Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM FEBRUARY 2025 55 J ames Franklin, maybe some- what sarcastically, com- mended Marcus Freeman for his exquisitely manicured hairline in the two head coaches' pre-Orange Bowl press confer- ence the day before the game. He also teased Freeman for his age. Both times, Notre Dame's man in charge absorbed the jeers and returned them with not-so- amused smirks that screamed, "I can't wait until my team gets on the field with his." Sure enough, it was Freeman laughing in the end. Notre Dame beat Penn State, 27-24. That so, Freeman has more wins over top-five teams — No. 2 Georgia and No. 5 Penn State, per the Associated Press rankings — in this CFP alone than Franklin has in 11 years at Penn State. Franklin's record in such matchups with the Nittany Lions is now 1-15. Maybe that's why he's bald and doesn't have a hairline like that of Freeman. There's a lot of stress in own- ing a mark that dismal and depressing. In all seriousness, that's the last we'll mention Franklin in this column. He doesn't deserve any more inches of space in these pages. Freeman does. And then some. In just his third season on the job, Freeman got Notre Dame to the point of playing for a national championship. It's been a dozen years since the Irish have done so and much longer since they've actually won it. Freeman, who turned 39 when the clock struck mid- night in the moments after the Orange Bowl, was 2, almost 3, when that hap- pened. Do the math. It's been a while. Who would have thought a kid from Ohio — a Buckeye, no less — would be the one responsible for being in charge of the Notre Dame team that has the fan base as optimistic as it's ever been in four decades that maybe, just maybe, this is the Irish team that snaps the streak and ends the drought. Here's the thing — there's more to it with Freeman than being an OSU alum who learned from one of the great coaches of all time in Jim Tressel. Free- man's also the only head coach in Notre Dame history to begin his tenure with the team with an 0-3 record. He's lost to Ohio State twice. He's lost to Marshall, Stanford and Northern Illinois — all at home, the last of those three dispiriting defeats coming in Week 2 of this season. But he's won 14 games and lost just one in 2024-25, with only one more left to win, so who the heck cares about blowing a 28-7 lead in the Fiesta Bowl three years ago or only having 10 men on the field for a game-losing touchdown against Ohio State in September 2023. Old news. New news: Notre Dame is for real, and Freeman is the reason why. "In your lowest moments you find out the most about yourself," Freeman said. "We've had low moments, and we had a really low moment Week 2, but these guys battled. We've got great leaders. We've got great players that chose to put this university and this football program in front of themselves. "That is the single thing that I'm most proud of — how we have a group of individuals that truly put Notre Dame football in front of themselves." That's a top-down direc- tive. There isn't anybody on the planet who puts Notre Dame football first more than Free- man. Remember what director of athletics Pete Bevacqua said at the onset of this playoff run? Bevacqua is maniacally ob- sessed with the prospect of winning a national champion- ship in football at Notre Dame, and Freeman shares that same maniacal obsession. Sure, he sets aside time for his six kids and his wife and what- ever else, but he's the one who told the media he likes bring- ing his kids to campus so he can double-dip. The children enjoy immersing themselves in the team culture, talking to the players, looking up to them — literally and figu- ratively — and playing catch with them. All the good stuff that Freeman gets to be a part of while not leaving his place of work. A win-win. That's going to keep going on for as long as Freeman is the head coach in South Bend. Or, for as long as his kids still live at home. At the rate Freeman is going, he's still going to be leading the Irish out of the tunnel when he no lon- ger has a perfect hairline. When he's not young enough for the opposing coach to call into question his age in front of a room full of reporters in a media ball- room 36 hours before a big game. There will be plenty more big games, including this upcoming national championship game, for however long Freeman is the head coach of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. That much appears to be pretty dang obvious. ✦ Freeman has guided the Irish to a 7-0 record against Associated Press- ranked teams this season, the most such wins in the country and the most in a single season at Notre Dame since the AP poll began in 1936. BY CHAD WEAVER Marcus Freeman Wins Orange Bowl Coaching Battle 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