Notre Dame head football coach Marcus Freeman held a press conference Monday at Notre Dame Stadium, previewing Saturday's 2023 road game between his 13th-ranked Irish (2-0) and NC State (1-0) in Raleigh, N.C. (Noon EDT; ABC). Here's everything he had to say. Answers are largely verbatim. Question are edited for brevity and clarity.
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Opening statement:
“It’s Monday. We’ve turned our attention to NC State, but we had a chance yesterday to review the Tennessee State film. It was really good. A lot of guys got to play. A lot of good teaching opportunities. Some of the takeaways from that game: We didn’t start really crisp. There were too many mistakes on that first drive on both sides of the ball that we have to make sure we correct. Making sure from the very start of the game we eliminate the missed assignments. We can’t do that. The guys played for 60 minutes with great effort. I was really pleased with whoever came into the game, the effort that was displayed.
“Tennessee State was probably a little bit better of a team than we maybe even saw on film. They are a good football team. A lot of talented players. They did some things defensively and offensively that we really hadn’t seen them display on film. So we had to make some adjustments. I was really pleased with the adjustments that we were able to make.
“We talked about the fourth-and-2 false start. We can’t have it. It can’t happen in that short-yardage situation when you have a chance to go for it on fourth down. Now all of a sudden we’re in a punting situation. So we have to be better there.
“I was really pleased with the red-zone offense and defense. That’s something we’ve been really talking about. We didn’t have a great red-zone defense last year. They’ve done a really good job in these first two games of executing in the red zone. Offensively, we did a really good job in the red zone, too. Offensively, I was pleased with the ball security. That was a challenge that we had going into the week. We had to hand the ball to the official. For the most part, we didn’t obviously put the ball on the ground on the offensive side of the ball.
“Jayden Thomas is playing at a high level. Jayden Thomas really performed pretty well. I told coach Rudolph, the offensive line — yes, we ran the ball well. But they protected the quarterback. It was good to see. I know Steve [Angeli] took a hit or two, but it was really good to see overall the protection of the quarterback.
“As we move forward from that game: players of the game were on offense Audric Estimé, defense Howard Cross and then special teams was Jason Onye with his big field goal block. Scout team players of the week were on offense Sam Pendleton, on defense Cole Aubrey and then on special teams Tre Reader. That’s recapping last game.
“This will be our first true road test. We know as we get ready to go down to Raleigh, North Carolina and play NC State. We expect it to be a very hostile environment. I’ve only been there one time and that was as a player in 2004. I remember as a player it was a hostile environment and a great environment for college football. We’re looking forward to that. They’ve won the last 16 out of 17 games at home. So, we know the challenge it will be to go down there and try to get a victory at NC State.
“I don’t know coach [Dave] Doeren personally. I was at Kent State in 2012 when he was the head coach at [Northern Illinois]. We faced each other in the MAC Championship game. Obviously, I was just a linebackers coach. That’s the only time I’ve really got a chance to go against him. And I know he had time at Wisconsin when I was at Ohio State. I look forward to getting a chance to meet him in person.
“Offensively, we faced the offensive coordinator the past two years at Syracuse and Virginia. The quarterback’s special. He is a really good player, Brennan Armstrong. I remember him, because when I was at Cincinnati we recruited him. He’s from Ohio. We recruited him when I was at Cincinnati. To see his growth in college, what he’s done at Virginia and now at NC State, he is extremely talented. They have a talented offense. They’re really deep in their running backs room. They have multiple guys you’ll see come in the game and really do a good job. Very similar to us in that running backs room. We have to expect tempo. We have to expect multiple formations. Extremely talented offense.
“Defensively, Tony Gibson has done a great job for many years. I remember when he was at West Virginia and now the things he’s done at NC State. I think last year they led the ACC in scoring defense. So, we know the challenge they’re going to bring. They’re attacking, a really aggressive team. Their two cornerbacks are going to be as good as you see. We know that will present a huge challenge.
“And then special teams wise, I was just talking to coach Biagi. I know Todd Goebbel from my time at Ohio State. He was a GA when I was there as a player. They’ve always been solid and really good on special teams. This is an entire package as a football program that will present a great challenge to our team. We’re really looking forward to beginning our prep starting today as we move forward.”
Q: What is it about this defense that has surprised you through two games?
MF: “I don’t know if I would say surprised. Because I’ve really believed the second year of the same scheme, the same coaches, our players are truly understanding the details of the defense. Now they’ve been able to go out and execute. Both weeks it’s been the first game for the opponent. So we’ve seen some things that you haven’t been able to prepare for. The thing that’s impressed me the most is the ability to get to the sidelines, get it corrected and go out there and really go out and execute.”
Q: How has this program been able to win 28 straight regular season games against the ACC?
MF: “The majority of those wins were before I was here. But I think it speaks to Notre Dame and the football program and the players it attracts. Really the excellence in our program and over history. I didn’t know that number, but that’s a lot. And that spans over many years. Credit to the coaches, Coach Kelly, that had the majority of those wins and what he’s done here. We have to just focus on this one. I’m not trying to give you coach-speak, but this is the one that’s important.”
Q: How much will you look at Sam Hartman’s performances against NC State and what the defense did against him?
MF: “I don’t know what happened when he was at Wake Forest. But I bet you he’ll probably look at it. I don’t know how much we’ll study that as much as we’ll study what they did versus UConn and what they’ve done in the past year or so. Not many quarterbacks have been very successful against this defense, so we have to make sure our plan is really clean. You don’t want a huge plan. Let’s be confident in what we’re doing. It’s a unique defense, the 3-3-5. It’s not something you see every day. So we have to make sure our plan is nice and tight and our guys go out and go do their job.”
Q: Can you update us on the injuries to Gabriel Rubio, Devyn Ford and Drayk Bowen?
MF: “Gabe Rubio’s still out. He had arthroscopic surgery, so he should be back in another couple weeks. Devyn Ford, he had a concussion, so he’s in concussion protocol. Don’t know the status yet. That will be a day-by-day thing. Drayk Bowen should be back this week. Matt Salerno had a lower leg injury. He’ll be out for an extended period of time. Multiple weeks. I don’t know really when he’ll be back, but he definitely had an injury from the game.”
Q: Does it change your defensive structure when you’re facing a scrambling quarterback like Brennan Armstrong?
MF: “It’s the mindset of your guys that are rushing. We can’t have guys behind the quarterback. We can’t give him vertical lanes to step up and escape from. But it’s a double-edged sword, because I don’t want four guys spying the quarterback. Having a QB spy is something we’ll have every game. But it’s a mindset of understanding we have to be controlled in our rush. We can’t be out of control and end up behind the quarterback and give him those lanes to escape from. But we’re going to have to keep him in the pocket. It's something we didn’t do a great job with at Tennessee State. He got out of the pocket a couple times — both quarterbacks. We have to do a better job there. It’s just a mentality and mindset. We have to be aggressive but we can’t be out of control where we end up behind the quarterback.”
Q: How did you approach fixing the red zone defense heading into the season?
MF: “It starts with self-evaluation. You really look at what we did last year in the red zone and where the miscues happened. Then you’re able to study some of the best. We spent time studying some of those best red zone defenses and seeing if there’s something that can fit into our scheme. We made some enhancements. Coach Golden has done a great job. Then the emphasis in practice. You have to practice it. It has to be a mentality. It has to be an understanding that the field shrinks and your matchups have to become really tight. There’s not a lot of space for zone defense down there. All those things come into play, and they’ve shown in the first two games.”
Q: What did you think of the defensive tackle group as a whole?
MF: “I think they did a great job. Howard Cross and Rylie Mills both played really well, winning performances. And then Jason Onye probably played his best overall game since he started playing for us. Donny Hinish played well. And so, I think we’re going to need those guys to continue to perform at a high level, with the absence of Gabe for probably another week or two. But I think our defensive staff has done a great job.”
Q: Tennessee State allowed you to see what you could do with your pass rush for the first time this season. How would you evaluate the performance of that unit?
MF: “It was good, got to be better. Our pass rush comes from so many different people, and not just the D-line. But the ability on third down to use some linebackers — Marist Liufau, Jaylen Sneed, even JD Bertrand has a little bit of pass rush in our scheme on third down. So, they’ve done a great job. They don’t always accumulate sacks, but our pass rush has been good the first two games.”
Q: Your offense has gone 9-for-9 scoring touchdowns in the two first halves of the first two games. What would you attribute that efficiency and that high operation to?
MF: “There's a lot of different factors. 1) The game plan, our players understanding exactly what they're supposed to do, why they're doing it, and how to do it. That's one thing, the understanding. Then 2) Go out and do it. I wish I could point to one thing, but it's an entire operation. And, hopefully, it's just winning one play at a time. Hopefully, when you do that — you’re 9-for-9 on scoring drives in the first halves of the first two games — that's what I’ve got to continue to get them to understand is that it isn't a 28-game winning streak in the ACC. It isn't 9-for-9 in the first halves of the first two games. It's just one play. One play — do my job on that play. Then we’ve got to go to the next play. Hopefully, the result of that is another really good first half.”
Q: When your offense is that efficient and scoring with that kind of regularity, what does that do for your defense, for the rest of the team?
MF: “Confidence, man. And I think it's human nature to feel a little bit of a sigh of relief, pressure off your shoulders when the offense goes out and scores the defense holds them, and all of a sudden this lead builds. It's not always going to be like that. And we’ve got to make sure when it's 0-to-0, it's a tie ballgame, we can still go out there and execute. But I think it is a pressure relief when you have a really good execution on both sides of the ball to start a game.”
Q: Have your defensive backs really been tested? And how does this NC State QB test you guys at the next level?
MF: “The first game versus Navy, Navy’s not a huge passing team. They did throw a couple of shots, and then this week finally we got the ball in the air a little bit, and they [Tennessee State] had some early success. They had a PI on Thomas Harper. And Ben Morrison, I think on that first drive, got a pass caught on him, so it’s starting to happen. They're going to get tested this week. We understand that, and NC State has some talented wideouts and they’ve got a lot of speed. They’ve got a freshman who is doing some really good things, I think No. 10. And a lot of people talk about Brennan Armstrong and being able to run the ball — he could throw it too. And he's got a good arm on him, and just a unique left-handed quarterback. And that's where our back end will be tested.”
Q: As you looked at the film of Antonio Carter, do you think that was targeting? And how do you coach them to avoid that?
MF: “Yeah, it was. He hit with the crown of his helmet. He's got to keep his head up and not launch. And so, often I tell our coaches the same things I tell our players, like we can complain about it and disagree, but we have to — within the rules of the game — make sure that we're not getting thrown out of the game. So, you coach them by saying, ‘Don't launch. Keep your head up.’ And the one on Devyn Ford [who took the hit], the explanation I got was it was with the forehead and not the crown of the head. And so those types of plays I'm sure they're really hard to call as the referee. But we have to coach, ‘Hey, where's the strike zone? Don't launch, and make sure you’re not hitting with the crown of your head.’”
Q: You had mentioned one of the things that you wanted to get out of camp was building depth, and you’ve certainly been able to flex that in the first couple of games. How confident are you that is going to be an asset, where there's not going to be a dropoff, moving forward?
MF: “Yeah, the ability to play so many guys — especially in the first two games, but this past game — is going to be tremendous. And I don't know when it's going to be needed, but it will be needed. It's guaranteed that we're going to have to — over the course of a 12-game season — you're going to have to have depth and at multiple different positions.
“For me, for Steve Angeli to go out and perform the way he did, I was extremely pleased. I know we kind of talked about it after the game, but it was hard to have a great feel right after the game. But to go back and watch it [on tape], and see some of the execution he made in terms of the checks — there was a third-down corner pressure. He checked it to the wideout, to Jayden Thomas. It was awesome to see him do that. And really some of the balls he threw, and a couple of the hits he took, that's the guy that sticks out in my head that, ‘You don't know when you're going to need Steve Angeli.’ We’re going to need him. And Kenny Minchey did a good job in his five plays. And I said, ‘He's at a 100% completion rate right now.’ That's pretty good. But we will need multiple guys throughout the course of the season. To give them valuable, meaningful reps is so important.”
Q: Talking about depth, you're getting to the point of the season where sometimes you need to make decisions about whether or not you preserve a year with a guy. And I'm wondering now that we're a few years into this portal age, when you've got young guys that can help you, do you think it necessarily makes as much sense as it used to try and do that [redshirt players] when maybe the odds of keeping a guy as long as four years isn't as high as it used to be?
MF: “Yeah, I think we don't make decisions based off, ‘Is this guy going to go into the portal if we don't play him?’ But we do make decisions based off, ‘I don't care if he's young or not, if he can help us play, get him in the game.’ And those are weekly conversations we have. We talk weekly about, ‘Hey, this freshman is at two games. He's at three games. OK, before we get to four, is this a guy that we want to save if we can? Or can he help us, and we're going to play him.’ And so, it's a little bit of credit to the high school programs. Kids are coming in more and more college-ready and developed. And if they can help us win, we’ve got to get them in the game.”
Q: You talked a little bit about Sam's experience with NC State, saying you might not look at his old film, but I'm wondering Is there value to him having been in that stadium, seeing that defense? And how much do you think the offense needs to lean into that?
MF: “Yeah, I think he can talk to the entire team about the experience of playing at NC State, and obviously to the offense about what the real game will be like. And so, I've always said there's no substitution for experience, and his experience, no matter good or bad, playing at NC State or playing against his defense, will be valuable this week.”
Q: When you were scouting for Virginia in 2021, and Armstrong and [NC State OC] Robert Anae were together there, what were the tenants of that offense? Armstrong ended up not playing, but what do Anae and Armstrong do well together that makes them hard to defend?
MF: “As defensive coaches, how we game-plan really starts based on personnel. So what offensive personnel is in the game, and what do we want to be in defensively? And they have so many different personnel. They use guys at so many different positions. And that's the thing that's challenging, that yes, you’re going to get tempo. Yes, Brennan Armstrong is extremely talented, but you're getting so many formations out of different personnel, and so many different guys coming in the game. And so, you have to almost play with a base defense and say, ‘All right, no matter who's where, you're going to play defense, according to a picture, not to who's in the game as much as OK, we’ve got to make sure we see the picture.’ Don't worry if that’s a tight end or a running back or wideout. What does the picture tell you? And then you game-plan that way.”
Q: Big picture, as you evaluate who you are, what you're good at, where you need to improve, is any of that opponent-dependent for the first couple of weeks? Obviously, the challenge goes up quite a bit this week. So, I was curious if there are things where you're like, ‘I think we're good at this, but by Saturday night, I'm really going to know?’
MF: “Yeah, I think you start with defensively you played one game so far against a traditional offense, and it took a while. That first quarter of going against Tennessee State, of having the Navy demons mangled. Like we hadn't played normal defense for about three weeks. And so, we’ve just got to continue to focus on improvement. I don't want to say that the wins over Navy and Tennessee State don’t mean anything. They do. But more than the wins, it's looking at us internally and saying, ‘OK, did we execute on this assignment? Why or why not?’ And that was the challenge I have for the coaches: I want to know why he MA’d [missed an assignment]. Like how many MAs did we have and what do we have to do to fix it? Not as much as, ‘Hey, did we beat Tennessee State or did we beat Navy?’ But what about us? Our guys, do they know exactly what to do? And if they don't, why did they make a mistake? We have to figure out why, and then correct it with urgency.”
Q: All coordinators in their second year talk about the advantage of the second time through. What are some of the nuances that become crystal clear for the guys on the defensive side of the ball?
MF: “Those small checks. No, I don't want to use that term ‘small’ — important checks that you can make based off formations that you see when you're in a new defense. The defense is a big-picture thing, but within that defensive scheme are small details that it's hard in the course of a game, when things are going fast, to remember. Like you're trying to remember where to get aligned. You're trying to remember what's your assignment, where your eyes go? Well, there's also small checks that would really help your defense if you make them, based off an offensive picture. This year, you've seen it, the second year. ‘OK, this is the formation, OK make this check. That's the formation, making this check will put your defense in a better situation to have success.’ And so, what you're seeing is that our guys aren't missing those checks, because the second year of seeing the exact same formations, maybe not the same formation, but having the same calls defensively and being able to make those checks.”
Q: The moment where there were 10 men on the field, I wonder how much quality control on the back end goes into that? Did you figure out what was the breakdown?
MF: “That first drive, I think we had three MAs, and the play before [having only 10 defenders on the field], we had an MA. There was supposed to be somebody blitzing off the edge. We did a check, and he didn't blitz. And then the next play, they get a first down, and so we're trying to sub and we have 10 guys on the field. That's on coaching, right? And so, the players had MAs. The coaches had MAs in that first drive. That’s when I said to the coaches after that drive, ‘Settle down. Let's get back to what we're supposed to be doing.’ We can't beat Notre Dame. That's always a challenge. Don't beat Notre Dame. Well, 10 guys on the field is beating Notre Dame. Making MAs, like not getting checks or not doing your assignment, that's beating Notre Dame.
"And so those are the things that when you evaluate, it's not OK, you beat Tennessee State and held them to three points. It’s: Let's look at this first drive. Why are we having MAs? Let’s correct it and fix it. And that's the challenge. What we talk about is that it's not the opponent as much as we're looking at ourselves and saying, ‘On every single play, did we do our job? All 11. Did you do your job? Yes or No? If you didn't, let's figure out why and get it corrected with a sense of urgency.’”
Q: And after Devyn Ford took the shot, where is that process now with regard to in-game clearance. Is it similar to the NFL’s?
MF: “I don't know the answer to that question. But I will tell you that the No. 1 job of our doctors and trainers is to protect our players. It's not about winning and losing. It's about protecting young people. And so, that process of Devyn Ford, like anyone, if somebody gets hurt, they're out until the head trainer comes up to me and says, ‘He's back or he's not.’ And so, with Devyn Ford, he was out. They took him into the [injury] tent. The next report was that he was out of the game. That goes to the special teams coordinator and goes to the position coach. And so that's kind of our communication process. But when a head athletic trainer or team doctor tells me somebody's good to go, I'm 100% confident that that's for the best interest of the kid. So, much more important than winning or losing is protecting our young people.”
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