Clemson Win ‘Reaffirms’ Freeman’s Process at Notre Dame

Notre Dame has experienced a series of peaks and valleys in Marcus Freeman’s first full season as head coach.

The valleys came in the form of home losses to Marshall and Stanford. The peaks were wins over BYU, North Carolina and Syracuse. 

Then on Saturday, the Irish ascended to new heights with its win over No. 4 Clemson. 

Fans rushed the field after the game, swarming the team. Security quickly ushered Freeman off the field, and he entered the coach’s locker room to hug his assistant coaches and celebrate before meeting with his players.

For the rest of the weekend, the Notre Dame football program is riding high. 

“It's one of the greatest feelings in the world,” Freeman said, “but it reaffirms the process, the things that you teach.”

But Freeman admitted after the win that he questioned his own process at times late at night in his office after losses. He wondered what he needed to do in order to build the program he and the university expected.

He never lacked the required grit, but at times he’s needed to tweak how his team prepared. 

“This is a spiritual school,” Freeman said. “We can't just pray and think things will magically change. We pray, but you have to put in the work and be very intentional.”

Freeman mostly kept the doubts he had to himself and certainly never shared them with his players. 

For them, he remained strong. 

“I make sure when I walk out of my office I'm the most confident leader that I can be,” Freeman said. “They need that. They will go as their leader goes.”

The Irish are 6-3, so the playoffs or a major bowl berth are likely out of the question, but with the victory over Clemson, Freeman is setting the program’s foundation. 

Not only will Saturday’s victory help the Irish keep together their recruiting class, which currently ranks No. 3 per 247 Sports, but it also cements his process for winning and in-season improvements.

Yes, Freeman took over a perennial top-10 program from former head coach Brian Kelly, but Freeman has stated on a number of occasions that he needs to blaze his own path as a first-time head coach. 

He can’t simply build off of what someone else accomplished before him.

“We have to build this foundation the right way, so it becomes infallible,” Freeman said. “That you’ve got such a strong foundation that no matter what happens, you're going to be solid.”

Notre Dame still has a few questions to answer this season going forward.

Overall, Freeman was pleased with the performance of quarterback Drew Pyne who did enough for the team to win in windy conditions.

“He took care of the football,” Freeman said. “When we decided to throw the ball he did. He took some shots and really ran the play clock efficiently. There are a lot of the things he'll be able to build off from this one, and he's doing a great job leading our offense.”

At the same time, Saturday marked Pyne’s fourth straight performance where he completed fewer than 54 percent of his passes. Can he become an accurate enough passer to be used as more than a game manager?

Of course, there’s also the chance that the Irish could experience another let-down performance. Notre Dame should dominate overmatched opponents in Navy and Boston College, but the same was said of Marshall and Stanford. 

There’s also the new challenge of continuing to improve with national pundits back on the Irish bandwagon. 

“After a great win like this, are we still willing to go and take a hard look at ourselves and say, how can I improve as an individual?” Freeman said. “After a win over a top-five program, can we still be selfless? Can we tune out all the outside noise? It's easy to tune it out when you're not winning because it's all negativity.”

It helps that Notre Dame tends to attract talented individuals who are willing to look beyond their own stats and accomplishments and ignore the outside noise. 

“That's the beauty of being here,” Freeman said. “We’ve got a whole bunch of kids that want to be national champions, first-round picks, but they're selfless and they understand the bigger picture, that it's bigger than themselves. That's why it's a joy to coach them.”