SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Easily the most amusing fragment of Notre Dame football’s National Signing Day exchanges with the media Wednesday at Notre Dame Stadium was Irish general manager Chad Bowden’s account of four-star linebacker Madden Faraimo’s late and surprise commitment.
“Well, I heard coach [Marcus] Freeman screaming,” Bowden said, “so I didn't know if something was going on. I really wanted to check on him.”
The most significant big-picture takeaway, however, was not the taffy pull the Irish won with USC for the nation’s No. 53 player nationally in the 2025 class, per Rivals, and a Southern California high school star. Although it certainly was a perceptual flex.
It was that Freeman has a GM, and one the caliber of Bowden.
And a scouting staff, led by Matt Jansen, that’s been putting together a wish/priority list based on six months of scouting and research for the next transfer portal cycle, which starts on Monday.
The day after No. 4 Notre Dame (11-1) finds out its first-round College Football Playoff assignment/opponent.
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And that changes in NIL (name, image, likeness) and NLI (National Letters of Intent) alike don’t at all faze the 38-year-old Irish head coach much less elicit a whining tantrum. Nor does the uncertainty of even more seismic redefinitions to the college sports model, including not knowing what his allowable roster size will be in 2025, and whether it can or will include walk-ons, and what the scholarship limits will be.
“You have to be able to adapt,” Freeman said Wednesday. “You have to be able to enhance, because if you don't, I think you're going to get passed by.”
For a century, the third year of a Notre Dame head football coach’s regime hasn’t just hinted at what that coach might become, it’s outright defined it. And the fact that on Dec. 4 of Year 3, the Irish are still in the national championship conversation portends well for Freeman.
But he’s living in a college football world of massive changes that none of his predecessors had to navigate as part of the equation, though Brian Kelly is experiencing it at LSU — where he parachuted out to after the 2021 regular season.
And it’s in that aspect where Freeman has been most impressive. Not just rolling with the changes, but embracing them. And getting the Notre Dame administration to embrace them as well — and not dig its archaic heels in and shout “Got off my lawn — my tradition-laden lawn.”
It’s not about ignoring tradition. It’s about marrying it to progress. And for Freeman it’s about keeping it simple and true.
You can sum up his approach to successful roster retention and acquisition in an adjective and a mantra. Authenticity and “choose hard.”
“We talked last night, and his mind wasn't made up,” Freeman said, circling back to the Faraimo surprise that he opened his press conference with the news of. “We talked this morning. His mind wasn't made up.
“Sometime after his conversations with our coaching staff, myself, Chad Bowden, he came to the realization that this was the place he wanted to be. It was funny, I was talking to him, I kept saying, ‘Man, choose hard, choose hard.’ That's what we use around here.
“He said, ‘coach, I chose God.’ I thought that was a powerful statement and speaks volumes about the young man and his family.”
In Faraimo choosing Notre Dame, the third-highest-rated recruit among the 25 in the class, it almost nudged the Irish back into the Top 10 in the team recruiting rankings, where they had spent much of the early part of the cycle.
And while that team ranking is not irrelevant, it’s become a much smaller piece of where the program is headed. Just look at the impact of last offseason’s transfer portal additions on this year’s team, supplementing the high school recruiting.
And who Freeman continues to surround himself with, on and off the field. On the field, you could make an argument that offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock, engineering the nation’s No. 4 scoring offense, and defensive coordinator Al Golden, architect of the nation’s No. 3 scoring defense are the two best in the college game.
Or at least in the conversation.
And that Bowden and his staff belong in the conversation for best off the field and more in the shadows, but impactful nonetheless.
And if it isn’t obvious on signing day, perhaps it will become more so when college football shifts again and determines just exactly what rosters and, yes, payroll are going to look like when all the legal ramifications shake out from the NCAA’s chronic neglect from properly taking on those issues head on when it had the chance.
“We've got some innovative people on our staff,” Freeman offered. “We try to continuously be forward thinking. Are roster limits going to happen and all these different things? You've got to have a plan for both, roster limits and no roster limits.
“Eighty-five scholarships [or more]? You have to have a plan for both. It's a challenge to all of us to continuously be forward thinking. What's next year going to look like? What's two years from now going to look like? What's our positional needs? What do we need to address in the transfer portal?
“I think constantly staying one step ahead or being quickly able to adapt your approach is really what's going to make people successful.”
Is going to make Marcus Freeman successful.
It’s what has set the stage for more seasons like 2024 while Freeman's in-game growing pains of an inexperienced head coach played out the past three years for all the college football world to see.
But so did the lessons learned draw an audience. And what those turned into. And what dreams may still be out there to realistically chase.
And maybe even scream about.
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