Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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8 FEBRUARY 2022 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED UNDER THE DOME Games Are Won And Lost On The Field, Not Off It By Tyler Horka Marcus Freeman could do no wrong in De- cember. Players (former, current and prospec- tive) wanted him to be named head coach. Fans wanted him to be named head coach. Important administrators wanted him to be named head coach. It happened, and Fighting Irish nation was on top of the world for essentially an entire month as a result. Then Notre Dame had to play a football game, and it all went poof. Freeman is a defensive-minded head coach, and the Irish gave up 605 yards to Oklahoma State in the Fiesta Bowl loss. There aren't sup- posed to be tackling issues in the 13th game of the season. Try tackling Ohio State wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba in the season opener. Notre Dame is almost assured to start out 0-1 next fall. What happens then? I'm predicting a not-so-great first season for Freeman. The game at North Carolina won't be a gimme. That's followed by a neutral site game against BYU. Stanford should be much improved. USC has a new head coach who is as good as any in college football. And unlike Freeman, he has actually proved that with a body of work. We don't know who Freeman is as a head coach. We do know he didn't get off to the best of starts. His team collapsed all around him. All of this to say I'm predicting an 8-4 season for the Irish next year. The learning curve will be real. Fiesta Bowl Was A Sign Of Things To Come By Todd D. Burlage Like a shotgun marriage, the honeymoon didn't last very long for new Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman … 27 days and a little less than one half of football, to be exact. Up 28-7 on Oklahoma State in the Fiesta Bowl on New Year's Day, Freeman and his staff were badly out-coached, their team was badly out- played, the game ended in a 37-35 Irish loss, a 28- year winless streak in elite bowl games stretched on, all the warm fuzzies were washed away and ND Nation is now left to wonder for the next eight months what all of this will look like in 2022. And, in a "way too early" projection, it's going to look like a 9-3 regular season in 2022, even with a schedule that begs for something better. Trying not to belabor the disaster in the desert against Oklahoma State, but breaking in a new starting quarterback next season with a new head coach who obviously needs much more on-the-job training provides little hope of a third undefeated regular season in the last five years. The Irish will open next season as prohibitive underdogs at Ohio State. And beyond that, why should we think that if Freeman and Co. were un- able to adjust to the halftime adjustments that Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy made in the Fiesta Bowl, that fortunes will change when Free- man tries to beat Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney, North Carolina's Mack Brown or USC's Lincoln Riley? Point ✦ Counterpoint: WHAT'S A 'WAY TOO EARLY' PROJECTION FOR NOTRE DAME'S 2022 RECORD? The daughter of a successful, no-nonsense high school football coach with more than five de- cades of experience, Katy Lonergan admits to being a traditionalist in the way she views her position as Notre Dame's assistant athletics direc- tor for football communications. Lonergan explained how her old-school up- bringing and a traditional campus feel helped attract her to Notre Dame in the winter of 2020 after working in a similar role back home at her alma mater, the University of Kansas. The first woman ever to hold this position at Notre Dame, Lonergan has the unique and de- manding job of managing all of the media re- quests and demands the Notre Dame players and coaches face all year. Blue & Gold Illustrated caught up with Lonergan a couple of hours before her flight with the team to the Fiesta Bowl to discuss her department's challenges during the Notre Dame coaching change, a day in the life and what it's like working so closely with the Irish student-athletes. BGI: How chaotic was it for you and your foot- ball communications staff when news of a coach- ing change broke? Lonergan: "Unfortunately or fortunately, hav- ing worked at Kansas I had gone through coaches every couple of years, so it wasn't completely unfamiliar territory. But [Brian Kelly's departure] definitely was a shock to me, so I wouldn't say it wasn't. "But having gone through it a couple of times, I was able to kind of help peo- ple understand that it's going to be OK. Just dig in and you're going to be fine. You just have to kind of roll with the punches and just keep moving." BGI: Media inquiries and interview requests had to be non-stop, what message did you give to your staff? Lonergan: "Maybe we were fortunate that it was a pretty quick change so that kind of helped. And then the familiarity of knowing Marcus Free- man, this was probably one of the smoothest transitions because to this date, there hasn't been a huge change in staff. "The familiarity helped, and I think it put ev- erybody at ease a little bit faster than it normally does when you have a coaching change." BGI: Your career has taken you to Ole Miss and Kansas, so what was your initial impression of the Notre Dame student-athletes? Lonergan: "They are exceptional thinkers, and for me that's with absolutely everything they do. I was told during the interview process that I would be working with a different type of student-athlete. And not that I didn't believe the people that were telling me that, but it could not be more true. "I have just been blown away by how impressive they are as people." BGI: Any other thoughts on helping the guys hone their media and social skills? Lonergan: "Obviously, they are really good football players but they're also excellent people, very easy to work with, which allows me to be strategic. What do they want people to know about them? How do they want people to view them as opposed to just answering questions? "Help them be really strategic in their messaging." BGI: Why did leaving home and coming to Notre Dame feel like the right career move? Lonergan: "I am a very traditional football per- son. My dad coaches high school football and this was his 56th year coaching. He's old school and I kind of grew up that way and I have a huge appre- ciation for a very traditional feel, and Notre Dame definitely has all of that when it comes to tradition. "It just seemed like a very good fit for me per- sonally." — Todd D. Burlage FIVE QUESTIONS WITH … ASSISTANT ATHLETICS DIRECTOR, FOOTBALL COMMUNICATIONS KATY LONERGAN LONERGAN Head coach Marcus Freeman will face what promises to be a challenging schedule next fall. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER