The Golden Standard: What Notre Dame will look like under Marcus Freeman
The honeymoon will be over soon. Real soon.
As Notre Dame director of athletics Jack Swarbrick said Monday, Marcus Freeman won the Fighting Irish head coaching job through his track record of producing stout defenses and his charisma and charm in last week’s interview process.
He won the Notre Dame locker room with a lot of the latter long before then. It is hard to lose introductory press conferences, but Freeman won his convincingly with those traits too.
Now, he has to win games.
The first chance for Freeman to do so as a college football head coach comes Jan. 1 in the Fiesta Bowl against No. 9 Oklahoma State (11-2). By then, it will have been weeks since Freeman was formally announced as Notre Dame’s head coach. While optimism and excitement will still abound, expectations should be normalized by then as well.
Freeman understands that.
“The chance to lead the football program at the University of Notre Dame is an opportunity of a lifetime, and I would never take that for granted,” Freeman said. “Being the leader of this program, it isn’t about one person, and it never will be. Being the leader of this program is about understanding to be successful on this journey, it’s going to take others and we’re going to have to do this as a team.”
Notre Dame has not won a major bowl game (BCS/New Year's Six) since the 1993 season. The Fiesta Bowl is not only a chance for Freeman to start his tenure with a win over a top-10 opponent but for Notre Dame to get a monkey off its back and set up the 2022 season with that optimism and excitement still running rampant.
Notre Dame has played more or less the same style of football for over a decade. Fans came to know what to expect from Brian Kelly-led teams. Surely, a Freeman-led team will have its own distinct qualities. Will they manifest in less than a month? Probably not. Culture building takes time. But when that occurs, Freeman laid out how he wants Notre Dame to operate with his fingerprints spread all over the program.
The Irish will adhere to a three-part “Golden Standard.”
1. Challenge everything; “a mentality to find a better way.”
2. Unit strength; “what turns players into a team.”
3. Competitive spirit; “creating a winner's mindset.”
“This standard will be unwavering, and this is the standard that will drive this football program to its 12th national championship,” Freeman said.
Ah. There are those expectations. Clear as day.
When broken down into their respective definitions, all three pillars of "The Golden Standard" are feasible mantras to live by in the short-term as well as the long-term. For example, the Irish can work to find a better way in bowl practices. Don't get complacent. Go the extra mile.
Freeman said unit strength also means "love." Taking pride in team chemistry. Playing for each other. With a longstanding head coach bailing on the team prior to bowl season, that should come naturally. As for playing with a competitive spirit and creating a winner's mindset, it's not as easy as it sounds. It's not just showing up and saying you want to win.
"I believe that leaders are born but winners are created," Freeman said, "and you're created through intentional actions."
There are a lot of coaches who spout cliches early in their tenures to gain trust, control narratives and set perceptions. Some even fake Southern accents to indulge in their new surroundings and liken themselves to new fan bases. Freeman? Not so much. He is who he is, and he's up front and honest about it.
Asked what adjustments he's going to make to put his stamp on the program, Freeman didn't shy away from talking about recruiting being of the utmost importance. An answer that direct to a question that pointed implied recruiting will have a heightened emphasis than when Kelly was in South Bend.
To that end, Freeman said he's going to be the lead recruiter on each and every prospect Notre Dame pursues. That seems like a bit of a change from prior practices too. But the buck doesn't stop with Freeman in that regard. It merely starts with him.
“You have to treat these guys the way I believe you have to treat young people,” Freeman said. “Number two, you’ve got to be a relentless recruiter. If you can’t recruit, you probably aren't going to be the best for our university and our team.”
When Freeman spoke on what his Notre Dame program is going to be, most of the talk centered on non-game situations. Make no mistake — the games are important. They’re what ultimately defines success and sets it apart from failure. A big game is coming up in less than a month. But to be in a position to win it, Freeman must first get things right from an overall program perspective.
He understands that too.
“You have to embrace this place,” Freeman said. “You have to embrace the things that make us different. You have to embrace the people here that are different. You have to embrace the competitive thinkers, the individuals that are on this football team. If you embrace everything that comes with the University of Notre Dame, you're going to be better because of it.”
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