The San Diego Chargers will work out Notre Dame placekicker Kyle Brindza.

Blue & Gold Illustrated has learned that the Chargers are sending an assistant coach to South Bend to take a closer look at Brindza during Notre Dame's Pro Day this Tuesday.

Kicking guru Brandon Kornblue, who has worked with Brindza since the latter's days in high school, said on Monday that the Chargers are on a short list of NFL teams that have been in contact with Brindza.

"I don't know specifically which teams or coaches will be there, but one of the San Diego Chargers coaches will be running the combine for Kyle and having him go through what they want him to do," Kornblue said. "There are about eight to 10 teams that have been talking to him pretty regularly and showing interest, so I would assume that there will be somebody — whether a special teams coordinator or a scout — from those teams that will be there."

While it might seem like an industry standard for an NFL coach to be on hand to run a specialist through drills, Kornblue explained that's not always the case. He has had clients in the past earn invites to the NFL Combine, and then get little to no attention from scouts at a Pro Day.

"I have heard story after story of things like that happening, and I have seen it first hand," Kornblue said. "It's like the scouts are there, but they don't care. It's a pattern for kickers and the nature of the position, but having a guy that is an actual NFL coach running the kicking portion will be helpful."

Brindza, who was 14 of 24 on field goals attempts in 2014, is ranked by WalterFootball.com as the No. 2 kicking prospect in the upcoming NFL Draft. He participated in the NFL Combine last month, but didn't have a favorable performance on the field in front of scouts.

Kornblue said that the duo spent time together after the combine to hash out some hitches with technique in Naples, Fla., and he believes that Brindza is kicking better than he was previously.

"The thing with him was the holding issues," Kornblue said of a late-season change from regular holder Hunter Smith to backup quarterback Malik Zaire. "Not that that was out of his control, but what happened was, because of that, he picked up some technical flaws. With me being from a distance and not being able to work with him hands on during the season, I wasn't able to pinpoint anything. So as soon as he got down here it was obvious he had picked up some bad habits that we had to correct."

In addition to the one-on-one instruction that Brindza received with Kornblue, he also trained at Ignition APG Florida — a state-of-the-art facility for NFL draft hopefuls — and changed his diet.

Kornblue said it was there at a two-week combine camp that Brindza, also the Irish starting punter the past two years, got the idea that he could challenge the NFL combine bench record for a kicker. While Brindza managed to only get 14 repetitions at 225 pounds last month at the combine, he'll try again on Tuesday to break the record of 25.

"That's what I think separates him for the rest," Kornblue said. "It's very rare for a kicker to have an agent invest into that type of training and to have a kicker with the desire to do that type of stuff."

It's also rare for an NFL team to send a coach to watch a kicker at Pro Day.

In addition to Brindza, there will 10 other former Irish football players returning and participating to various degrees: wide receiver DaVaris Daniels, tight end Jake Golic, quarterback Andrew Hendrix, defensive lineman Ethan Johnson, tight end Ben Koyack, running back Cam McDaniel, linebacker Kendall Moore, cornerback Cody Riggs, defensive lineman Justin Utupo and tight end Alex Welch.