Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM SEPT. 16, 2023 27 INSIDE THE NOTRE DAME LOCKER ROOM DURING RAIN DELAY When the calendar flipped from 2022 to 2023, Notre Dame head coach Mar- cus Freeman gave a quote that felt like the God's honest truth. He said he had seen everything a head coach can see in just one year, his first year, as the man in charge of a program as prestigious as Notre Dame. Maybe he was right. Last season sure was a heck of a lot to go through, good and bad, for Freeman. But it never meant he wasn't going to step into the proverbial batter's box and be delivered more curveballs in subsequent seasons. In Week 2 at NC State, he faced a hang- ing one. And he knocked it straight out of Carter-Finley Stadium. Notre Dame's game versus the Wolf- pack went into a weather delay at 12:50 p.m. ET. It didn't resume until 2:35. Freeman initially thought the pause was only going to last 30 minutes. As soon as he was told it would be at least an hour, he gave new orders to his Fighting Irish football players. "Take off your pads. Sit down." The mood inside the visiting locker room went from one of high intensity while trying to maintain the flow of in-game adrenaline to more subdued, tempered and even intellectual. It was almost like a mini film session — 15 minutes and 15 seconds into an actual game. "The plan was to be able to talk about different adjustments," Freeman said. "The coaches were able to come down. Let's talk about things we saw the first two or three drives. Then we were able to get with our players and say, 'Here are the things we're seeing we hadn't planned for.'" You can only do so much studying, even right smack dab in the middle of a ballgame. So when the minutes kept pil- ing up, Freeman had some of his staffers retrieve hot dogs from the concession stands. Everyone from players to assis- tant coaches had some. "We wanted to kind of get them some meat," Freeman said. "It was a two-hour delay. The big boys were hungry… Just keeping those guys fed because we were going to work them." Junior running back Audric Estimé had exactly one. On the first play from scrimmage following the resumption of play, he rattled off an 80-yard TD run. The hot dog hit the spot. "Those were very good, tasty hot dogs," Estimé said with a smile in his postgame media session. It wasn't all game prep and eat- ing. There were moments in those 105 minutes when Freeman let the Notre Dame players keep to themselves and do whatever they needed to do to get right for the final three quarters of play. "I don't know what those guys did with the hot dogs, but I didn't do any of that," senior safety Xavier Watts said. "I sat back, put my headphones on and listened to music. Just trying to stay as locked in as much as possible." That's what worked for him. He inter- cepted a pass in the first minute of the fourth quarter. It led to a Notre Dame touchdown five plays later. The Irish extended their lead to 31-17 and left NC State in the dust from there. All it took was some film, some hot dogs and some music. TIMELY INTERCEPTIONS HELP TURN THE TIDE Xavier Watts was in the right place at the right time, but he still had to make a play. NORTH CAROLINA STATE GAME NOTES BY TYLER HORKA AND JACK SOBLE Junior running back Audric Estimé enjoyed a hot dog in the locker room during the 105-minute weather delay, and then promptly busted loose for an 80-yard touchdown run on the first play after the delay. PHOTO BY LARRY BLANKENSHIP