Brian Kelly wanted Mike Elko to stay.

Actually, he expected Elko to stay. Then Elko left for Texas A&M, leaving a much-improved Notre Dame defense without a leader. Five days later Kelly made a somewhat surprising announcement: He would elevate linebackers coach Clark Lea, Elko’s right-hand man, to the role of DC despite no previous coordinator experience.

Eleven months later, Kelly looks like a genius and Lea has cemented his place as a rising star in the coaching industry.

In almost every way Notre Dame’s 2018 defense is better than the unit that preceded it. The Irish jumped from 25th in yards allowed per play to eighth, spurring an undefeated run and helping to secure a spot in the College Football Playoff.

For that reason, coupled with his first-year success, Lea is the 247Sports Defensive Coordinator of the Year.

Lea, 37, inherited plenty of clay with nine starters returning. He made the most of it.

Notre Dame allowed 369.2 yards and 21.5 points per game in 2017. This year, those numbers dropped to 331.5 yards and 17.3 points a contest. Notre Dame’s made a jump in turnover margin (46th to 36th), sacks (70th to 37th) and in limiting plays of 20-plus yards (59th to 8th).

Part of the shift is simply defensive comfort in the second year of the system. The longer a team spends in a scheme, the better it gets. But Lea deserves a lot of the credit for improving on and tweaking what Elko built. It’s not easy to be a first-time play-caller. Lea’s made it appear a simple task.

A former Vanderbilt fullback, Lea’s quickly risen through the ranks. A UCLA graduate assistant in 2009, Lea’s hopped from UCLA to Bowling Green to Syracuse to Wake Forest and finally South Bend.

Yeah, Lea is running Elko’s system after working under him for three years.

But he added his own wrinkles to what the Irish do. More importantly, he didn’t try to reinvent what’d been done previously. Lea, with his Rover LB, is at the forefront of defensive flexibility and schemes in terms of the way he attacks modern defenses. It would’ve been hard to know that before the season considering he’d never called plays before.

Kelly took the risk, though.

It’s paid off for Irish and its first-year defensive coordinator.

Previous winners: Jim Leonhard (Wisconsin - 2017), Jeremy Pruitt (Alabama - 2016), Brent Venables (Clemson - 2015), Bob Shoop (Penn State - 2014), Pat Narduzzi (Michigan State - 2013).