Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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Notre Dame director of athletics Jack Swarbrick heard it and saw it over the past 11 months. Work ethic. Smarts. A connection with players. Impressive re- cruiting results. The defense's in-sea- son growth under Freeman's watch. An ability to quickly understand the unique aspects of Notre Dame, embrace them and sell them as a positive. Swarbrick needed 48 hours after Brian Kelly left for LSU to decide Free- man was worthy of the role. Kelly bolted for LSU on Nov. 29. Two days later, word trickled out Freeman would be his re- placement. Notre Dame officially an- nounced his appointment Dec. 3 and introduced him Dec. 6. Freeman is the 30th head coach in program history and the youngest to take the job since 26-year-old Terry Brennan in 1954. His coaching debut will be Jan. 1 in the Fiesta Bowl, when he leads the No. 5 Irish (11-1) against No. 9 Oklahoma State (11-2). "In a highly competitive environ- ment with lots of choices available to us, Marcus won the job," Swarbrick said. "He won the job in the way he prepared himself through each of his coaching experiences. He won it during the past year when I was able to observe him as a colleague, coach, mentor, and educator. "And he won it in his interviews with me, [University President] Fr. John Jen- kins, and the others who participated in that process." Hiring Freeman is a bet on his po- tential as a coach and his ability to raise Notre Dame's own ceiling. For all Kelly did, there were final steps he couldn't take. Look no further than how the last two College Football Playoff appearances went. Freeman is here to not only main- tain what Kelly built, but to build on it. "The goal is to win the national cham- pionship," Freeman said. "That's the ul- timate goal. But how you get there, it's going to take a process. It's going to take enhancing whatever we've done to get to this point. It's going to take looking at every single thing we do as an organiza- tion and find a better way to do it. That goes back to challenging everything. "We have to find a better way to do everything we do. We have to coach bet- ter. We have to teach better. We have to recruit better. We have to perform bet- ter. Everything we do, we've got to find a better way to do it." The Golden Standard Notre Dame director of athletics Jack Swarbrick said Marcus Freeman won the Fighting Irish head coaching job through his track record of producing stout defenses and his charisma and charm in last week's interview process. Freeman won the Notre Dame locker room with a lot of the latter long before then. It is hard to lose introductory press conferences, but Freeman won his convincingly with those traits, too. Now, he has to win games. The first chance for Freeman to do so as a college football head coach comes Jan. 1 in the Fiesta Bowl against No. 9 Oklahoma State (11-2). By then, it will have been four weeks since Freeman was formally announced as Notre Dame's head coach. While optimism and excitement will still abound, expectations should be normalized by then as well. Freeman understands the magnitude of the situation. He implemented a three-part "Golden Stan- dard" immediately upon receiving the job because he knows what's at stake not just in the Fiesta Bowl but for however long his tenure in South Bend may last. • Golden Standard pillar No. 1: Challenge everything. That's "a mentality to find a better way." Free- man also said it's the reason why he's in the position he's in now; Swarbrick challenged the status quo by making a 35-year-old first-year head coach the man in charge of one of the most storied programs in the country. Don't look for the easy answer in anything. Never get complacent. • Golden Standard pillar No. 2: Unit strength. That's "what turns players into a team." It's rallying around Freeman during the most uncertain times Notre Dame has experienced since Brian Kelly ar- rived on campus 12 years ago. It's loving teammates like family. It's fighting for the person next to you. • Golden Standard pillar No. 3: Competitive spirit. That's "creating a winner's mindset." It's accepting the tough fate of coming up just short of the College Football Playoff but still working as hard as ever to finish the season off the right way. It's striving to get Notre Dame over the mountain it hasn't fully climbed since 1988. "This standard will be unwavering, and this is the standard that will drive this football program to its 12th national championship," Freeman said. There are those expectations. Laid out by Freeman himself, clear as day. When Freeman spoke on what his Notre Dame program is going to be, most of the talk centered on non-game situations. Make no mistake — the games are important. Outcomes are what ultimately define success and set it apart from failure. A big game is coming up in less than a month. But to be in a position to win it, Freeman must first get things right from an overall program perspective. He understands that, too. "You have to embrace this place," Freeman said. "You have to embrace the things that make us dif- ferent. You have to embrace the people here that are different. You have to embrace the competitive thinkers, the individuals that are on this football team. If you embrace everything that comes with the University of Notre Dame, you're going to be better because of it." — Tyler Horka PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME ATHLETICS www.BLUEANDGOLD.com JANUARY 2022 17