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Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman facing immediate rookie challenges

With the giddiness and excitement at least stabilized after the unforgettable hiring of Marcus Freeman as the new Notre Dame head coach, the honeymoon ends and the work begins.

When Freeman takes the Irish sideline for the first time in about three weeks for a New Year’s Six bowl, he’ll become the first Irish head coach to not begin his Notre Dame career with a traditional August or September season opener.

Win his debut as a college head coach, and Freeman will become the first Irish frontman since Lou Holtz in 1993 to win a top-tier bowl game.

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Notre Dame Fighting Irish football head coach Marcus Freeman
Freeman’s first game as Notre Dame head coach will be the Fiesta Bowl. (Chad Weaver)

Freeman is tasked with opening his first full season as the main man in 2022 at the Horseshoe in Columbus, Ohio, to play presumably a top-five Ohio State team.

Talk about being asked to hit the ground running.

Every college coach begins their career under separate and unique circumstances.

Following is a look at how some of the more notable skippers in Notre Dame history fared in their first seasons under the Golden Dome.

Knute Rockne (1918-30)

Overall record: 105-12-5

National titles: 1924, 1929, 1930

First season: Playing a six-game schedule that included matchups with Purdue, Michigan State and Nebraska, Rockne went 3-1-2 in 1918. “Rock” followed his debut year with 9-0 records in both 1919 and 1920, two seasons that were part of a 20-game winning streak.

Frank Leahy (1941-53)

Overall record: 87-11-9

National titles: 1943, 1946, 1947, 1949

First season: Leahy took over a healthy program from Elmer Layden that went 22-5 in the previous three seasons before Leahy inherited it.

Leahy hit the ground running as a first-year coach in 1941, going 8-0-1 to finish No. 4 in the country.

Notre Dame Fighting Irish football head coach Ara Parseghian
In his first year at Notre Dame, Ara Parseghian and the 1964 Irish finished No. 3 in the nation. (AP Photo/File)

Ara Parseghian (1964-74)

Record: (95-17-4)

National titles: 1966, 1973

First season: The standard-bearer for first-year Irish coaching turnarounds, Parseghian went 9-1 in 1964 after taking over a program that was 2-7 in 1963 and 17-23 in the five previous seasons under head coach Joe Kuharich.

Parseghian’s only blemish as a rookie Irish coach came when his top-ranked team lost its season finale 20-17 at USC to finish No. 3 in the country.

Dan Devine (1975-80)

Record: 53-16-1

National titles: 1977

First season: After taking over for Parseghian in 1975, Devine moved his team to No. 8 in the country with a 3-0 start.

Devine finished 8-3 in his rookie season, ended up No. 17 in the final poll, and won his national title two seasons later.

Gerry Faust (1981-85)

Record: 30-26-1

National titles: None

First season: A nondescript career got off an inauspicious start in 1981 when Faust went 5-6 in his first season after Devine retired in 1980 after finishing 9-2-1.

Ranked No. 4 in the preseason, Faust’s first Irish team moved to No. 1 in the country when it beat LSU in the season opener. But four losses in five games to follow dropped Notre Dame out of the poll and into irrelevancy.

Lou Holtz (1986-96)

Record: 100-30-2

National titles: 1988

First season: A championship career that didn’t launch in the same way Parseghian’s did 22 years earlier, Holtz went only 5-6 as a first-year coach in 1986, the same record Faust posted during his final season in 1985.

Playing a wicked schedule that featured four top-10 teams, including three in the top five, Holtz lost his first two games and four of his first five as Irish coach.

Bob Davie (1997-2001)

Record: 35-25

National titles: None

First season: Promoted from defensive coordinator to head coach in the same way Freeman was, Davie took over a program in 1997 that went 8-3 under Holtz the previous season, and he dropped it to 7-6.

Davie’s Irish moved to No. 12 in the AP Poll after a win over Georgia Tech in the season opener, before losing four straight games to send all of ND Nation into a frenzy.

Davie righted things and won six of his final seven regular-season games as a rookie head coach.

Tyrone Willingham (2002-04)

Record: 21-15

National titles: None

First season: One of the more memorable first seasons for an Irish coach, Willingham won his first eight games to go from unranked to No. 4 in the country after beating No. 7 Michigan and No. 11 Florida State.

Sitting at 8-0 — and proclaimed by Sports Illustrated as Notre Dame’s “Savior Coach” — Willingham tempted fate in Game 9, busted out the green jerseys for the first time at home in 17 seasons, and lost to unranked Boston College. Willingham lost three of his final nine games that season, finished 10-3, and dropped to No. 17 in the final AP Poll.

Charlie Weis (2005-09)

Record: 35-27

National titles: None

First season: Weis took over a 6-6 team after Willingham’s final season and made notable improvement with a 9-3 record and a place in the Fiesta Bowl.

Unranked in the preseason, a five-game winning streak to end the regular season lifted the Irish to No. 5 in the country before a 34-20 loss to Ohio State in the bowl game dropped Notre Dame to No. 9 in the final AP poll, still its first top-10 postseason ranking since 1993 at the time.

Brian Kelly (2010-21)

Record: 113-40

National titles: None

First season: A turbulent and forgettable first season in 2010, Kelly took over a 6-6 program after Weis was fired in 2009.

Kelly beat Purdue in his first career game at Notre Dame, but then lost his next three and five of eight to start 4-5.

Two of those losses came in consecutive weeks to Navy and Tulsa, defeats that were tragically shrouded by the death of videographer Declan Sullivan when a scissor lift he was working atop during a Notre Dame practice blew over in high winds.

To Kelly’s credit, he won the final four games that season to finish 8-5.

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