Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM FEBRUARY 2025 15 "I'm getting ready to go to a press conference and all they're gonna ask me about is, 'You got an inexperienced of- fensive line and you got a new starter at safety,'" Freeman said, as shown on the Peacock documentary "Here Come The Irish." "Where's Knapp?" Knapp nodded, with nervousness in his eyes. "Do you believe you can be the left tackle?" "Yes sir," Knapp responded. "Hell yeah, you do! Adon, have you started a game yet?" "No sir," Shuler said. "Hell no! Do you believe you can be the starting safety? Hell yeah, you do!" "You hear all these things about 'not big enough' and all that stuff," Knapp said. "Coach Freeman always did a good job saying, 'Hey, we believe in you. We know what you can do. We need you to go out and do it.'" Knapp held his own against Texas A&M's vaunted front, particularly on Notre Dame's game-winning touch- down drive. Shuler finished with 3 solo tackles and a critical interception. "It means a lot, earning a coach's trust," Shuler said. "Just knowing that the coaches trust me so I can go out there and make plays and play freely." Sometimes, they need to be pushed. Kiser thrives off that. He can't recall a time when Freeman had to pick him up when he's been down, but he does best when he's challenged to do more. "When I decided to come back, his big challenge was, 'Hey, how can you leave this program better than you found it?'" Kiser said. "'How are you going to be a difference-maker, not on the field, but in the locker room for this program, by coming back another year?' That's what I want. I want to be challenged." Freeman knew what his players needed when he walked out of the tunnel at Texas A&M and went ballistic. He looked into Knapp's eyes again and realized he needed to do something to take the pressure off not just him, but the whole team. Multiple players have said that made a real differ- ence in Notre Dame's 23-13 win that night. Freeman also backs his words of belief up like few others with his decision- making. Notre Dame offensive coordi- nator Mike Denbrock has never worked for a head coach more aggressive on fourth downs than his current boss. "The players love it," Denbrock said. "I love it. And I think it goes to the theme of us as a football program. We're playing to win, and we're not afraid of what that means." To the players, that's how Freeman shows that he has their back. He'll let them win or lose the game on their own terms. "That's just a mindset that he's in- stilled in our program," Coogan said. "I think he carries himself that way, too, but it builds confidence in us that the whole coaching staff trusts us, but the head guy trusts us, too." OPEN DOORS One day during his time at Notre Dame, Shuler had a bad practice. The next day, Freeman called him into his office. Not to chew his young safety out, but to check in. "He just talked about things that were going on in my life," Shuler said. "Things to help me grow and kind of just keep my mind on one track." When senior quarterback Riley Leon- ard walked into Freeman's office after his disastrous performance against North- ern Illinois, according to Yahoo Sports' Ross Dellenger, he half-expected to be benched. Instead of tearing him down, Freeman reassured him that he believed in him. Leonard never looked back. "Probably around midseason, I didn't express any sadness or anything, but I could tell he kind of felt it," Collins said. "Before one of the games, he was like, 'Be yourself. Go out there and make plays.' Small conversations like that mean a lot." The Irish know Freeman doesn't just see them as bodies to throw on the field. He makes that clear with everything he does. "It's always something with him," sophomore linebacker Drayk Bowen said. "He's always asking questions to make sure everybody's doing well. When you find a coach like that, you don't want to play for somebody else. "When I was being recruited, I got to know him really well. He got to know my family really well, and that was one of the biggest reasons why I came here." Everyone at Notre Dame will tell you that Freeman's door is always open, as are the doors to the assistant coaches' offices. They don't need to be football conversa- tions, either. He'll ask players about their families and talk about his own; Freeman has said it's important for him that the team sees him as a husband and father. "You can always go talk to him any- time," Shuler said. "He always gives you valuable advice that he would give to his own kids." On the other hand, he's not afraid to bring himself down to the players' level, either. Sometimes, he likes to act like one of the guys. "Having those little moments where he's giving you some crap, but at the same time, you understand that's him embracing you," Kiser said. "That's him showing you some love." PROGRAM CHANGE Freeman doesn't point fingers. That's not his style. He'll hold players and assistants ac- countable, but he'll loop himself in, too. It's something players notice. It's some- thing they appreciate. "Anything goes wrong, he looks in- ward, not outward," graduate student defensive tackle Howard Cross III said. "He doesn't say, 'Yeah, you gotta —' no. He says, 'Coaches and players, every- body else in this room, everybody else in this room, we gotta do better.'" It's a "we" mentality, Cross explained, not a "me" mentality. Tell Freeman he's won an individual award — like the Dodd Trophy — and he'll use the phrase, "Team glory leads to individual glory." He will never publicly throw a player under the bus, either. Freeman will occasionally refer- ence players' individual mistakes when talking about a specific play, but he'll never use their name. It's, "There was a missed assignment on that play," not "Player X missed his assignment." Even through the down times — Mar- shall, Stanford, 10 men on the field, NIU — that hasn't changed. Since Freeman took over for Brian Kelly in December 2021, he's been, as Coogan described him, the "steady piece." "You've kind of seen this program change with his methodology and his ideology and see how the locker room's embraced him," Kiser said. "The way he thinks and the way he talks, it's been a big deal." Less than a month after signing the extension, Freeman took the program somewhere it hasn't been since 1994. ✦