Notre Dame Signals Safe, Marcus Freeman Open to All Options at QB in 2024
One story has dominated the college football world for the last week as Michigan is under investigation for illegal sign stealing.
Marcus Freeman doesn’t live under a rock, so he’s heard the name Connor Stalions, but don’t think Notre Dame is scrambling to change its signaling process.
The Irish routinely switch the entire process up to prevent signals from being stolen and it’s something Freeman’s program will continue to do regardless of the Michigan situation.
”I would say a couple times a year,” Freeman said when asked how often he changes the signaling process. “The reality is you have to not only change your signals, but also mix up who is live and who isn’t.”
Now, Freeman has made one significant change since he arrived in 2021 and it was likely a necessary one.
“When I first became a coordinator here at Notre Dame, I was doing the signals,” explained Freeman. “I did that at Cincinnati. When I got here, you realize how often you’re on TV and you have to change up who is signaling and who is live and have a good system.
“We do a lot of self-scouting in terms of how often someone is live, what signals are we using, do we have multiple signals to give the same call to the offense or defense. It changes often.”
And yes, Freeman admits there have been times during his coaching career he’s felt the opposition has nailed down signals, which has forced him to change the process during the game.
It might sound like an obvious decision, but changing signals or signalers during the game can also lead to self-destruction as all it takes is one player to forget who or what signal is live.
“What you can’t do is confuse your players,” stated Freeman. “That’s always the double-edged sword. We want to make sure we’re not telling our opponent what we’re doing, but we also want to make sure our guys have clarity.
“Yes, we change signals within a game if we feel like a team has our signals, but we have to be really cautious on making sure our players are very clear on who is live and what the signals are. I’ve seen that too. Somebody gets confused on who is the live signaler and he doesn’t get the right signal and that can be catastrophic too.”
VIBES
There is certainly a much more positive vibe around Notre Dame football as the Irish are fresh off a big win against rival USC. The sting from the Louisville game is still fresh on the mind of some, but for most, Notre Dame rebounded in a big way with the 48-20 win two weeks ago.
Notre Dame didn’t play last week as they enjoyed a much-needed bye week, but Freeman made sure to ramp things back up this week as he changed the practice schedule to make sure the Irish are ready for Pitt.
“The challenge for me was when they got back we had to create some friction and make it difficult,” Freeman stated. “We practiced Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, which isn’t typical. Mondays we usually do a walk-through. We practiced on Monday and got after them on Tuesday and Wednesday. We had some really good practices. We weren’t perfect.”
What does challenging mean during the season? Good-on-good.
“We wanted to create that friction,” Freeman said. “We had to grow as a team this week. I challenged our coaches, myself and our players that we had to do good-on-good. We had to do some challenging situations. I was really pleased with where we’re at as we head into a Thursday-Friday. We have to continue to smooth out the details as we get ready to go on Saturday.”
QB QB QB QB?
The 2024 season might seem far away, but Freeman and his staff are keeping a close eye on roster development as the Transfer Portal window will open the first week of December.
The quarterback room will lose Sam Hartman, which means Steven Angeli, Kenny Minchey and incoming freshman CJ Carr will be the only scholarship signal-callers on the roster in January as it stands on October 26th.
Will Notre Dame be active in the portal again after recent successes in Jack Coan and Hartman?
”I think all options right now are in consideration,” stated Freeman. “That’s something we said we’ll truly discuss the second bye week on what is going to be a decision moving forward. I feel really good about the future of our program at the quarterback position with the guys coming in and the guys we have here.”
Getting to four quarterbacks is important for depth and that’s on the forefront of Freeman’s mind, but he also is pleased with the development of Gino Guidguli’s room this fall.
“Most rosters have four quarterbacks on scholarship, which we lost when Tyler (Buchner) left,” said Freeman. “We’ve been in discussions with what we want to do. Do you want to take another quarterback or do you not? We have three quarterbacks on scholarship right now. We’ll make a final decision as we get into the next bye week. I’m really confident in the growth with Kenny and Steve Angeli.”
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