Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM APRIL/MAY 2026 5 C J Carr isn't afraid to start a practice fracas with team- mates by jawing but he isn't averse to verbally breaking one up, either. It's the exact type of give and take Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman wants from all of his players. And it's the right way to go about managing internal friction. If the starting quarterback of a team with championship aspirations can't get down and dirty, what kind of example does that set in the way of desire and want-to? And if there isn't any bad blood between guys who are going against each other over and over and over again throughout a five-week spring practice schedule, then what's the point? Who's getting better? Who's showing they care? Who wants to win? Better yet, who doesn't want to lose? That's the way Freeman sees it. He knows what he's doing. "I don't want them to lose that com- petitive spirit," Freeman said Wednesday. "If we don't have scuffles or tussles — I don't know if I'm going to define it as a fight — then we're probably not as com- petitive as I aspire to have our team to be." So what do these dust-ups look like? Two guys fighting is the max. Freeman's rule. He is not in favor of all-out, total- team brawls and melees. Those are more so signs of out-of-control chaos. There aren't any scores being settled man-to- man in sideline-clearing masses of con- fusion. But if somebody wants to let an- other know he's in it to win it and he's not going to take any more you-know-what? So be it. "If two guys are fighting, they're fight- ing," Freeman said, "and everybody else's job is to break them up. We have to be proactive about that in terms of showing them and teaching them, and our guys do an unbelievable job at pulling guys apart. Then you're not wasting time. "I tell the guys, we got so much work to do, we can't waste two minutes breaking up a fight. What are we doing? Everybody else break them up, put the ball down and let's go." Freeman said "there are some con- sequences" if an altercation takes too long to squash. He's got to "get some time back somehow, someway." Reading between the lines, up-downs, push-ups and sprints (or anything else of that dis- ciplinary nature) in response to beefing that goes beyond the boundary of what Freeman would call fair play have some- times been in order. Maybe oftentimes. Those are par for the course in prac- tices at any level of football. It'd almost be weird if any given week there wasn't some hostility between a Notre Dame offensive lineman and a defensive line- men. Between a wide receiver and a cor- nerback. A linebacker and a tight end. Again, these are players who do nothing but hit the same teammates repeatedly this time of year. The tension of such battles often boils over. Freeman likened it to familial strife. When you're in tight quarters with someone for long stretches of time, there tend to be disagreements and, yes, sometimes those turn physical. The key is keeping everything in per- spective and in line. "I say this all the time, me and my brother, we would fight," Freeman said. "It's like, brothers — you fight. But there is a line you don't cross. When you're fighting your brother, if you love him — some people might think I'm crazy — but you just don't cross a certain line where, ev- erybody's line might be a little bit different, and that's ours. Like, if you two guys are fight- ing, you two guys are fighting. Don't cross the line and don't take it off the field. It can't be personal." It circles back to Carr. If he's the one to get some commo- tion going, then so be it. Free- man talked about how it was Carr's competitiveness in last year's quarterback competi- tion that lit a fire under the rest of Notre Dame's players. They saw how badly he wanted to succeed, so they took it upon themselves to want it equally as bad. Well, when you've got a hundred premier athletes all in the same place who all have an undying drive to be great, tempers flare and emotions overflow. Carr intentionally taps into that. The way he riles his Notre Dame teammates up is calculated yet natural. It comes from a place of leadership and wanting the best for his peers and the program. Same with Freeman. There is one thing Notre Dame will never be on his watch, and that's stale. Stagnant. Being unwilling to better yourself by way of making yourself uncomfortable. That's when you lose your edge, and losing your edge isn't an option at today's Notre Dame. "You need one every day," Freeman said. "Because if not, you'll get com- placent. You'll get comfortable and you won't improve. So, it's my job to find ways to create that edge, to create that motivation." ✦ Notre Dame spring practices have come with heightened emotions this year, and that's exactly what head coach Marcus Freeman wants. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER Practice Scuffles Are A Sign Notre Dame Is All-In 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