How Marcus Freeman’s immersion into Notre Dame’s culture made him stand out
SOUTH BEND — As cleanup crews took down the camera bays, the folding chairs, the stage and all the other accoutrements of a mass celebration, Jack Swarbrick stood around the 40-yard line of the Irish Athletic Center’s indoor practice field and admitted to a small group of reporters that, yes, there are still some nerves about the momentous choice he made.
For as clear and easy a decision as Swarbrick made hiring Marcus Freeman seem, Freeman is still a 35-year-old first-time head coach, after all.
“I think he’s phenomenal and I have all the confidence in the world in him,” said Swarbrick, Notre Dame’s director of athletics, “but you don’t know until you do it.”
Indeed, in the crapshoot practice of picking a coach, nothing is a sure thing. Hires unanimously praised as home runs have turned into feeble groundouts. Those panned for endless reasons have become successes. No matter how Freeman fares in his time as Notre Dame’s head coach, there will be missteps and a growth period on fall Saturdays next year.
It’s the other six days of the week and time off the field, though, that pointed Swarbrick toward the Brian Kelly replacement candidate who was on campus all along. Notre Dame’s seven captains helped steer him in Freeman’s direction during a Nov. 30 meeting following Kelly’s departure.
In that meeting, Swarbrick did not float candidates past them. He did not ask for names. He inquired about their preferred characteristics in a head coach. Their answer was loud and unified.
“What they insisted I understand was that they had built the best culture in college football,” Swarbrick said in his opening statement introducing Freeman. “They have friends playing at other places around the country, they have a way to make that assessment.
“They also wanted me to know that they owned that culture. They built it. It was theirs. And their message, stating clearly and convincingly, was, ‘Jack, don't screw this up.’ I got the message. In short, they convinced me that I had two separate tasks in front of me. One was to select the best possible coach to lead the program. The other was to protect the culture they had built.”
Notre Dame’s players spent the 48 hours after Kelly’s sudden Southern exit campaigning for Freeman on social media. Swarbrick, though, didn’t make his choice because of their #FreemanEra tweets or swaying from the captains. But it was influenced by the feeling Freeman was the best defender, promoter and enhancer of that culture.
“The culture of this program is in its best spot I’ve seen it and we’re trending in the right direction, so how could we continue that growth with an overhaul and a whole new program?” fifth-year senior linebacker and captain Drew White said. “We explained we thought the next guy was already in the building.”
Freeman’s task, then, is winning games and being a “guardian” of that culture, to use Swarbrick’s term. This isn’t a 7-5 team making a hollow ploy for continuity and over-exaggerating its cohesion. Notre Dame is 54-8 in the last five seasons and one of six teams to make multiple College Football Playoff appearances. The standards within the program are impactful enough that even outgoing seniors have a fervent desire to see them remain in place.
Kelly leaving for LSU put that culture at risk. For as much credit goes to players in developing it, the head coach must facilitate it too. And to do so, there’s a level of understanding developed only with time spent in the program.
That’s not to say any outside hire couldn’t have worked or that other coaches aren’t accomplished culture builders too. But the uncertainty of culture change from what has worked at this unique program was too much for Notre Dame’s captains to bear and too important for Swarbrick to undo.
Freeman, in just 11 months, formed a strong understanding of it. He was an outsider at this time last year, but embraced himself in what Notre Dame had done rather than foisting all his methods on a roster of players he didn’t know.
“When he initially came in, he explained to the defensive players and linebackers we had just went to the playoff, so there wasn’t much to come in and change,” White said. “He has the humility to come in and learn and absorb.”
Inheriting a mature and unified roster that knows and likes him is a friendly situation for a first-time head coach. Notre Dame isn’t a Death Star like, say, Ohio State when in-house hire Ryan Day took over for Urban Meyer in 2019. Nor is it a cesspool waiting like a trapdoor for an unassuming up-and-coming coordinator from the outside.
All told, Freeman will endure minimal cultural reset and can immediately start his quest to push Notre Dame to the summit. The first chance is weeks away. A win in the Jan. 1 Fiesta Bowl vs. No. 9 Oklahoma State would snap a major bowl victory drought that stretches back to 1994.
“We're not there yet, but we're close,” Freeman said. “It can be done right away. We're not talking about a future long-term plan. This is talking about the urgency to finish this season off. 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.
“[The players] understand the expectation. They understand to achieve anything, it's going to be really hard and they're going to be pushed. But they've got a leader and they have leaders around them that care about them and have their best interests at heart.
“That's how we're going to create success here. We're going to push each other, but they know their leaders trust them, they know their leaders love them. That, to me, is what has gotten us to this point. Over 11 months, you feel that way about a group of guys, and I hope the feeling's mutual most of the time.”
Based on the team’s raw euphoria upon learning of Freeman’s hire and the players’ campaign for him, it’s safe to assume the mutual admiration. In the captains meeting, Swarbrick observed the offensive players were just as enthused about Freeman as the defensive players Freeman coached up close every day.
“You watch him during a session of practice, like special teams, he’d be talking to [running back] Kyren [Williams] or talking to [quarterback] Jack [Coan],” Swarbrick said. “He built a relationship with everyone on the team.”
Not because he made a conscious effort to go out of his way. It simply happens.
“I’d take the word ‘conscious’ out of that,” Swarbrick said. “It’s just who he is. How many coordinators can tell you the names of the managers? I bet he can. Very different.”
And yet, that’s why he was trusted to keep the culture the same.
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