Freeman's Sharing Of Lessons Propels Notre Dame Forward

For months, Marcus Freeman talked about making sure his team learned how to handle success.

He pointed to it repeatedly as Notre Dame rattled off win after win following a devastating loss in the second game of the season to Northern Illinois.

The Irish head coach continuously referenced the lessons learned from that loss as his squad moved forward.

“Sometimes you’ve got to lose to gain,” Freeman said. “Sometimes, that’s life. You’ve got to lose at the end of the day to gain and make a big jump.”

Freeman told his players the loss would end up being “the greatest thing that ever happened to this football team if we learn from it.” 

He believed the high of going to College Station and knocking off a ranked Texas A&M team in a primetime opener had left his unit vulnerable. 

At times, he seemed obsessed with making sure that didn’t happen again. 

Not only did the Irish not suffer another letdown, they rarely even came close, consistently putting games out of reach early in the second half, if not sooner.

In the six games leading up to the regular season finale at USC, Notre Dame won by an average of 34 points. 

Freeman had clearly prepared his team to handle success, but how would they respond when things weren’t going so smoothly?

We found out against the Trojans.

“We had some adversity, but they responded,” Freeman recalled after the game. 

The Irish found themselves tied at the half, tied again in the third quarter and even after going up two scores late in the third quarter, the Trojans were only down a touchdown and driving late in the fourth.

Christian Gray put the game away with a 99-yard interception return for a touchdown before Xavier Watt’s one-upped him with a 100-yard interception return two minutes later. 

“It was the sense of urgency that we didn’t have versus Northern Illinois,” Freeman said. 

For 80-plus days, Freeman seemed to frame everything through the prism of that game, but after clinching a spot in the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff, he hinted that for him, it goes back a bit further.

“I’ve learned so many lessons in life as the head coach of this football program,” the third-year head coach said. “You realize time heals everything. I’ve been at the highest of highs and lowest of lows. 

“I told them after we lost to Northern Illinois. I said, ‘I’ve been here before. Maybe not everybody in that room has, but I’ve been here.’”

Freeman was there for the losses to Marshall and Stanford in 2022 and for the devastating last-second loss to Ohio State last season.

“The greatest thing that happened to this program this season was a loss, because it taught us what it takes to handle success,” he said. “It taught us what it takes to have success. 

“That’s why I said just keep the pain. I don’t want to go back to that place. We don’t need to go back there to remember how it feels. We’ll look back and be thankful for it.”

His team may have learned that this season, but he wouldn’t have been able to teach them had he not learned it himself long before Northern Illinois.

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