How Marcus Freeman Used the Bye Week to Prepare Notre Dame to Face No. 16 BYU

The honeymoon phase of Marcus Freeman’s head coaching tenure at Notre Dame ended after he kicked off the 2022 season with two defeats, including a devastating 26-21 loss at home to Marshall.

With the walls closing in, his plucky Fighting Irish squad rebounded with wins over Cal and North Carolina, and goodwill is slowly rising within the fanbase. 

Up next, Freeman will have to overcome yet another first-time challenge as a head coach: maintaining momentum after the bye week. 

“You have a week off, but to me, let's evaluate the past, evaluate how we can improve and ultimately put all of our energy and emotion into this game,” Freeman said. “It's going to be about the preparation. I say it every single week. The challenge is to focus on the things that help you get the desired results. It's the preparation. 

“Saturday will come. We've got to have a great Monday practice and continue to really, really prepare the right way."

Some head coaches tend to fair well after the bye week. In 12 seasons at Notre Dame, Brian Kelly went 13-2 in the regular season following an off weekend. 

However, his success could have more to do with the fact that he generally had good teams, and rarely played ranked opponents following a bye weekend.

One of his two post-bye week losses came in against No. 18 Michigan in 2019 when the No. 12 Irish were boat-raced in Ann Arbor, 45-14.

Freeman’s first post-bye week test will come against No. 16 BYU (4-1) at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

“The Shamrock series is what makes Notre Dame unique,” Freeman said. “It's one of our distinctions and the chance to go and play a home game in Las Vegas is an extremely exciting opportunity versus a really good opponent. We're looking forward to it. The bye week went really well. I think this was a chance for us as a football team to improve. 

“That was my challenge as a head coach to these guys and to our staff was that we have to find a way to improve in our three days of practice, but also to physically and mentally recover.”

Physical recovery was prioritized for the players with minor injuries or veterans who have taken on a significant workload. 

"When I say physically recovered, there are certain guys that needed it that were banged up,” Freeman said. “They needed to recover. Ramon Henderson, DJ Brown, Michael Mayer, they were banged up. A lot of those running backs had played a lot of plays.”

Each of those players should be better prepared for the final eight weeks of the regular season, especially the team’s All-American tight end in Mayer. He’s played significant minutes since his true freshman season, and he’ll be relied upon heavily going forward. 

Freeman also expects freshman tight ends Eli Raridon and Holden Staes to step up and fill the void created by injuries to Kevin Bauman, Cane Berrong and Mitchell Evans.

“Those guys are really, really improving,” Freeman said. “The worst thing for our team is to lose a guy like Kevin Bauman. But the greatest thing for those two guys is to lose a guy like Kevin Bauman, because now they're thrust into a position where they have to help us and they have to play. That means that Michael Mayer has got to lead.”

Freeman and his staff also took advantage of the extra time to self-scout the team’s first four games and figure out where they’ve improved, as well as where significant growth is still needed. 

On offense, he’s pleased with how his team is starting to run the ball, which makes the game easier for inexperienced starting quarterback Drew Pyne. 

"We always want to get better, but we've improved at running the ball,” Freeman said. “Drew Pyne has made some really good decisions as a quarterback. I said it to this group in this room and to our team from the beginning of the year, when you have success running the ball, it opens up everything. 

“It opens up the passing game, it opens up misdirection, it opens up everything. We have to have success running the ball and that will open up our passing game.”

On the other side of the ball, Freeman is pleased with what he’s seen, but he also wants his defense to do better than the 22.25 points per game it’s currently allowed. 

While this is a solid figure, there’s been one or two series per game where defensive lapses enabled an opponent to score off of big plays or sustain long drives. 

“We have to get those little things fixed,” Freeman said, “but our defense is playing really, really well. I loved what Coach (Al) Golden is doing with the scheme, with our staff, and with those players. They're doing a great job. 

“Obviously, the expectations are for us to be perfect. We can't give up a touchdown. We're critical in those situations and they're working tirelessly to improve it."

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