Marcus Freeman hopes to continue traditions, including USC rivalry, independence

I’ve been among the many who’ve been impressed with what Marcus Freeman has built in South Bend through his first three seasons as Notre Dame’s head coach. In fact, I was so impressed with how he coached this season that I said following Notre Dame’s national title game loss to Ohio State that I think he could win a championship soon if he opts to stay in South Bend.

So, we decided to bring “Big Noon Conversations” to South Bend and interview Freeman for the premiere of the show’s third season. As Freeman prepares for his fourth season as the head coach of the Fighting Irish, he and I touched on numerous items throughout our 30-minute conversation. We discussed Notre Dame’s independent status, the future of its rivalry with USC, learning from his early losses as head coach and carrying on the program’s tradition.

Here are some of the highlights of my conversation with Freeman.

Parts of this interview were edited for brevity. 

Klatt: I’ve gotta tell you, and I didn’t want to tell you before you sat down, because I didn’t want to steal this line and I hate to break it to all of you out there. This is my singular favorite spot in college football, the locker room at Notre Dame Stadium.

Freeman: I appreciate that. We’ve gotta make sure we get that message out there a little bit more. 

It’s incredible, and they did a little bit of this before you became the head coach, but mixing the old with the new, going out the door and down the tunnel and all the history. Yet, it’s a modern program that’s excelling. I feel all of that when I walk into this building and it’s just quintessentially college football, which is really cool. 

That’s what we want it to be. You can’t get away from the things that have made this place special. You embrace it. You celebrate it. You show it off. But you also want to continue to be relevant. You want to continue to be new, trendy and attract young talent. Notre Dame does a magnificent job of doing that. 

You say “attract young talent.” What I’m fascinated by is that when I walk in, the history hits me and I love it. But when you get a young kid out here, how long does it take for them to grasp what this place is? 

It depends on who it is. Sometimes, their parents understand it, which can resonate with the young person. But a lot of these young people now, they have no clue about the old Notre Dame – the history and how this program was built. The success it’s had and its 11 national championships. We haven’t won a championship since [1988]. How do you continue to make this relevant? It’s important that we explain to the young person what makes this place special.

Do that for me. Let’s say I’m a dad and I have a kid, or I’m a kid that you’re recruiting. How do you explain the special, unique nature of this place?

I think it goes so far beyond the football program. We spend time talking about the history of Notre Dame football, how it was built and the reason why we’re independent. We were looking for teams to play and we were willing to drive or go on a train from coast to coast, from Navy or Boston College all the way out to Southern Cal, in order to find an opponent. That’s how the Notre Dame football program was built, in independence. That’s why we want to keep that independence as much as we can. That’s what makes this place so special.

But I often talk about the education, networking and people that are intertwined with Notre Dame because that’s, to me, what makes this place so different. Everybody that comes to our program aspires to be a first-round pick. If you’re good enough, you will be a first-round pick. We’ve got plenty of them to show you. But what else do universities provide you? And that’s what we’ve got to make sure we continuously educate young people on. No. 1, the percentage of people that are those first-round picks or are those draft picks, but also the realization that football is going to end. It’s going to end before you know it. So, what else do these high educational institutions provide you? 

That’s what we want people to understand, what makes this place different. They like to talk in terms of stars. This is a five-star football program; we get that. But there’s also a five-star education, and here are the benefits of obtaining an education from this university.

You touched on independence, which was something I wanted to touch on with you. You kinda referenced it there, but how important is it for you guys to retain your independence? 

It’s what this football program was built from. As long as we can, we will [remain independent]. I have a lot of confidence in our administration and Pete Bevacqu, our AD, that he’ll always keep us in a position to be successful. So, as long as we can keep that independence, we will. But if there’s ever a time where we’re at a disadvantage because we’re not in a conference, I’m sure he’ll make a decision, along with our president, to join one of these conferences and position ourselves to not be negatively impacted by being independent. 

What is the biggest threat to that? Where does a disadvantage pop up?

Being at a disadvantage to make the postseason because you’re not in the playoff or if there comes a time teams won’t schedule you because the Big Ten or SEC are saying “we’re going to play nine games and a crossover game and who cares about Notre Dame.” Well, then there’s going to be a point where we’re forced to join a conference. Until that point happens, which doesn’t look likely, we’re going to stay independent for as long as we can.

Do you feel like independence fits with the future of the sport because of what you said there with crossover games and scheduling?

I could see it trending that way. I don’t know when that time will be. But when you start adding in TV money and scheduling, there’s a lot of money involved with college football. There might come a time where an outside entity takes college football away from the NCAA. I don’t know, the future’s uncertain. I could see a college football system where everyone’s independent and, similar to the NFL, someone else is scheduling games and when you play each other. All of a sudden, it’s not based off TV deals with your conference anymore. It’ll be based off regional location and things like that.

You guys recently made the scheduling agreement with Clemson, which I think is great. We’d love to see more games like that involving premium brands. Are there any other teams that you’d like to play every year? 

I feel like you’re trying to get a certain team that’s been buzzing (laughs). You think about rivalries, and I’m sure you can go back to when you played high school football or even earlier. I think back to my high school years. I was from Ohio and played at a high school called Huber Heights Wayne. Our big rival was Centerville Elks. The guys that have come from Centerville that you might know are AJ Hawk, Kirk Herbstreit, Mike Nugent and some really great players. That was a huge rivalry. Then, you go to Ohio State and you play Michigan every year. 

The thing about rivalry games is that nobody cares what the record is. You win that game, you view that season as a success. 

Michigan last year with Ohio State.

Amen. So, for us, one of them that’s continuously brought up here over the last month or so is the rivalry with USC. Before I even got to Notre Dame, there are memories I have in my head of great plays in the USC-Notre Dame rivalry. I think it’s important to continue that rivalry.

If they ask my opinion, I want to continuously play USC every year. It takes both parties to tangle. It’s to fit both institutions. They’re in a conference, we’re not, when we play – all of those different things. But I think it’s important that we continue to have this rivalry. 

You guys just made an incredible run in the College Football Playoff. You played for a national championship. What do you know now about the head coach of Notre Dame that you wish you could tell that guy after the loss to Marshall in your first year in 2022?

Probably one very clear statement: The greatest things in life take time and there is no such thing as instant gratification if you’re talking about creating something great. You learn so much more from the losses. You can’t lose or you’re not going to have a job. But losing is a part of continuous growth. Nobody enjoys it, but there’s a desperation that every individual naturally has when they’re in the dumps, when they’ve lost and feel embarrassed. I think I’ve had my most growth as a leader from some of those difficult losses.

But if you would’ve told me when I was hired as the head coach here that I would play in a national championship game in Year 3, I would’ve been like, “Heck ya, that’s an awesome start.” But if you also would’ve said that you had nine losses on your record before you did that, oof, that’s hard to swallow. But that’s what it took. That’s the experience that I’ve had to go through, and we’ve had to go through as a program to put ourselves in the position we’re in now. We’ve got to continue to use those experiences from the past as a new foundation for the future.

Is there a moment or game that stands out where you feel you learned the most?

I think each loss might have taught me something different. The very first loss to Oklahoma State, we’re up big. We’re up 21 getting ready to go into half, they end up scoring and we’re up 14 at half. I’m like, “Man, this is easy, the head coaching thing.” Then, all of a sudden, you find a way to lose that game and you go, “Oh, this is not as easy as you thought.” We play at Ohio State in the first game in the following year. We’re up, I think, in the third quarter, 10-7 maybe. We’re up in the third quarter and I’m like, “We’re good.” We ended up losing, [but I thought] we’re going to be great. 

Then, you lose to Marshall. And I think, that loss, I had never won a game as a head coach, and you start losing a little bit of faith, like “Do I know what it takes? What’s going on? We’re a better team than how we just played. What is it going to take?”

So, you learn through those losses. Then, you lose to Northern Illinois this past year. The lesson I learned from that was how to handle success. We weren’t ready. I wasn’t ready to handle success as a head coach. That was the first time in my three years as head coach that we had won that big game early. … This is the first time that we had won that big game. Everyone’s saying you’ve got an easy schedule, you’re going to the playoff. Then, you don’t prepare mentally and physically the right way. The football Gods taught us a great lesson. I think every loss, you learn something different.

You came up short against Ohio State in the National Championship Game. What did you learn in that game?

In those biggest games and those biggest moments, you’ve gotta play your best. You can’t make mistakes against a team like Ohio State. You think about that first drive on offense, I think it was a 19-play drive. We execute, we’re physical, and we go down and score. Defensively, we didn’t play our best. Credit to Ohio State. They had some elite playmakers. They played really, really well. I wish we could go back and play our best. The outcomes might still be the same, but there were moments in that game where I thought that’s not how we play all year long. 

But listen, we fought until the very end. We were down 14 at half, 21 [later on] and it was an eight-point game. This group isn’t going to quit. Ever. As I think about it, it’s like, OK, what didn’t I do to prepare them the right way for that opportunity? What didn’t I do as the head coach to make sure we were ready to play our best in that moment? Was the game too big? Did I make it too small? I think of many different reasons. I want everyone in our program to think that way, “What didn’t I do to make sure I was prepared to take advantage of that opportunity?” It’s really hard to get there.

So, it’s something I’ll always remember. We made some changes. We already debriefed from that game. If we’re in that situation, here are some different things as we prepare for it. At the end of the day, you’ve got to play your best when you’re playing the best. 

You got some interest from the NFL from that run. Instead of asking you specifically about that, here’s how I would rather ask you this question: What are the one or two things we need to fix in college football to make sure the Marcus Freemans of the world stay?

I always think about our staff and how I, as the head coach, do the best job possible to make sure our staff enjoys coming to work here. Part of that is trying not to overwork them. Sometimes, college coaches can overwork their staffs. We’re going to work hard. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. Nothing great in life is easy. But how do we continue to look at the calendar and make it in a way that there’s some time of balance for the assistant coaches? They’re the ones that are on the road 24/7 constantly. We’ve got to create some type of balance for those coaches and I think we are. I see us trending, from my first year to now my fourth year, in a direction that’s trying to create some type of balance for assistant coaches and that’s important.

But how do we continue to have a college football structure that helps young people continually become self-sufficient? I think back to my time at Ohio State. I was a pretty big recruit. There was a thought in my head, “I’m going to walk in here and start.” Well, you’ve got three linebackers, two of them were first-round picks – AJ Hawk and Bobby Carpenter – and the other was a third-round pick, Anthony Schlegel. I wasn’t good enough to start. I had to learn for two years to embrace my role and continue to work, even though I wasn’t playing as much as I wanted. How do I, as an individual, take advantage of my opportunities and get better? That’s how you become self-sufficient. You overcome challenges. There was no thought for me to get up and go somewhere else. 

That’s the greatest thing I had to learn to do. Stay there, overcome some adversity, take advantage of the opportunities that I got, graduate and get a degree. I just don’t want a structure that’s created where when things get hard, it’s easy to pick up and go somewhere else. I think it’s important that we create rules and some type of structure that continues to promote self-sufficiency for young people and overcoming obstacles.

When I first came to Notre Dame, I was like, “I don’t want to like Notre Dame.” But when we got here a couple of years ago to prepare to call Notre Dame’s game against Wisconsin, you were the defensive coordinator at the time, we did some interviews and I’m walking around, “It’s not that cool.” Then, we go to the Grotto, the Basilica, we walk in this locker room and I walk out on the field. I was like, “Dang it, this place is so awesome.” I still feel that way. It’s a really special place.

It is. It’s an honor to be a part of this place. You’ve got to be cautious about how much you brag about it because somebody that hasn’t been here to understand might be taken aback because the way people have so much passion about this place. I think back to before I became the defensive coordinator here. I used to be like, “Notre Dame fans are over the top. These guys are crazy.” Then, you get here, and it’s such a passion for this place and university. 

Joel Klatt is FOX Sports’ lead college football game analyst and the host of the podcast “The Joel Klatt Show.” Follow him at @joelklatt and subscribe to the “Joel Klatt Show” on YouTube.

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