Blue and Gold Illustrated

BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM NOV. 1, 2025 5 I 've often told the story of how I learned Brian Kelly was leaving Notre Dame for LSU, but I'm not sure I've ever formally done so in this magazine medium. So here goes it, and I'll try to be brief. Because this isn't about Kelly and the Tigers. It's about Marcus Freeman and the Nittany Lions. I extended my stay in the Bay Area af- ter the 2021 Notre Dame-Stanford game because I have family that lives out there and being that the Fighting Irish don't play in a conference and therefore did not have a league championship game to pre- pare for the following week, I didn't have anything to be back in South Bend for. Or, so I thought. One of my best friends sent me what I deemed to be a joke of a text before I boarded a Chicago-bound flight a couple days after Notre Dame trounced Stan- ford, 45-14, and a handful of days be- fore the 11-1 Kelly-led Irish would find out if they'd qualify for the four-team College Football Playoff. Turns out, they wouldn't. Also turns out, they wouldn't have been Kelly-led even if they did. While I was in the air without Wi-Fi, it broke that my buddy's message was not a joke and that the unthinkable had actually happened. Kelly accepted the LSU job. He was leaving Notre Dame on his own ac- cord, which is an unfathomable decision to arrive at in the minds of so many. That being widely accepted, that no coach should ever leave Notre Dame unless fired, why would Marcus Free- man ever entertain a job offer from Penn State? In the immediate aftermath of the James Franklin firing, Freeman came up as an immensely popular replace- ment candidate. This being the same Freeman that beat Penn State in the Or- ange Bowl 10 months prior and loved every second of doing so. Notre Dame is hot under Freeman. Hip. Cool. A desirable destination for recruits and coaches alike. Heck, run- ning backs coach Ja'Juan Seider left Penn State for Notre Dame after seven seasons with the Nittany Lions. He wanted to be in South Bend. Not State College. Don't you think the same is true of Freeman, who's built Notre Dame into a national championship contender in the name, image and like- ness and transfer portal era? Notre Dame's future place in the sport is on a lot more solid footing than that of Penn State. The Irish have a superstar in the making at quarterback in redshirt freshman CJ Carr. They're recruiting at the offensive skill positions better than they did in the latter years of the Kelly regime. Defense is Freeman's calling card, and despite a suspect start on that side of the ball at the beginning of this season the situation there has stabilized and seems to be on the up and up moving forward, not just in 2025 but for years to come, too. It almost seems silly justifying all of this. But with silly name drops in coach- ing searches come silly justifications, perhaps. The Kelly anecdote serves to say, though, never say "never." Some- times high-ranking football coaches make decisions that we, the consumers of their choices, won't ever be able to understand. It's impossible to put our- selves in the shoes of these millionaires who all have motives that go beyond what meets the public's eyes and ears. That's what feels different about Free- man, however. In a profession in which deceit and unsupported "truths" per- vade, Freeman appears to be as genuine and forthright as they come. When he says he wants to and can win a national championship at Notre Dame, he means it. And it would be disingenuous to give up on that dream before ever realizing it. There's another difference between Kelly and Freeman. The latter is only in his fourth year chasing that dream. The former had 12 runs at it. There might have been at least a little doubt in his mind that he'd ever get it done at Notre Dame. Heck, he basically admitted as much when he paraded around Baton Rouge applauding all of the advantages that place had over his previous stop. Free- man is 37-12 as Kelly's successor, by the way. In the same span of seasons at LSU, Kelly is 34-12. That difference of three victories is how much closer Freeman has gotten to winning the national title at Notre Dame than Kelly has at LSU. That national title is attainable for Freeman where his feet are now. It does not make a whole lot of sense whatsoever for those feet to flee to Penn State. ✦ Marcus Freeman is eyeing a national championship. He's got as good a shot of getting it in South Bend as anywhere else. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER Freeman To Penn State Rumors Are Nonsensical 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

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