Photo Credit: Maria Lysaker-USA TODAY Sports
When Marcus Freeman became the Notre Dame Head Football Coach after Brian Kelly departed the program in 2021 the hire was met with the same amount of enthusiasm as uncertainty. Freeman had never been a head coach before in his career. At any level. His inexperience led to a lot of growing pains through the first full two seasons of his career. In the Fiesta Bowl against Oklahoma State, Freeman’s team jumped out to a 28-7 lead right before halftime. He failed to make adjustments during halftime. which allowed Mike Gundy’s Cowboys to go on a 30-0 run to come back and win the New Year Six Bowl game 37-35. In this loss, the fans and players saw the bright side and saw this struggle as growing pains. Same would be said about the opening game of the 2022 season in the Horseshoe. However, after the shocking loss to Marshall, the fans started to wonder. Did Notre Dame get the right man? Was it wise to make a 35 year old a first time Head Coach at the MOST prestigious program in the country. This question reemerged time and time again. ND lost to a unranked Stanford at home, allowed Ohio State to drive down and score the game-winning touchdown at Home in 2023, a shocking loss to Louisville on the road, and a momentum-killing loss to a Clemson team that is a corpse of itself. The same costly mistake bit Notre Dame in the behind, loss after loss. The same growing pains occurring made fans question. Is Notre Dame really better off with Freeman?
A Coach and Man Reborn
Right off the gates Saturday Night you could tell there was something different with Coach Freeman. His body language was different. He was going back and forth with fans before the team even left the tunnel along with hyping up the Blue and Gold faithful. Once the game began, Freeman and Notre Dame didn’t get off to the strong start they wanted. The offense was inconsistent and struggled to find a rhythm, especially with the questionable holding calls on the offensive line. Throughout the struggles Freeman never let himself get to visually down on the sidelines. And in moments of success in the first half, like the Adon Shuler interception, he took the time to celebrate with Shuler and then moved on to the next play. No time to sit and brew. Only go time. When it got to the second half Freeman made the adjustments necessary to win the game. He was significantly more aggressive and opportunistic on the first drive of the second half. Instead of punting with a three and out, Freeman and Denbrock dialed up a QB power with Riley Leonard and converted a 4th and 1. Again on the drive did Freeman and Leonard find themselves in the same situation at the 50 and again Freeman rolled the dice. However, with a bad spot, the conversion failed. However, it did not fail on lighting a fire under the defense with Golden and company getting a quick turnover on downs which Jadarian Price converted to six. Freeman was even aggressive in deciding to kick a field goal with 50 seconds left with transfer Mitch Jeter to ice the game. If the kick was blocked or missed, AM would have been put in a great position to tie up the game but Jeter had ice in his veins and sealed the deal. Overall, Freeman’s aggressiveness and maturity ended up tipping the scales of the game towards the side of the Fighting Irish and showed fans how Freeman is growing before our very eyes.
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