Marcus Freeman on Analytics, Kyle Hamilton, and More
This is part two with Marcus Freeman giving his thoughts on several topics after speaking with ISD”s Jamie Uyeyama last week. Check out part 1 here.
This time Freeman talks about if he’s comfortable with where the defense is at after the spring, thoughts on some specific players, the competition he is hoping to have across the defense, and more.
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On if there was a point in spring where he said this is who we are going to be or is that something that he’s going to figure out this August or in the fall:
Freeman: Yeah. I hope we have that kind of solidified by Florida State, but it's forever changing. And what I wanted to do in the spring is try to be simplistic enough that we gave these guys a chance to show us what they can do.
If you put in all this defense and guys are thinking too much, well, they can't show you how good they can be, because they're thinking about what they’ve got to do. And so, we wanted...I wanted to evaluate. So we were kind of simple with what we did schematically just so we can evaluate guys.
As you go into fall camp you’ve got to do a little bit more, right. You've got to get ready for a season. You got to, and it's not the evaluation phase as much as there's okay, schematically what is going to be best for us? How do we prepare for Florida State and the next couple of games and all those different things.
So it's a constant battle. What scheme are we getting in versus how do we figure out who are the best players, How do we figure out who should be on the field versus (focusing on) scheme. So it's a constant evolution, man. It changes day by day.
But I think it's not an answer until you get ready for Florida State and what you're gonna do after Florida State is is you're going to go back and evaluate and say, okay, what's the things we did well, what's the things we need to get better at, and what’s the things we need to learn about this defense and how do we enhance for the next week.
On if he has spent time studying UCF transfer McKenzie Milton in early preparation for Florida State:
Freeman: I think right now the focus is on (Florida State’s) offensive philosophy and concepts. And as we get closer to the game, I think you gotta be able to evaluate personnel in terms of what each individual does well, but right now it's more concept wise, what puts us in the best situation to be successful defensively.
And that's kind of the thing we've been studying. I've been studying concept, concept, concept...and then let's try to see, hey, do we know who's going to be starting because you can start chasing ghosts and you don't know who's going to be the starter.
So like, for example, when we were getting ready for Georgia at Cincinnati last year, I knew JT Daniels was going to be the starter. So I could go back and really evaluate last year, his time at USC and kind of say, what are the things he does well? I don't know who’s going to be the quarterback at Florida State. And if anything, you're going to see multiple quarterbacks. So I'm going to spend more time trying to combat the concepts and the offensive philosophy more than just the personnel right now.
You can look at another person. I don't know, quarterback as much as maybe, you know, the tight ends and the wide outs or the running backs. And those players that we know are going to start with what they do well.
On his use of analytics and whether or not he uses it in evaluations of his own players:
Freeman: I mean, analytics are as much as you want to utilize them for everything. And how much value are you going to put in analytics to each individual? For me, and I put a lot of value into it, but I also put the most value to what I see. I put the most value and trust in my eyes, but I use the analytics for all of those different scenarios to help me make a confident decision.
Do my eyes match up with what the analytics say? And when they're completely off, do we need to talk about it (and maybe) reevaluate some things. But a lot of times you use it, it's just confirmation.
And we have analytics for everything. It's just how much value do you put into each thing? I don't believe you can just blindly say, okay, let me give you analytics. So there's a lot of analytics out there and I'm trying to find ways to utilize it more. I don't think I've used it enough and I want to utilize it more because if you understand what they're trying to tell you, I think they can be very helpful.
On what’s possible on defense with a talent like Kyle Hamilton and how they can’t rely on Hamilton too much:
Freeman: I think it's going to be really good, you know, and just looking at the film of previous seasons and looking at what he's done really well, I’m going to be able to utilize (his skills) a lot. But at the same time, it also, it can handicap you because as all of a sudden, you got a period of, what if you don't have Kyle Hamilton? You've got to know the strengths of every person on your defense that's going to take the field and be able to put those guys in different situations and to have success. You can't put a square peg in a round hole at all.
So if Kyle Hamilton's out of the game, just like what happened to us in 2019 at Cincinnati, what does the next guy in do well? Well, what are we going to ask that guy to do? Because we can't just say, this is our scheme. No, we've got to say, Hey, we've recruited some of the best players in the country to come to Notre Dame. There's a reason why those kids are here. Put them in a position to be successful.
‘Well, coach, I only know two defenses’, well great. I remember Coach Tressel when I was GA, I'll never forget. He said, “Hey, why isn’t Johnny playing more?” Well, Johnny only knows cover 3, Coach. Well, let's find as many ways to play cover 3. You know what I mean? And that's why I'm using that example.
Like, okay, Kyle Hamilton gives us the freedom to do a lot of different things. He's a freak, he’s got some freakish talent, but what else happens when Kyle Hamilton isn’t on the field? What are you able to do with the next guy? To me, that's the real part of coaching. It's not hard to coach great players. That's why we recruit so hard because great players are great players. But when talent is equal, are you able to put your guy in a position to be successful or are you saying, this is my scheme, make it fit.
And then all of a sudden you blame the kid. Like that's what I think I see a lot of coaches do, blame the kid. Well, the kid didn't do his job. Well, it's our job as coaches to make sure that the kid has success. Let's not blame that kid, let's find a way to put him in a position to be successful.
On if they were any players who surprised him this spring:
Freeman: Well, everybody's new to me, right? It's like, I know the Kurt Hinish’s, the Myron’s, I know they played a lot of ball because of what people tell me and the film I watched, but everybody was new. And so it was great for me really...so with Kurt Hinish, let me see why Kurt Hinish is Kurt Hinish, why he started so many games. Then all of a sudden you watch the way he works in practice. Okay, that makes sense. Right?
Those are guys, the Myron’s, he plays at a level that's so high. He practices on a level that's so high. No wonder why he has success, the same thing with the Ademilola brothers. They practice at a high level. Well, that's why they have success in games, you know?
And so then you get a guy like Isaiah Foskey and you've got to say, okay, you're the first round pick that everyone keeps telling me about you're so pretty, you're long, you're beautiful...now let's make sure you're practicing at this level, that translates over to the game because there wasn't a whole bunch of game film to vouch on.
Drew White. I only had Drew White for one or two practices, but it was really quickly I learned that there's a reason why Drew White is Drew White because I remember seeing him at first and I was like, there's no way that dude is the starting middle linebacker. Like look at the guys around me. And everybody just said, okay, all right. All right, coach. You come in here, you think you're going to change things. And I watched those first two practices and I get it. I get why Drew White is Drew White. You know what I mean? Because he practices at a high-level and he’s got a unique talent level.
It’s the same thing, you can go through every position. But it was great for me to learn who these guys are and what practice habits they have. Because I believe in that. If you don't practice at a high-level, I don't care who you are. I don't believe you play at a high level. It's your job to practice at a high-level to create those habits that will come on game day.
So that's been a big motivation of mine. A big coaching point of mine is that we have to practice with unbelievable effort and attitude. I don't care about game day because it's creating habits that will come out on game day.
On what he saw from Houston Griffith and TaRiq Bracy this spring as well as his expectations for them this season:
Freeman: I knew Houston Griffith had value the minute I got hired here. Coach Kelly said, Hey, we got a guy in the portal that we have to do everything in our power to get him out of the portal and he was talking about Houston. And when you've got a guy of Brian Kelly’s nature that's done this for so long, he knows the value of individuals. And he says, we have to get this guy and our top recruit is Houston Griffith, get him out of the portal, we need them back in here...that told me who Houston Griffith was.
And so he just had a really good spring. I think, again, he understands that I think this system will be good for him. I do. I think his ability to maybe play a little bit faster, to not have to think as much at his position and just go play ball. I think that fits him a little bit better. And he had a great spring.
TaRiq’s the same guy. TaRiq’s played a lot of ball. TaRiq’s played a whole bunch of ball. But he's also had the down moments that everybody tells me about it. And so I remember telling TaRiq, look man, I'll make my opinions based off of the things I see. I don't care what people tell me. I'm going to base my opinion based on the things I see on and off the field.
And so TaRiq had a great spring. And I'm excited to see him as we move to the fall and the competition. And again, competition hopefully brings the best out of everybody. We want healthy competition at every position. So we're going to have competition at corner and TaRiq's going to be a part of it. And so I want to see what this brings out of him and every other position.
On the competition at linebacker and what he wants in terms of depth for the entire defense:
Freeman: The perfect number right now we're looking at is for 1A's and 1B's and every position. We're looking at the top 22 guys and the basic philosophy of that being, because one, we're going to demand such a high effort that you can't play 70 plays a game at that effort-level. You can't. The other thing is being, we have so many good players here, I don't need to just play 11.
We can't sit these guys on the bench with no role other than special teams. They're some of the most elite players in the country. And so we have a 1A/1B system to make sure that we want to wear teams out. We want to get you the full board and wear you out because we have 22 guys that the level of performance never changes.
And so I would love to be able to go into the Florida State game with one 1As and 1Bs at every position, especially the linebacker position. I think we're deep there. But it's hard because we've got seven linebackers and then you’ve got two incoming freshmen that I'm very curious to see who's going to be those top six, seven guys.
And it's a long season. So the finish line isn’t at Florida State and that's what I'm going to have to remind these guys. The finish line is the end of the season. And so we're trying to create depth, it’s college football. There's going to be guys injured every week. There's going to be something that happens that we didn't foresee that happens every week. And then we got to make sure we have depth at all positions.
On why bringing Chad Bowden from Cincinnati was so important:
Freeman: Well, I've had a relationship with Chad for a long time. It started off in 2018. Chad was kind of a student assistant and so he helped with just football stuff and he had nothing to do with recruiting. Then he kind of transitioned over to recruiting maybe the last year or so.
But Chad is a guy that whatever he does, he does with high energy and high energy guys to me elevate the energy of others. And so that's what he does here. And he does everything with passion, everything with energy, which to me, I want to be around guys that provide energy.
And again, when Chad told me he had a desire to come to Notre Dame and that was something that I couldn't turn down as an opportunity to bring him here. He's done a great job of kind of keeping all of us on track as coaches and setting the schedule and kind of pushing us to make sure we're staying on track with what we're supposed to be dealing with.
And to me, some of the more valuable things he provides for us is just the energy he brings into the office. You know, when you're around high-energy guys and high achievers, I think everybody's energy and achievement rises. So he's done a great job for us.