Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1527190
6 OCT. 12, 2024 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED BY TYLER HORKA M arcus Freeman can be rather stoic on the sideline. In the eyes of many Notre Dame fans, to a fault. Not in Week 4 when the Fighting Irish were in more of a back-and-forth tus- sle with Miami (Ohio) than those same fans, and possibly even Freeman him- self — whether he'd admit it or not — had anticipated. Not when sophomore safety Adon Shuler went out of his way to pick up an incomplete football on the RedHawks' sideline and toss it at one of their players following an Irish third- down stop that would have given an- other late-half possession to the Notre Dame offense. Shuler was flagged for unsportsman- like conduct, and the Miami offense stayed on the field along with the Irish defense. In a 14-3 game, Notre Dame had to lock back in defensively for an- other minute instead of letting quarter- back Riley Leonard and an offense that scored touchdowns on its previous two drives give it one more whirl for a more comfortable halftime advantage. Needless to say, Freeman was not happy with Shuler. He berated the sophomore on the Notre Dame sideline. NBC's cameras caught the exchange. Anyone who knows anything about Freeman and Fighting Irish football lately saw it as something that doesn't happen often. One, Freeman is a play- ers' coach. Two, as aforementioned, he's reserved in his in-game mannerisms. It took something like Shuler's gaffe to remind us all Freeman comes from a military family — he was born at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Medi- cal Center in Fairborn, Ohio, because his father, Michael, was serving at the time. No-nonsense is very much a part of Freeman's DNA. "My dad texted me; he said, 'Man, you kind of got into No. 8,'" Freeman said. "But I told my dad, 'I don't know if they saw what happened after that.' I told him I did what I thought [was a result of] how I was raised." What happened after was a two-way exchange, Freeman made sure to let the media know, and not a continued tirade of tumult from leader to subordinate. Freeman let Shuler have the floor, and the latter apologized to the former. Sure, Freeman was mostly mad in the moment because Notre Dame had mo- mentum and a chance to put more points on the board. But this was about more than just a football game. It was about adherence to principles and values, some- thing sacred in the Freeman household and in the Notre Dame football program, and Shuler did not abide by that. "We pride ourselves on being a dis- ciplined football team," Freeman said. "Every Friday we watch clips of other teams making mistakes and we say we got to learn from the mistakes of others. We have a rule around here to hand the ball to the official, and he didn't do that and was called for a personal foul. "I lost my temper a little bit, but the first thing he said was, 'Yes sir. I own it. I shouldn't have done it. My bad. It won't happen again.' And when a young person, a coach or anybody, when you own your mistakes, now we can fix it. If you make excuses and say it's somebody else's fault, it's hard to fix that until you own it." Freeman is all about owning it, obvi- UNDER THE DOME DUALITY OF COACHING In one weekend, Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman showed how his job isn't for the faint of heart Head coach Marcus Freeman is still searching for all the answers with wins and losses, but he's getting it right as a leader of men. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER