Notre Dame head football coach Marcus Freeman met with the media Saturday at Notre Dame Stadium following a 100-plus-play scrimmage, with the offense prevailing over the defense, 42-40, using a contrived scoring system.
Freeman discussed that and a host of other topics. Here's everything he had to say. Answers are largely verbatim. Questions may have been edited for brevity and clarity.
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OPENING STATEMENT
“We just finished a really good scrimmage. I don't have the full number of plays for you. I'll get that at some point, but we want to get around 100, between the 1s, 2s and 3. I know we were close. We might have even gone over that a little bit. The offense ended up winning 40-42. Again, it's a unique way of scoring. Nobody really knows how it's scored, and [you] just kind of look at the scoreboard.
“But the keys to victory in the ‘jersey scrimmage’ is that I challenged the group. It’s the opening drive, like, can I get a first down and keep the drive going? Or is the defense able to get a three-and-out, which is really hard to do. But the offense was able to establish nine first downs on that opening drive, and the defense stopped them — had three three-and-outs. And then the other keys — turnovers. And the defense forced two turnovers. But the positive part is [that] it wasn't the 1s or 2s. It was the 3s. We're going to need everybody, so I don't want to make it like it's not important, but, man, it was a really, really — the best ‘jersey scrimmage’ I've been a part of. To see two groups really competing throughout the entirety of the scrimmage.
“Again, not everybody played. Some guys got a couple reps and got some live reps, and we pulled them, but it was really good to see. And I told our coaching staff, ‘Man, that's the most-prepared group I've been a part of on both sides of the ball.’ Really competing, really executing, not trying to trick each other, just doing what you've been doing. It was a great scrimmage and [I was] very pleased. [I] look forward to going back and watching it and finding ways that we have to improve.
“We were pretty healthy, [but] Chance Tucker got injured. I don't know the extent of his injury. I think they said it was a lower-leg/knee, but I don't know the extent of it. But other than that, we stayed healthy. I’ll open it up for questions.”
Q: With Mike Denbrock's offense, where have you seen the most improvement this fall?
Marcus Freeman: “I think the elimination of mental errors, pre-snap errors, formations. Like, it’s clean. From practice 1 to practice 15, we've seen it become clean. It's an explosive offense. They do a lot of different things — a lot of motions, a lot of shifts. They utilize a lot of different personnels. And when you do that, it takes time to get clean, right? And what I say is when there's clarity, then you see velocity. You see guys playing with speed. And that's, to me, the biggest positive, that the execution, the way you eliminate pre-snap penalties has really been pleasing to see.”
Q: Since the Charles Jagusah injury. How have you seen the offensive line develop? And do you think you have a starting offensive line set yet?
MF: “We'll have discussions about who's going to be the starting offensive line probably after tonight. Tomorrow we get into Texas A&M prep. We've been using multiple guys at the tackle, at the guard positions, but we know at some point we’ve got to make a decision to say, ‘These are going to be our five guys, moving forward. We haven't made that decision.’”
Q: What have you continued to see from Riley Leonard, and are you comfortable in naming him the starter at this point?
MF: “He’s been with the 1s the whole time. That was the goal. But the best thing is he's taking care of the football. He's been in red [jersey, no contact]. We know he can do some things with his legs, but we kind of force him. We say, ‘We know you can run the ball.’ Let's continue watching. He's progressing in the passing game, making checks, being able to put the offense in great situations. That's what you're most pleased about. But he's taking care of the football, and that's what we need out of our quarterback.”
Q: Circling back to the offensive line, Tosh Baker is someone that we saw getting some left tackle reps. What have you seen from him? What do you like about the way he's handled this opportunity that's been put in front of him?
MF: “Tosh is a guy that's been out there, has game experience. He's an older guy that has a lot of talent. He's a leader in that room and elevates those around him. And [I’ve] been pleased with what he's done since the injury of Charles Jagusah.”
Q: We're hitting the offensive line hard today. We had seen both last Saturday and then on Thursday, some No. 1 reps for Sam Pendleton and Anthonie Knapp. What have those guys done to put themselves in a position to either challenge to move up or actually move up the depth chart? And to be clear, they are not the No. 1s at this point?
MF: “We have not named a starting offensive line yet, and we will at some point. We have to soon, but what they've done is they’ve created a lot of confidence in the offensive coordinator and the offensive line coach with what they've been doing with their reps. I don't care if it's been with the 1s or the 2s. We want our guys to know that we're evaluating everything you do. Now, the challenge is when you're young and you're doing a really good job with the 2s, we’ve got to put you with the 1s. We’ve got to see what you can do versus our best [defense]. And that's what we've done, and both of those two have done an unbelievable job.”
Q: I wanted to ask you about the hiring of Anthony Treash, your new director of analytics. Why was he someone you wanted to add to your staff? And what do you hope his function will be on game day and non-game days?
MF: “Obviously, the director of analytics would be a guy that helps you out, using the book during the game, but also a guy that can evaluate trends of prospects, trends of your current team, looking at numbers. And I think he's a guy that’s going to be very beneficial as an addition to our recruiting and our support staff. It was a position we felt that we didn't have, that we needed to have to really be able to maximize this football program. And he's only been here a couple days, but I think he's going to be a valuable asset.”
Q: Shifting to the defense, when we talked to Max Bullough, he was pretty adamant that it's going to be five guys rotating, playing situationally at linebacker. What are some of the challenges of getting everyone involved there? And how's that been evolving?
MF: “It’s been wonderful. We've got five guys, and we have a lot of confidence. And I think that creates a little bit of unity. Hey, whoever's on the field, they’re representing the entire room. We'll find ways to get them all on the field. We demand you play with an effort that I don't know we can only play with two or three linebackers the entire game. The effort that we demand of the guys on defense and [that] our entire team plays with, it's really hard to just have one group out there. And we'll find ways to get all five of those guys on the field.”
Q: Who are your best pass rushers?
MF: “It’s hard to name just four, but Boubacar [Traore] has done a good job of really rushing after the passer. It's not just the defensive line. You can utilize linebackers, which you saw Jaylen Sneed do last year. I really like our pass-rush package in terms of who we're able to get on the field, but it's a deep [group]. We have some guys that can rush the passer, and I know coach [Al] Golden will have those guys on the field.”
Q: Back to the offensive line. The percentage move is that Baker's a graduate student and Pat Coogan started 13 games last year. How do you balance the scales of experience, but seeing the upside of guys like Knapp and Pendleton, but going into a really rough environment to start out?
MF: “Yeah, we take all of those things into consideration — who has experience, the ceiling of the individuals you have in that room. Really, where will they be week 1 versus where will they be week 8? And that's something that you even saw last year as we progressed throughout the season. You had a couple new guys that ended up starting. So, all those things we have conversations about, and we take all those things into consideration at some point. And we say, ‘OK, let's name the starting five [on the] offensive line.’ But you do, you have some experience. You have guys that aren't as experienced, or have zero experience but are really talented football players. And at some point, you just have to make a decision based off all those facts you mentioned and be confident who you're going to have out there on week 1. And what we decide on is best for week 1 doesn't mean it's going to be the best for week 5 or 6. And that's something we've discussed as a coaching staff, but we’ve got to figure out what's best for week 1.”
Q: Has there been a vote for captains? Is there a time when you’re going to announce them?
MF: “Soon. There has not been a vote yet. I want to do it here soon. I would say soon.”
Q: Do you have a limit on number of captains?
MF: “No. That will be based off of the voting. We’ll give them an opportunity to vote for who they feel are the captains. Then I’ll get a final say with the numbers. That’s always based off what does the team view as captains. Usually it tells you. There’s a clump. There might be one captain. There might be two captains. There might be five captains. It’s going to be based off the voting.”
Q: What’s it like to have Tyler Buchner back with the team? How has he progressed at wide receiver?
MF: “He’s done a great job. It’s good to see him back. It’s good to see his face. There’s a level of comfort, obviously, I have with him being a part of this program. He’s owned his role. Obviously, he’s in the wideout room. There’s some different things we’re going to have him do to help our program, but that’s what he wanted to do. He said, ‘Coach, all I want to do is help this football program. Whatever I can do, whatever you guys ask me to do, I’ll do it.’ Every once in a while, I’ll see him throwing balls in the wideouts drills, which I think he just wants to have an itch to throw the football. He’s been a great teammate, and that’s all you can ask out of him.”
Q: Where do you see him fitting into that wide receiver room? How have you seen the wide receivers overall progress together this fall?
MF: “I don’t know if he’s pushing right now to be a starter talking about Tyler. He’s embraced his role. I’m really pleased with the job coach Brown has done with that wideouts room. He’s said we want to play 6-8 wideouts. I can think of 8-9 right now that have shown us that we can depend on them to be on that field. There’s been a major progression. They’ve been healthy. They made some big plays today. They’ve been making big plays all fall camp. It’s the trust of the coordinators, the trust of the quarterbacks to throw those balls, but also they’ve earned that trust by the ability to make them.”
Q: When did you feel like the offense had a handle on mixing up fast-tempo and motions?
MF: “They’re always going to try to find ways to make it better. The one thing I said today was it was clean. There wasn’t any pre-snap penalties. The one that we did have a delay of game, we probably didn’t restart the clock when we needed to. That’s what I’ve said has really been the most impressive things from the start of camp until now: the way we’ve cleaned up our offense. It’s clean. It’s crisp. You don’t see pre-snap penalties, and that’s a sign of a team that understands exactly what’s expected of them.”
Q: How much did Howard Cross III and Mitchell Evans play today? How much work do they need before A&M?
MF: “They’ve gotten plenty of work in practice. They’re both back practicing. We held both of those guys out along with a couple other guys, because they didn’t play today. But they both practiced enough. If we had a game today, both of them would be good to go. But we felt like we didn’t need to put them out there right now. They’re expected to be back, for sure.”
Q: What’s your plan to prepare for the heat in College Station?
MF: “Sometimes you can overdo it. We can’t control the weather here. We’ve had some hot days. We’ve had some not-so-hot days. As we change our practice schedule to the afternoons, you’ll have more heat. But the thing we have to continue to remind our guys is how to replenish your body, how to make sure that you’re fueling the right way in between practices, in between series, in between plays. That’s important. It’s not just before the game you make sure you hydrate. These are things that we’ve really been practicing during practice now. How do you refuel yourself? The other part is it’s a mentality. Is it going to be hot? Yeah, it’s going to be hot. We’ll be fine. We’re hydrated. We’re well-conditioned. Our strength staff has done a great job. Don’t let things that shouldn’t distract you, distract you.”
Q: How much will depth be a factor in that game to help deal with it?
MF: “The depth is going to be important. That’s with or without heat. That’s just with the way we play: the tempo on offense, how hard you demand your guys to play and the effort. We spend a lot of time watching our effort. Do we play through the whistle? We say win the integral. That’s five seconds, but that can be nine seconds. If we’re demanding that type of effort, we have to have guys that are able to roll in there.”
Q: Jayden Thomas compared Riley Leonard to Josh Allen with the speed of Lamar Jackson. What do you think of that?
MF: “I’m no quarterback guru. JT’s opinion is JT’s. But he’s a physical, good-looking dude. I don’t know how big Josh Allen is. I don’t think he’s Lamar Jackson, the NFL MVP. But he’s exactly what we need.”
Q: How much of a resource is sport psychology program director Joey Ramaeker going to be throughout the season? What do you like about the way he goes about that?
MF: “Joey’s our sports psychologist. He can meet with our guys privately. He’s also been able to just talk to our guys about ways to refocus. That’s something that we’ve been preaching about how do we make sure we win those 170 minutes that we’re not actually playing. Joey has really given them some tools. To me, it’s a greater example of our whole sports performance team. We have great individuals from Loren Landow to Rob Hunt to Alexa Appelman to Joey Ramaeker. All these guys work together along with me to say how do we best give our guys a chance to have success. Part of it is sports psychology, it’s nutrition, it’s in the weight room. Joey’s done a terrific job in executing his role within our program. That team has worked really well together.”
Q: Given the suspension of the men’s swimming program, do you have to remind your team about the ramifications of those incidents?
MF: “It’s a great reminder for you as the head coach to make sure your student-athletes, your coaching staff, everybody that’s part of your program understands the rules and the expectations. We have to and this is in football and the example your mentioning is we have to learn from the mistakes of others. We can’t always depend on the mistakes we make to learn from. We have to be able to utilize mistakes that other football teams make, other sports programs, other students, other adults. We have to utilize those opportunities. This is another great example of that.”
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