The 35-year-old rookie head coach succeeds the winningest coach in school history—a daunting task for any—and yet the Fighting Irish are amped.
SOUTH BEND, Ind. — The door to Notre Dame’s spectacular indoor football facility opened, and Joanna Freeman led her brood out the door and into the bracing cold. Behind her trailed Vinny, Siena, Gino, Nico, Capri and Rocco, dressed in varying elements of tartan plaid, all bustling across the street as the wind howled at them from the west.
“Look at the ducklings!” Called out Pat Terrell, one of the stars of the last team to win a football national championship here. The Freemans turned, laughed, and kept scurrying in duckling formation.
Minutes earlier, the kids had been chasing each other in the end zone on the artificial turf. And minutes before that, they had watched their father, Marcus, choke up with emotion at the podium while being formally introduced as the new coach of the Fighting Irish.
The last Monday of November was tinged with bitterness and betrayal here. The first Monday of December was a warm-and-fuzzy family day—both Freemans sprawling immediate family and the Fighting Irish family at large. It was quite the transformation in a week’s time.
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Rarely has Notre Dame been so likable for people not already predisposed to like Notre Dame. And rarely do you see and feel such unanimous excitement about a hire that carries no small element of risk. In introducing a charismatic people person, the Irish won the press conference Monday by as wide a margin as they usually lose College Football Playoff games.
Head coach Brian Kelly bolted, leaving a team that was still in contention for the College Football Playoff. Defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman stayed to replace him. The winningest coach in school history is being succeeded by a 35-year-old rookie head coach, a daunting premise, and yet everyone here is thoroughly amped.
The current players are amped because of the continuity they helped maintain. A 45-minute meeting between the team captains and athletic director Jack Swarbrick last Tuesday impressed upon Swarbrick the need to maintain the culture the players had created. That was ensured by not just the promotion of Freeman but the retainment of offensive coordinator Tommy Rees, strength coach Matt Balis and other staffers.
The video of Freeman walking into a euphoric group of players was powerful. So was Swarbrick’s satisfaction in cutting off the potential flow of Notre Dame to Baton Rouge with Kelly. “Let’s just say I was energized by the possibility (of cutting off Kelly’s coattails),” Swarbrick said.
The former players are amped as well. Terrell and 1988 teammate Chris Zorich showed up for the Freeman introduction because they felt so strongly about his hire—both the opportunity for a Black coach and also a man who had made such a profound impression on everyone in just 11 months at the school.
“I just wanted to let him know he has the support of the alumni,” Terrell said. “He needs to feel that. We had a coach like Marcus, who you would do anything for—and it wasn’t Lou Holtz. It was Barry Alvarez (then the Notre Dame defensive coordinator). What an opportunity for these guys to play for a coach you respect and you know he respects you.”
Zorich has a podcast, and on it he recently compared the audio of Brian Kelly’s painfully phony introductory address to LSU fans at a Tigers basketball game with Freeman’s address to the Notre Dame team after he got the job. “What team would you want to play for?” Zorich asked.
The bet by Notre Dame is that a lot of extremely talented prospects will want to play for Freeman. He’s an extremely effective recruiter, and his plan is to improve upon Kelly’s very effective work in that area. He’s ready to take on Alabama and Ohio State and others, selling Notre Dame as more accessible for more players.
“We have to find a better way to do everything,” Freeman said, then declared himself the program’s No. 1 recruiter for every prospect the Irish go after. “You have to embrace this place. You have to embrace the things that make us different.”
Notre Dame’s quick decision to embrace Freeman was both borne of necessity— there was no time to lose in the recruiting race—and conviction that he was the right man for the job. About 90 minutes after Swarbrick took the call from Kelly saying he was leaving, he made a call of his own that would mark the beginning of the end of the search for the next football coach of the Fighting Irish.
“Are you interested?” Swarbrick asked Freeman. The answer, of course, was affirmative. That sent Swarbrick down what he called “parallel tracks”—one with his internal candidate, one with a handful of external possibilities.
Sources familiar with the quick search said Notre Dame had eight current head coaches on its initial list. Two declined to participate, one had timing issues, two others were eliminated by the school. The list was quickly whittled to three head coaches and Freeman. As previously mentioned, the player input was significant in pushing Freeman to the forefront.
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After he sat down with Swarbrick, Freeman did a zoom call with university president Father John Jenkins, who was in Rome. It wasn’t his first interview with the priest; all coordinator-level hires at Notre Dame have to go through Jenkins for what is essentially a This Is How We Do Things Here And You Need To Be OK With It discussion.
Freeman aced the one when he was first hired last year, and aced this one as well. Given the player feedback, that was about all that needed to happen.
Unlike a lot of other places, Jenkins and Swarbrick are a decision-making duo that is well insulated from the whims and wallets of boosters. Jenkins is in his 17th year as school president; Swarbrick in his 14th year as AD. Both are 67 years old and graduates of the school; they know the place down to the last grotto candle.
Swarbrick made note Monday of the lack of background noise while going through the search. “The hiring process that allows us to be here, less than one week after being notified we would have a vacancy, is free from undue influence or interference, a circumstance that is increasingly rare in college athletics,” he said.
He might as well have been talking directly to Miami, which had a cadre of high rollers turn its athletic department and football leadership situation into a classless power grab. After firing athletic director Blake James, the school/boosters set about hiring both a new AD (Dan Radakovich from Clemson) and a new football coach (Mario Cristobal from Oregon) … without getting around to firing the current football coach (Manny Diaz).
They let Diaz twist for more than a day while trying to lock up Cristobal. It finally worked out Monday, but Diaz deserved better treatment and said so. “The uncertainty impacted our team, our staff and their families — these are real people that gave everything to this program,” Diaz said in a statement. “For that, for them, I hurt.”
Miami might have money-whipped its way into a better situation with Radakovich and Cristobal, and perhaps that’s all that matters in the current cutthroat climate. But university leadership that let it unfold that way should be embarrassed.
There was no embarrassment at Notre Dame Monday. Just happiness and unbridled optimism. Freeman said he believes the Irish are “close” to a national championship, even hinting that 2022 could be the time.
“It can be done right away,” he said. “We’re not talking about a future long term plan. This is talking about the urgency I said for now to finish this season off, and then next year we have to have intentional efforts to make sure we're doing whatever it takes to put this team in position to win a National Championship.”
Swarbrick said he shares Freeman’s belief that the Irish are close, recent CFP semifinal defeats to the contrary. But he also recognizes that a popular hire of a rookie head coach only lasts until kickoff next September.
“Oh, I’m worried about that part,” he said. “No one knows until you do it. I think he’s phenomenal and he’ll do a great job. He’s going to have my full support. But when you’re building a candidate pool, there’s a reason why no one else in the pool wasn’t a head coach.”
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