Draft picks Joe Alt and Blake Fisher. Then he watched both start as freshmen. Coogan didn’t see the field. He played just once as a sophomore, during a 44-0 blowout of Boston College in a blizzard. But that’s how it’s supposed to work for linemen: redshirt, play a little, win a starting job if you’re good enough. And Coogan was good enough, taking the left guard job during preseason camp and leading the team in snaps played that fall.
Coogan’s Notre Dame story was going to script. Until August of this year when the staff started to work redshirt freshman Sam Pendleton at left guard, betting on potential over production. It felt like an out-of-the-box move that Notre Dame couldn’t possibly carry into the opener in College Station, making an inexperienced offensive line even less experienced. And then it did.
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Coogan still gave that pregame speech at Texas A&M. Then he watched the game from the sideline as Notre Dame served notice about where this season could go in a dramatic win against the Aggies. Coogan watched from the sideline a week later, too, when it all came crashing down against Northern Illinois, where his grandfather Bill played fullback. But when starting center Ashton Craig tore his ACL at Purdue, Coogan answered the call, playing a new position and never missing a beat.
He has started all 11 games since. And Notre Dame has won them all, heading toward Thursday night’s Playoff semifinal in the Orange Bowl against Penn State.
“The great thing about Pat is even when he wasn’t asked to be in a prominent role, he was a prominent leader. That speaks a lot to the culture of that room and his character in particular,” offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock said. “From Mike McGlinchey to Quenton Nelson to Jeff Faine, the leadership and the importance of it in that room, and to have a guy like Pat at the forefront of that room …”
During Notre Dame’s clock-draining drive against Georgia in the Sugar Bowl — basically when the Irish line forced the Bulldogs to submit — Denbrock called a jet sweep to Jordan Faison. The play was designed to run toward the Notre Dame sideline, and Coogan pulled left on it. In the flat, Coogan blocked cornerback Daylen Everette and kept blocking him straight into the Notre Dame bench.
The play got called back for a penalty, not that it mattered. Message delivered.
“Coogs is an unbelievable leader,” Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman said. “He is passionate about this place, and he’s passionate about that position. To start the season, we felt like what was best for that game was to have him as a backup. And he didn’t complain, just worked. Now he’s in the position where he’s our starting center, and he’s just battling and doing a great job, and he’s leading the group.
“I gotta hear some of these speeches.”
(Top photo: Sean Gardner / Getty Images)
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