Notre Dame is less than two weeks away from the Blue-Gold Game. On Tuesday, the Irish held the 11th of their 15 spring practices, and defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman spoke with reporters afterward via Zoom.
Here are some of the topics he addressed.
On His Aggressive Defensive Scheme
“We want to be aggressive in what we do, and I think sometimes giving those guys the opportunity to cut loose and to be disruptive is kind of what they’re talking about. So it still has to fit within the scheme. I think once they continue to get to know the scheme and get to know exactly what we’re looking for, there’s some freedom within there to be a football player. We’re going to play football.
“I tell them all the time, we’re going to be football players, not ‘fit-ball’ players. Sometimes, it’s not going to be perfect. But if you continue to play great effort and attitude, you’re disruptive, good things will happen.”
On TaRiq Bracy
“He’s had an excellent spring. Through 11 practices, he’s been really consistent, and one of our most consistent defensive backs that we’ve had on the field. I don’t know what he was like before I got here. As I told him, the first day I got here, I will make my opinion of you from the first day I met you.
“He’s out here watching extra film. He’s consistently meeting with coach [Mike Mickens] and the corners and just trying to get better at his craft. He’s doing the little things off the field that it takes to be a successful player. And so you’re seeing the results of his sacrifice and his attention to detail on the field. He’s having a heck of a spring. He’s done a great job in 11 practices.”
On Safety Kyle Hamilton’s Development
“You look at Kyle, and you can tell a little bit of the skill set that he brings. The length he brings to the back end of our defense is second to none. You can watch the film from last year, but until you see this guy live and in person, you don’t realize how long and how much room and area of space he can take up. The hardest thing for him is we got to continue to push even though he’s not practicing.
“This would have been a great spring for him because I’ve been trying to use some of those guys that everybody respects, that have played a lot of ball [such as Kurt Hinish, Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa and Drew White]. I’ve used them as an example a lot of times in our unit meetings. Either they one, are performing to the standard or two, they’re not. So Kyle would have been perfect for that situation.
“But he’s a film junkie. He and Coach [Chris] O’Leary are always in there watching film. He’s always trying to find ways to improve. He’s like a coach sometimes back there. And I see him coaching those young safeties up, and that’s what he’s got to do. You can’t physically be out there, but mentally you got to strain your mind and push yourself to work even when you’re not being out there. And so he’s done a really good job, and I’m excited to get him back for the fall.”
On The Development Of The Safeties Under Chris O’Leary
“I think Coach O’Leary has done a great job being a new coach with a position that has obviously one of their top guys not practicing in the spring. And so I think the entire room as a whole has performed really well for the spring.
“Houston Griffith is a guy that’s played here. Obviously, we were able to get him to come back, and he’s done a great job as our boundary safety in some packages and our field safety in some packages. DJ Brown has done a really good job of being consistent and understanding the details of the position.
“KJ Wallace has had a great spring. He’s showed up, and he continuously shows up — a guy that can play nickel, a guy that can play safety. The freshman has stepped up, Justin Walters. He’s getting better. You just see it, again, throughout practices. Justin Walters and [Litchfield Ajavon], those guys are guys that get better throughout the spring.”
On His Recruiting Philosophy
“We’re going to continue to try to be the most aggressive and hardest working recruiting staff in the country. And that’s just a goal of mine, and that’s a philosophy of mine is let’s want to outwork everybody in the country. That’s in terms of evaluations. That’s in terms of developing relationships.
“I think we’ve done a really good job of identifying the guys that we feel are the best players that fit Notre Dame. And that’s something that I kind of said in my first press conferences is, I think at times it can be easy to recruit at Notre Dame, because you’re Notre Dame. There’s a certain group of kids that just would die to come to Notre Dame.
“But I think for us to continue to elevate and continue to try to be national champions and be able to close that gap with Alabama, we’ve got to continue to acquire some of the best football players in the country. And those guys might not always be dying to come to Notre Dame.
“But if we understand that they're the right fit, and we do our research, and they can be successful here at Notre Dame, our job is to convince them. It’s to let these guys know what makes the University of Notre Dame special. It’s not hard to do once you’re here. It’s hard to convince somebody because they’re not here. But when you’re here, you almost wonder where else would you go? But it’s our job as a staff to convince these guys that there is no better place to go in the country.
“There are many different ways of trying to present that to them. But that right now is our philosophy. We’ve identified the top 2022 prospects. Now let’s continue every day to find ways to convince this family that the University of Notre Dame is second to none when it comes to your college experience, when it comes to the competitive side, the development side of you as a student-athlete. There’s nowhere else in the country that compares to it. Every day we’ll continue to work at it.”
On Defensive End Jordan Botelho
“We talked about being disruptive. Jordan is one of the leaders of being disruptive. He’s playing extremely fast. He plays with a violence that, at times, you got to say slow down a little bit.
“I know Drew White would tell him to slow down after he kind of rolled up on Drew White earlier in the spring. But that’s the way Jordan plays the game. If we could continue to get him lined up right, continue to get him to understand exactly what he has to do within each defense, he’s going to just get better and better.
“He plays with the effort and attitude, the reckless abandonment, that we need every member of our defense to play with. I think that’s why you’ve seen him flash, why you’ve seen him make some havoc plays in the background, because he plays with an unbelievable motor.
“He’s a guy that we’ll use at multiple different positions. We experimented with him at linebacker, at vyper, at field end maybe at times. He’s a guy that you can move on over the field.”
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