Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM NOV. 16, 2024 29 I 've seen enough. I've heard enough. And I have to admit, I was wrong. This 38-year-old who had never been a head coach at any level let alone somewhere like Notre Dame who the Fighting Irish replaced Brian Kelly with three years ago knows what he's doing. He's a good football pro- gram leader. Yes, Marcus Freeman is for real. And he's only just getting started. I was incorrect in an asserting after Notre Dame lost at home to Northern Illinois in September maybe it wasn't the right deci- sion for Notre Dame to go from an established program builder and maintainer in Brian Kelly to a newbie in Freeman. It was a pris- oner of the moment type of knee- jerk reaction, even if it was a take supported and believed by many others at the time. It was the Irish's third loss as a 16-plus-point home favorite in as many years under Freeman, after all. It truly felt like his grip on the on-field direc- tion of the program was loosening at a rapid rate. Two months later, it's as strong as ever. Notre Dame is 8-1. It has won seven consecutive games by an average mar- gin of 33.9 points. The Irish are firmly in the 12-team College Football Playoff conversation while Kelly's team in Baton Rouge lost by 29 points at home and has been effectively eliminated from CFP contention with a 6-3 record. LSU's schedule is much more difficult than that of Notre Dame, sure. But the Irish are absolutely annihilating their opponents, and Freeman keeps walking into postgame press conferences with confidence in his strut in calmness in the way he has expressed that he's still not satisfied. "The first thing I'm going to say to them in the meeting on Monday is, 'We have got to elevate,'" Freeman said. "Sometimes that's frustrating — that's frustrating to me as a coach when you feel like you've put everything into it and you know in order to get better you've got to do more. "And so that's the challenge. That's what they want because they want to be great and they want to reach their full potential. And it's my job to push them to do that." He nailed this one, too. … "It's an understanding that you don't get better doing the same thing you have previously done. That's what I drive home to our players but also to our captains — we can't go out and rep- licate next week what we did this week. Our natural gravitational pull is going to make you worse." More than ever before, Freeman is speaking like someone who gets it. I don't sense there was any singular epiphany that's responsible for produc- ing such measured, seasoned responses. It more so feels like he internalized the pressure that landed on his shoulders coming out of the loss to NIU and has managed to not let it knock him down. Instead, he pocketed it to use it as sea- son-long fuel. Wide receiver Kris Mitchell said in the leadup to the Florida State game that the NIU reminders are weekly. Free- man often starts Thursday team meetings by letting the guys know what happened that after- noon was unacceptable, and it would be even more detrimental if anything like it happened again against, say, a one-win Florida State team. Over the course of 60 minutes, though, it became increasingly and blatantly clear Notre Dame was never going to lose to FSU. Not a chance. Not when the head coach is reaming players and chewing them out on the sideline for in- consequential, offsetting un- sportsmanlike conduct penal- ties coming after a touchdown that gave Notre Dame a 38-3 lead early in the fourth quar- ter. Emphasis on the 60 min- utes. Freeman didn't have any tolerance for after-the-whistle funny stuff even in a total runaway, even if there weren't any yards lost in the shenanigans. That's the difference between who he is now and who he's been. He's got a sideline demeanor that suggests he's much more sure of himself. He's got a press conference character you could say the same about. Of course, everything is easier when you're winning. Everything is more palatable from outside perspectives in wins. The winning doesn't seem like it's going to stop any time soon, though. The way Freeman is guiding his guys through the grind of a season is unlike anything we've seen from him in his short time as Notre Dame's top dog. It's incredibly impressive, and it deserves to be merited as such. If we're going to claim he doesn't know what he's doing when it looks that way, we've got to say it sure seems like he has all the answers when it looks like he does. Right now, that's most certainly the case. ✦ Freeman and the Fighting Irish have won seven straight games by an average margin of 33.9 points. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER Marcus Freeman's Maturation Is Occurring Rapidly Tyler Horka has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since July 2021. He can be reached at thorka@blueandgold.com GOLDEN GAMUT TYLER HORKA