Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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8 OCT. 11, 2025 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED UNDER THE DOME Notre Dame's Week 5 game of this sea- son is a prime example. The Fighting Irish swiftly seized a 29-point lead at halftime on the road at Arkansas in a matchup that was sepa- rated by just 15 points — or two touch- downs, an extra point and a two-point conversion — mere moments prior. While Irish fans in the stands at Razor- back Stadium and all over the country in front of television sets rejoiced and celebrated accordingly, Freeman didn't let up. He pushed the pedal down even harder and with even more authority. That much was made evident by per- forming a fake punt from Notre Dame's own 25-yard line in the first two min- utes of the second half, still holding on firmly to that near- 30-point advantage. "I didn't want to relax," he said. "We had to come out of that locker room with an aggression no different than the first half. There's no lead that's com- fortable." The Irish were successful on the fake but ended up turning the ball over on downs later in the possession. Still, they scored the game's only points of the second half and won by 43. To Free- man, however, it didn't feel like such a lopsided margin, much like it didn't feel like Notre Dame won a baker's dozen games in a row last season until the dust had settled and he was able to count up the triumphs. "Someone said, 'Wasn't it fun to win a game like that?'" Freeman said. "Fun? I'm like, no, because every play you're stressed to win it. You're focused on staying in the moment. 'Let's win this play. What do we have to do to win this play?' "When it's over, you go, 'Man, we did a good job.' The challenge is to stay present, stay in the moment, improve, and hopefully we can look back and say, 'We had a lot of momentum' as we move forward." A big reason for waiting until it's over to fully come to grips with what was transpiring in the process is the impe- tus of getting into such an unstoppable rhythm. For the 2024 team, it was the loss to Northern Illinois that prompted a winning streak that spanned from mid- September into late January. For the 2025 team, it was an 0-2 start that had many people leaving the Irish for dead as far as any College Football Playoff prospects were concerned before sum- mer had even officially turned to fall. Back-to-back 56-point efforts and the realization that the Notre Dame of- fense is one of the most potent in the country rewired the outlook for what was ahead, though. Suddenly, the CFP seemed attainable again. For outsiders, anyway. Internally, not much changed. "We're feeling good, obviously," ju- nior wide receiver Jordan Faison said, "but we still have those two losses that are in the back of our minds, and we're going to use that as motivation to keep on going. No win is guaranteed. We have to work for every single one." He added, "It's all developed in prac- tice. You get your groove going in prac- tice. Practices are harder than games. You get out there, and the game be- comes easy." Notre Dame had some of its most in- trospective practices after the North- ern Illinois loss last year and one of the immediate results was a historic 66-7 thrashing of Purdue. This year, after falling to 0-2, the Irish came out and thumped an improved Purdue team once more, 56-30, and played so well at Arkansas they got longtime Razorbacks head coach Sam Pittman fired the very next day. So, there is something to what Faison is saying. And it isn't any different than what a good head coach says all along; Saturdays are a reflection of Sundays through Fridays. Last year, Notre Dame got to a point of putting everything soundly together during the week that there was no other option than to get the desired result at the end of it. Rinse, repeat. Thirteen times. "You've got to do it in practice and ultimately carry over what you do in practice into the game," Freeman said. "That's, to me, a reminder of our pro- cess, a reminder of what it takes to have success." Freeman knows what it takes. So many of the players who were with him on last year's journey do too. But for many others, they're figuring it out for the first time at this level. Take freshman cornerback Mark Zackery IV, for instance. He admit- ted that he did not think there would be a scenario in which he was play- ing consistently meaningful snaps on defense so soon in his first season at Notre Dame. But sophomore standout Leonard Moore was sidelined with an ankle sprain sus- tained in Game 2 versus Texas A&M, and Zackery started the Irish's next two games against Purdue and at Arkansas. Against the latter, after hitting rudely rough bumps in the road against the Ag- gies and even versus the Boilermakers, he broke up a pass in the end zone that served as a personal catharsis. "You could see after the breakup I had a whole bunch of emotion," Zack- ery said. "It was built up. I was upset at myself. It felt like I was a freshman in high school all over again when I got thrown into the fire." You've got to feel the fire to become the fire. It worked for Notre Dame as a team last season in part because so many players experienced something similar to what Zackery did at Razor- back Stadium. Belief can be built up just as easily as the emotion he harped on by stacking positive plays. Positive plays turn into positive weeks, months, etc. Then, suddenly, you're playing for a na- tional championship not long after you were the butt of everybody's joke for losing to a Mid-American Conference school or starting with zero wins and two losses for the second time in the last four seasons. "It's a reflection of guys understand- ing what they're being asked to do and why they're being asked to do it and how they're going to get their job done and how it can be attacked, how you can be attacked" Freeman said. "When you understand all those things, you play with clarity, and you play with the ve- locity that it takes to be successful." ✦ "Every play you're stressed to win it. You're focused on staying in the moment. 'Let's win this play. What do we have to do to win this play?'" NOTRE DAME HEAD COACH MARCUS FREEMAN