The University of Utah has fought off the Notre Dame Fighting Irish to keep their guy. ESPN’s Pete Thamel broke the news on Monday night that Utes offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig is remaining at Utah.

Whether it’s spin or not, the prevailing narrative is that Notre Dame balked at Ludwig’s $2.8 million buyout. In reality, the Irish and their deep pockets got probably as close as any program will get to prying Ludwig away from Utah.

The talk around the Utah program the last couple years has been that the Utes would be Ludwig’s last coaching stop and that he’d retire at the same time as head coach Kyle Whittingham. With the Notre Dame flirtation now over, that talk seems to be reality. Ludwig also seems likely to leverage this into a pay raise, and become one of the highest paid offensive coordinators in college football, after already making north of $1.2 million in 2022.

After years of searching for the perfect compliment to Whittingham’s coaching philosophy, Ludwig — Whittingham’s first offensive coordinator— was rehired in 2019. Ever since then, Utah has been to three Pac-12 championship games and won two of them. In two stints and eight total years as Utah’s offensive coordinator, Ludwig has helped guide the Utes to two Rose Bowls and also a Sugar Bowl victory. He’ll arguably go down as the greatest offensive coordinator in Utah Football history, but his job isn’t done.

This is a big offseason for the Utes. After finishing No. 10 in the AP Poll and hauling in the No. 19 overall recruiting class according to Rivals, Utah returns the core of their offense, minus tight end Dalton Kincaid and offensive line anchor Braeden Daniels. Losing Ludwig would have been a devastating blow. Instead, Utah gets a big win as the back-to-back Pac-12 champs prepare to defend their conference crown.