Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM NOV. 19, 2022 7 BY PATRICK ENGEL P erhaps the greatest challenge of juggling physicality in practice and mindfulness of wear and tear presented itself to Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman last week. The week of prepa- ration for playing Navy Nov. 12 required introducing cut blocks into game prep, and not just by reminding his interior defensive linemen to beware of blockers going for their legs. "We'll find ways to simulate cut blocks," Freeman said the week of the game. "I don't know if it will be live or in scout team reps, but we have to simulate it. We can't just tell them you're going to get cut." Weaving cut blocks into practices re- quired careful implementation, though, because they're physically taxing plays that target defenders' lower legs. And most coaching staffs try to limit the physical load on their players once No- vember arrives. Bodies are already beat up from two months of games. Like a car with 100,000 miles on it, they have wear-and-tear that must be managed to finish the journey. Freeman has arrived at this juggling act for the first time in his career. The decision for how to approach it is his. It's not one he takes lightly or will make impulsively. "I don't want to be so bullheaded and narrow-minded that this is what we're doing no matter what anybody says," Freeman said. "I try to take advice from professionals for how we structure this thing. I make a decision, but is there a better way to structure what we're doing to give our players a better chance to play better on Saturdays — to feel better men- tally and physically and play better?" To answer his own question, Free- man has consulted with Notre Dame's sports performance staff: strength and conditioning coach Matt Balis, head trainer Rob Hunt, associate director of sports nutrition for football Alexa Ap- pelman and associate director of sports performance John Wagle. They're four performance professionals from four different backgrounds who can offer a perspective he doesn't have as a coach. Practice is structured differently now than it was in September and in pre- season camp, but its tone is unchanged. Freeman wants physicality present in practice no matter the time in the sea- son, but he is open to tweaks like the length of contact periods or reducing the starters-against-starters portions. "We've tweaked some things," Free- man said. "We're not going to change the intensity of practice, but maybe the length. Maybe the amount of plays we're doing. Maybe the structure." Freeman will adjust the practice rou- tine in the final weeks of the regular sea- son as he sees fit or if the performance staff recommends it. His key to maximiz- ing game-day productivity, though, has nothing to do with practice. It's what happens outside of practice. "I'm convinced — there might be people who say I'm wrong — the two most important things in recovery are sleep and nutrition," Freeman said. Notre Dame has a nutrition staff for football and meals available for players. It can cater nutritional needs to specific players. But sleep is up to the individual. It's some- times fleeting for college students — especially football players who juggle their sport's demands, classes and personal lives. Irish players aren't without reminders of its importance, though, whether that's from sup- port staffers who can quantify it or teammates who can attest to how rest helped them. Senior linebacker JD Bertrand, for exam- ple, is widely known in the program for the diligence he puts into tracking his sleep and keeping a consistent schedule. "We can't force these young people to go to sleep at a certain time, but we can explain to them if you go to sleep for this amount of hours, this will be the ben- efit for you on Saturday," Freeman said. "A majority of our guys, if they know it will benefit them on Saturday, it's, 'Sure, coach.' If I told them to sleep outside be- cause it's cold and it would help your body recover, they'll probably end up doing it." With that kind of buy-in, Freeman and Notre Dame's support staff can feel confi- dent their player performance maximiza- tion plans will work to their fullest extent. "These guys want to make sure they're doing whatever it takes," Free- man said, "to perform at the highest level on Saturdays." ✦ UNDER THE DOME STRETCH RUN FRESHNESS Marcus Freeman keeps the same physical tone for practice, but is mindful of in-season wear and tear Freeman takes into account the physical stress that his players accrue during the season when planning practices. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER