SOUTH BEND, Ind. — “Happy Monday” were the first two words of Marcus Freeman’s opening statement at his weekly press conference, with Saturday’s night’s rancid 16-14 upset loss to Stanford still wafting through Notre Dame Stadium.
So much of Freeman’s trajectory as a first-year college head football coach and so much of his timeline as to when he stops looking like one are tied into his resilience, how he handles setbacks and how quickly he learns from them and applies them to his coaching blueprint.
The fact that his first encounter with the media after receiving his first tsunami of unflattering reviews didn’t show even a hint of defensiveness or being guarded is consistent with the mindset of coaches who don’t prolong or get swallowed up in adversity.
In other words, Freeman checked off an important box from an attitudinal standpoint in his coaching evolution.
It remains to be seen how that translates to X’s and O’s, when the Irish (3-3) host UNLV (4-3) Saturday at Notre Dame Stadium in the first-ever football meeting between the two schools. Kick time is 2:30 p.m. EDT, and Peacock premium streaming is the only way to watch the game.
The most striking takeaway from Monday’s mass Q-and-A at Notre Dame Stadium was Freeman’s revelation that 2022, in his mind, was destined to be a rebuild of sorts. Not that he expected to have a rebuilding-type record to go with that.
His point, though, was that this was never going to be Brian Kelly 2.0.
Not that Freeman didn’t respect the man who went 54-9 in his last five seasons in South Bend, unseated Knute Rockne for the most wins in program history, hired Freeman in January 2021 to run the Irish defense, then abdicated in late November for a bigger paycheck and a purple wardrobe at LSU.
Athletic director Jack Swarbrick even suggested during Freeman’s introductory press conference as Kelly’s successor on Dec. 6, that continuity — in culture, at least — played in Freeman’s favor in eventually landing the job.
Cherry-picking from Kelly’s program model seemed like a reasonable approach at the time. But in reality, the more Freeman experienced life at the top of the organizational chart, the more he felt the need to start over in a sense.
“I can't build on what's been done in the past,” he said. “What coach Kelly did here was tremendous — the wins and the success he had here. But I can't come in here and say, ‘OK, I have to be Brian Kelly.’ I have to be Marcus Freeman. It's different.
“So, I have to build this thing with the current players that we have, the great players that we recruited in the past. But you're still building your foundation from the ground up. You have to go through some of these growing pains. It's just a part of being something new.
“We have to make it ours. We have to make it mine. Anything worthwhile, I believe, in my life is going to take some growing pains to get it to where you want it."
Freeman's process
There’s an honesty that Freeman has with himself that spills out as a candor that’s rare for a coach still finding his footing in some of the nuanced parts of the gameday/gameweek operations.
A case in point, Notre Dame’s failed fourth-and-2 play from the Stanford 5 late in the first quarter Saturday. Wide receiver Jayden Thomas ended up getting stuffed on a jet sweep running into multiple unblocked defenders who had overloaded the left side of ND’s offensive formation.
The Irish turned the ball over on downs on what turned out to be a scoreless first half against a defense (109th nationally at the time) that’s statistically inferior to any unit that ND will face the rest of the season.
“We had a plan all week to say, ‘OK, they've shown to stack the box.’ They stack the box,” Freeman said. “We're going to be able to get it on the jet sweet to JT. Then all of the sudden, I hear (offensive coordinator Tommy) Rees over the headset saying, ‘Oh, shoot, that's not the look.’
“I probably, at that moment, should have called a timeout, but I still felt confident. ‘OK, just run it.’ They made a heck of a play. They spun the safeties, made a heck of a play. The guy did a good job of setting the edge.”
Notre Dame, incidentally, went for it on fourth down four times Saturday night, and converted twice. The Irish are 4-of-10 on the season (.400), which ranks 102nd nationally. The last time Notre Dame finished the season under .500 on fourth-down conversions was 2013 (.385, 5-of-13) when Rees was ND’s starting QB.
Yet in his only other season as ND’s primary starter — 2011 — the Irish led the country in fourth-down conversion percentage, with a perfect 6-for-6.
• Freeman watched the replay of the Stanford game by himself in his office after the game, before reviewing it with his offensive and defensive staffs the next day.
“I felt a lot better Sunday after watching the game with the defensive staff and the offensive staff than I did Saturday night into Sunday morning when I was evaluating right after the game.
“So how do you get that message and those lessons to your players? You're honest. And it's the same message I have after a win. We have to seek this feedback. We have to want to know how to improve.
“Don't tell us you did a good job here. What do I have to do to get better? It's a lot easier to do that, maybe when you're down, because nobody wants to lose. The challenge is when you're winning, do you have the same mindset of: Make me better and help me improve?
“I was a completely different person after Marshall (a 26-21 loss in game 2 on Sept. 10). We lost to Ohio State. We lost to Marshall. After that, I don’t know what’s going on. I was really — oof — I was struggling.
“But listen, the past three games — the second half of Cal, North Carolina, BYU — we have a good football team that we have to get to perform consistently. We have to do it consistently. So, the culture of this program is we're going to have to embrace these tough times and these growing pains of getting this program to where we want it to be.”
Confidence game
Freeman was so used to seeing a buoyant, confident Drew Pyne at quarterback, he was caught off-guard Saturday when the 6-foot, 198-pound junior got flustered after misfiring on two potential touchdowns and trying to force the ball too often into coverage against Stanford.
The result statistically was a 13-for-27 night for 151 yards and a TD in career start No. 4.
Pyne plummeted in both the national pass-efficiency standings (17th to 41st) and completion percentage rankings (seventh to 34th). "He was good (Sunday in practice),” Freeman said. “He was disappointed in the performance on Saturday. The thing about Drew is he feels like he let us down, he let the coaches down, he let his team down. And we all let each other down. We all have to perform better. We have to put him in positions to perform better.
“Sometimes I take his confidence for granted. Anybody in that position, when you're not having early success, I'm sure your confidence can be shaken. He doesn't show it too often, but I know his confidence was shaken a little bit.
“In turn, what do we have to do as coaches? We have to put him in position to have confidence. We've got to be able to get him some easy throws, be able to run the ball effectively, so that now his confidence can take back over. That's where we got to help Drew Pyne out."
Personnel updates
Sophomore tight end Mitchell Evans made his season debut Saturday against Stanford coming back from a summer foot injury that required surgery.
Although he wasn’t targeted with a single pass, he did play 19 snaps — more than any other tight end not named Michael Mayer.
“It's good to have Mitchell Evans back,” Freeman said. “He brings something to our offense in the run and the pass game. You add him in addition to those two freshmen, with Eli (Raridon) and Holden (Staes), our tight ends room is in really good hands. With Michael Mayer, obviously, but without Michael Mayer, too, in the future."
• Grad senior starting cornerback TaRiq Bracy was back at practice Sunday after missing the Stanford game with a hamstring injury.
• Freshman backup cornerback Jaden Mickey (abductor strain) did not practice Sunday and is listed as day to day. He also missed the Stanford game.
• Grad senior starting defensive tackle Jayson Ademilola left the Stanford game with a rib contusion and did not practice Sunday. He has not been ruled out for the UNLV game.
• Junior safety/nickel Ramon Henderson (ankle) was practicing Sunday after missing some time during the Stanford game.
• UNLV’s QB1 Doug Brumfield remains in concussion protocol and is listed as day-to-day heading into Saturday’s game at ND. Brumfield left the game early in a 40-7 loss to San Jose State on Oct. 7 and didn’t play at all Saturday night in a 42-7 loss to Air Force.
Squibs
• Notre Dame still doesn’t have a kickoff time for its Oct. 29 road game at 14th-ranked Syracuse (6-0), but at least it’s been narrowed down to either noon or 3:30 p.m. EDT and will be shown on ABC or ESPN.
ESPN has exercised a six-day hold, meaning the kickoff time and network designation won’t be announced until this Saturday’s games have been played.
• Four Notre Dame players made the 90-man watch list for the Rotary Lombardi Award — defensive tackle Jayson Ademilola, defensive end Isaiah Foskey, offensive guard Jarrett Patterson and tight end Michael Mayer.
All four are very deserving, but so is Irish sophomore left tackle Joe Alt, who is not on the list.
• With temperatures in South Bend struggling to get out of the 30s on Monday, it may come as a surprise that the forecasted high for Saturday’s UNLV-ND game at Notre Dame Stadium is 74 degrees.
• Freeman said a priority this week regarding the offense is getting to the bottom of why Notre Dame has scored only a combined six first-quarter points in six games this season — and fix it.
When asked about how to find consistency with his “Jekyll-and-Hyde” offense, Freeman responded, "I don't know which one is good or bad, Jekyll or Hyde, but I want to be the one that's good.”
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