Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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34 PRESEASON 2021 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED Instead, Freeman is going to let his players play, play freely and keep op- posing offenses guessing on where the pressure will come from. His system encourages players to use their instincts and athleticism — and even make their own adjustments pre-snap — instead of staying glued to a pregame plan. "Offenses are always adapting," Freeman said. "Those offensive guys, oof, they're rough, man." The coach even allowed his defense to call some of its own plays during fall camp based on how the opposing Irish offense lined up. "Here's our toolbox, what do you want to do? Let them make a deci- sion," he said. "… As long as you make a call and you're confident, and everybody's on the same page, we'll be fine." Using this style at Cincinnati last season, Freeman's defense finished third nationally in interceptions with 16, 10th in total takeaways with 21, eighth in scoring defense at 16.8 points allowed per game and 13th in total de- fense at 324.6 yards allowed per game. "We have our standard of defense," Freeman said. "No. 1 is challenging everything. We're going to be an ag- gressive group. We play man cover- age, but we have some zone change- ups. We're going to pressure, and we're going to try to be multiple up front and do some things." Freeman said his Irish will utilize both three- and four-man looks along the defensive line, another difference from Lea who relied almost exclu- sively on a four-man front. "That's kind of the biggest differ- ence in the defenses, having the free- dom to bluff and change the fronts," graduate student linebacker Drew White said. "We didn't do a lot of that last year." Another difference will be how Freeman uses Hamilton in the defen- sive backfield. With talented cornerbacks and the emergence of Griffith and senior DJ Brown as reliable second and third op- tions at safety, Freeman plans to move Hamilton around the defensive forma- tions instead of planting him deep in center field each snap as he was last year in an effort to erase any mistakes from the group of unproven defensive backs playing around him. "Coach Lea had a really structured defense, and we all knew it really well, like the back of our hands," Hamil- ton said. "Coach Freeman's defense has structure to it, too, but there's a lot more variety within it." And what a luxury it will be for Free- man to better showcase Hamilton's immeasurable talent and versatility by moving around his All-American. "That's the greatest weapon we have is that you can use him in so many dif- ferent ways," Freeman said of Hamil- ton. "When you have those types of athletes … they can do so many differ- ent things with their tools. It's one of the greatest things you can have as a defensive coordinator." In another departure from his prede- cessor, Freeman plans to be aggressive with his cornerbacks and play more man coverage to create big-play op- portunities up front. "Why?" Freeman rhetorically asked of his cornerbacks. "Because I think they're unbelievably talented." Another mission for the defensive boss is to dive deeply into his roster each game and play multiple guys at most positions. Freeman explained that he prefers not to label his players with a "starter" and "substitute" tag, or a "ones" and "twos" distinction because they will all have an equally vital role. "Versatility is probably the word I'd use when you talk about what Marcus wants," head coach Brian Kelly said. "In terms of the defensive structure, the versatility allows us to play a lot of different players." TAKING THE TEMP Freeman understands that beyond coaching and recruiting, mentoring is his other most important responsibil- ity. "Our job as coaches," he explained, "is to make sure we have a good grasp on those guys in our room and they are continuously understanding that it's a process to get where you want to go." And with the growing popularity and increasing ease of transferring, staying engaged and tuned-in to all of his players is more important now than ever. "We have to know what our guys, our young guys especially, are think- ing right now every day," Freeman explained. As a wide receiver, graduate stu- dent Avery Davis obviously practices Senior Houston Griffith (No. 3), who nearly left the program in January, has thrived under Freeman's leader- ship and in early August was trending toward starting at safety opposite All-American Kyle Hamilton. PHOTO BY MIKE MILLER "As a defensive coordinator, if you're saying, 'This is what we do and that's it,' the game could pass you by." FREEMAN