Details on Notre Dame’s creative way to showcase ‘The Freeman Era’
Per NCAA rules, college football programs are allowed to send out their 10 assistant coaches and head coach on the road during evaluation and contact periods. In Notre Dame’s current transition period on its staff, it got creative in sending out coaches on the road to recruit last week.
Brian Polian, who served as Notre Dame’s special teams coordinator but left for LSU, wasn’t on the road. The Irish are down an assistant there, plus Marcus Freeman took the head coach position after Brian Kelly left for LSU, meaning there was another open assistant slot. This allowed Emily Ragan, a video producer for Fighting Irish Media, to hit the road with Freeman and Co.
Ragan wasn’t on the road to recruit. She was there to film the staff’s recruiting efforts for upcoming video projects.
Last Friday evening, Notre Dame released an eight-minute video titled “The Freeman Era” which dove deep into various moments in the wild ride that has been the past couple weeks, from offensive coordinator Tommy Rees telling the team that he’s staying on staff, to strength coach Matt Balis’ message to his group, to Freeman’s introductory press conference, to a football staff meeting and more.
The video had over 237,000 views on Twitter as of Sunday night. It was shot and produced by Ragan, a class of 2019 Notre Dame graduate.
Content that Ragan and the Fighting Irish Media team will produce in this new age of college football will be key. It’s a new day in Notre Dame football, and it’s no wonder why the program is dubbing it the Freeman era. They want for the masses to get an up-close look at their new face of the program and see his infectious personality.
Essentially, Notre Dame chose to send a member of its media team on the road instead of sending an additional graduate assistant or analyst out on the road to recruit because of how much value they’re putting into showcasing Freeman.
Ragan’s video content from her road travels with Freeman, Rees and others will become public soon, considering that early signing period begins on Wednesday. Documenting the key moments from Freeman’s coast-to-coast travels in video form for the public to watch will be like a kid opening presents on Christmas morning for Fighting Irish fans. Recruits will be excited about it too with Notre Dame’s new “swag” element under Freeman.
Notre Dame had 18 official visitors and two four-star class of 2023 targets on campus over the weekend. Recruits are buzzing about the new energy that is inside the Guglielmino Athletics Complex.
A new time in college football is here with NIL, and it’s an opportunity for the Notre Dame football program to build off the success from the past decade. The Fighting Irish have a young, energetic coach who is a great recruiter that players want to run through a wall for.
Notre Dame wants Freeman’s face on every computer screen, tablet or phone for everyone to see and buy in to the new era. The Freeman Era.
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