Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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6 SEPT. 21, 2024 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED BY TYLER HORKA M arcus Freeman, 38, is in his third year as a head coach. Al Golden, 55, is in his third year as Notre Dame's defensive coordinator. He's been a head coach before, at Temple and Miami, as well as a defensive coordinator at Vir- ginia, a collegiate assistant at a few other places including Penn State, and an NFL assistant with the Detroit Lions and Cincinnati Bengals. All of that is to say the two are clearly at different stages in their respective ca- reers, and that's part of the reason why they work so well together. Freeman leans on Golden for things he's never experienced, and Golden respects Free- man for being in charge of a program as profound as the Fighting Irish. Sorry, Hurricanes, you had a nice little two- decade run that ended two decades ago, but you're not Notre Dame. Anyway, even in their differences, Freeman and Golden responded to a pair of dissimilar questions in eerily simi- lar fashion the week after the Irish lost 16-14 to Northern Illinois. Coach Freeman, why does it always seem like Notre Dame takes three or four steps forward only to take a big one back? "That's the game of football," Free- man said. Coach Golden, how difficult was it to drum up a game plan when the Notre Dame offense put your defense in a tough spot at midfield, only leading by a point, with 5:55 on the clock following a costly interception? "That's defensive football," Golden said. "That's what we signed up for." It is football. And it is what Freeman and Golden signed up for. But they did not have to sign up for losses to teams like NIU. Or Marshall. Or a dreadful Stanford squad. Freeman and Golden resorted to "that's football" because the Irish did not get the victory. Sometimes something as nonspecific as that is all a guy's got. Now, both of the coaches elaborated in response to their respective ques- tions. It's only fair to dive deeper into what they offered up. First, Freeman's turn to answer for the roller coaster of ups and downs, for com- peting well against an Ohio State team that nearly reached the national title game in 2022, only to lose to the Thun- dering Herd the next week; for beating then-No. 20 Texas A&M by 10 points, roughly one for every 10,000 people in attendance at Kyle Field in College Sta- tion, only to lose by two points, at home, to a 28.5-point underdog seven days later. "If I had the perfect answer, we would win every game we play," Freeman said. "That's the ultimate challenge. I think every year presents a different chal- lenge. I think I said this after the game, we have been here before, but it was dif- ferent than the loss to Marshall. "We hadn't won a game — I hadn't won a game. That's a lot different than where we're at now. That's why it took me a little bit of time to look back and say, 'OK, what do we have to learn from this game?'" Next, Golden's turn to answer for the Huskies chewing up 5:24 of game time to UNDER THE DOME THAT'S FOOTBALL Notre Dame coaches search for answers following another brutal early defeat Head coach Marcus Freeman is in a familiar spot with the Fighting Irish having lost a devastating game in September for the third time in as many seasons. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER