The video, shot inside Notre Dame’s pristine Irish Athletics Center indoor complex, doesn’t even lapse 30 seconds.
It doesn’t feature a highlight-reel play, and, in its 18-second run, barely even showcases a football play.
What it does, now with more than 2 million views, is give coaches across football – preps, college, pros – a glimpse into the approach of Fighting Irish wideouts coach Chansi Stuckey, the former Clemson star with both Hollywood and NFL credits on his curriculum vitae.
Stuckey is showcasing Notre Dame’s wide receivers corps – already being effectively reimagined under Stuckey following their borderline neglect under the previous coach – in a one-leg stance drill.
It requires balance, concentration, coordination and strength. It does not require Stuckey to perform the drill alongside his charges, but he does so anyway.
In fact, Stuckey trains for it. For several months now, Stuckey works with South Bend, Indiana-area trainer Tevin Lake at T2 Sports Performance.
“I’m doing the same unilateral, one-leg, core-action, jumps, awkward body movements of what a receiver actually does,” says Stuckey, his coaching star continuing to ascend after beginning his career as a graduate assistant at Clemson, spending a season at Baylor and now entering Year 2 at Notre Dame on the heels of signing one of college football’s top wide receivers corps. “Quick feet, endurance, understanding how my body is working and moving and my steps.
“Hey, what does it feel like when I get tired? Challenging myself. Do I want to quit? And then I take those things and bring them over (to Notre Dame).”
Notre Dame Wide Receivers working stance & startpic.twitter.com/IueKS1WWh1
— PreSnap (@presnapinc) June 21, 2023
A former two-time NAIA All-America running back at Marian University, Lake routinely trains some of the top athletes in the Michiana region – from current and former NFL players, work with area college players and multiple young athletes from the families of Marcus Freeman’s Notre Dame staff.
Lake doesn’t recall another coach logging the same type of work as Stuckey – especially as Stuckey oftentimes arrives early for hour-long, 6 a.m. training sessions before a full day of coaching the Fighting Irish’s wideouts or traveling for recruiting.
“It’s one thing when a coach can tell you what to do, but then to also perform it and do so at a high level, it sets that standard at a high level,” Lake, who professional workouts with the NFL’s Cleveland Browns, Indianapolis Colts and Green Bay Packers before focusing full-time on T2, tells FootballScoop. “Because it’s like, ‘Man, my coach at this age can move just as well if not better than me.’
“He’s a guy that says practice what you preach. And he’s trained now for a few months.”
Plenty of coaches maintain a strict exercise regimen; the endless hours and limitless stresses of the profession demand it.
Still, Stuckey works hand-in-hand with Smith to tailor a workout with football-specific and position-specific gains at its core.
“It’s a lot of mobility, functional training, specific to his sport and his position as receiver,” Smith says. “He still has a lot of it, but it’s more fine-tuning.
“It’s amazing to see a coach at his level taking coaching. It’s humbling for me, and he gets it.”
Stuckey already sees his players getting better from extrapolating those teachings; some of his wideouts even request drills that Stuckey is bringing in directly from his training.
“Sometimes I get in front of them and say, ‘OK, which drill do you guys want to do?’ And they’ll say, ‘Oh, Coach, I want to do that one because I really like that one. I understand what it does,’” Stuckey says. “It’s a way that your body has to feel what is happening, if that makes sense. I know self-correction, like if I do this I know what I did wrong and what I need to do to get it right.”
Chris Tyree owns more than 1,600 career yards from scrimmage, but when Notre Dame opens its 2023 season Aug. 26 in Dublin, Ireland, against Navy, Tyree is going to be a full-time receiver for the first time in his career.
He’s been embracing his work with Stuckey since his transition earlier this year.
“I think it was coming in to work as soon as possible, As soon as they told me they were thinking about making the move, I was in there talking to Coach Stuckey and Coach (Gerad) Parker, figuring out just, honestly, how to catch up,” says Tyree. “Guys I’m competing against now have played receiver their whole lives. Just me being able to get the basics down before spring ball even started was really key for me, and I think it really helped out.
“Being able to learn in those meeting rooms with Coach Stuckey and being able to apply it out here (on the field) has been a really good growth-path I would say. Everybody’s come a long way since Day 1. It’s been a really good sight to see.”
There is a harmony to the wideout position, one Stuckey sees Freeman leaning into for the entire team in a teaching lesson from this spring.
“Coach Freeman put on this video of these four guys playing one guitar and they were playing Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’ just in unison,” Stuckey says. “All on the same guitar, eight hands. It’s the same way of making music in your routes. Pass concepts are routes. Being where you’re supposed to be, hitting the right note, being there and being on time and when you run that route correctly.
“It’s like in your head everything slows down and it’s quiet; 80,000 people there but you’re in your own world and it’s quiet and you understand what you need to do. That’s when you’ve kind of hit your groove.”
When the clip, even in just a few seconds, showcases a coach who is training for teaching.