Notre Dame head football coach Marcus Freeman spoke with ISD, Irish Illustrated, The Athletic and Football Scoop for 30 minutes on Thursday afternoon.
On why Notre Dame didn’t take a second tight end in the 2025 recruiting class:
”It was one where we were considering. Do we take another portal guy or not? The decision was is it a number or the right guy? The decision was the right guy wasn’t out there and we don’t need a number. We obviously took the kid from Arkansas Ty Washington.
“Again, we feel good about Eli (Raridon). We didn’t know if Kev (Kevin Bauman) was going to come back in terms of taking another high school kid. Cooper (Flanagan), who we have high hopes for - we think he can be really good tight end for us. (Jack) Larsen is a development guy and a young guy. We really like (James) Flanigan. We think he can help us. It’s not a super deep position like it’s been in the past, but we really like the guys we have.
As far as why we didn’t take another high school guy, we’re probably at our number. We’ve probably been over the number in the past a little bit.”
On if there’s an under-the-radar guy on the roster who could emerge and if it’s Karson Hobbs:
”We’re going to need someone at the safety position to emerge. Luke Talich, Tae Johnson, Jalen Stroman - somebody has to emerge at that position to be a guy. We have to see who that is going to be.
“Karson, I was most pleased with how he finished spring. Karson isn’t talent level, it’s consistency. He’s a highly talented guy. He’s starting to show he can be consistent, which ends up building trust that you’re going to play him. Right now, who is going to be the next nickel to go in the game between DeVonta Smith starting at nickel, but who is the next guy? Karson should be the guy, he has to be consistent. He’s a high, high talented guy, who was playing his best ball at the end of spring.”
On grad assistants and analysts having a larger role in recruiting:
”We don’t make those decisions to sell in the future, ‘Hey, you can recruit.’ We constantly evaluate what needs to be done at the moment. Who needs to be on the road? We have some young guys who have made really good connections with some of the recruits. We want to send them on the road. There might be a position coach or coordinator we keep off the road for a certain reason. We’re always evaluating and making decisions based off that. We make the decision that feels best for the program at the moment.
“Myron (Tagovailoa-Amosa) has connections in Hawaii. Guess what. No one should recruit Hawaii but Myron. It’s called common sense. I don’t want you to think more into than it what it is. If there’s a connection, then we need to put this guy on the road.”
On if there is an area on the roster where they need to improve in recruiting after playing two SEC teams and Ohio State last year:
“We’re always trying to get better. We want to be bigger, faster and stronger. I know that’s a general statement, but I don’t look at a team and say we need that. You know what, Jeremiah Smith, I wouldn’t turn him away. He’s a dang good football player, but I’m pleased with what we got. We’re always trying to find ways to get better and get the best players in the country who fit this place, fit Notre Dame, to choose Notre Dame. That’s what we’re going to do, no matter if we won the national championship or we didn’t. How do we continuously find ways to get better.”
On where he’s a better coach today than three summers ago:
”Experience. Where am I better? The experience at every situation that has to do with being a head coach. The experience with dealing with you guys, the experience with dealing with making high-pressure situation decisions, the experience of two-minute situations, and the experience of recruiting. I'm better at every area of being a head coach because of experience where there's no substitution for it and that's what I have to continue.
“I got to be better next year in every single area because of experience and also because of professional development. There's some places where you can expedite the improvement because you do professional development. You don't have to go through just the experience.
“I can't say just this one thing is where I see a significant difference. I hope it's in every aspect. If you have a camera on me or you're in my brain 24 hours a day, ‘Oh, he's better here.’ Why? Because he's done it. He's experienced, he's more confident in it. He's been there, and so it's not a great answer to your question, but there's just not one area where I can point out and say, I'm better here than every other place. I hope I’m better in every area and every aspect of being a head coach.”
On what he would like to see happen with the USC rivalry and if he wants to continue to schedule intersectional games (SEC):
”Where I feel about USC is very clear. We would love to play them every single year. It doesn't matter when we play them. I would love to continue the rivalry as long as I'm the head coach here.
“I think rivalries are great for college football. I think they're great for sports because that's the one game a year you throw out records and I've been a part of some of the greatest rivalries that there's been.
"I think back to high school when we played this team called the Centerville Elks, where AJ Hawk - we were trying to go after this guy named AJ Hawk because it was a rivalry. Kirk Herbstreit went there. It was a huge rivalry. You go the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry. Those contests are extremely important, I think, for all sports, and USC-Notre Dame is one that fits right into that category. I think it's great for college football. It's important for us and I mean I'm very clear on wanting to continue that.
"As far as scheduling, we know that we have to continue to have a challenging schedule to stay Independent. I know Pete Bevacqua and Ron Powlus do a great job of making sure that we stay competitive enough, but also not making decisions that are detrimental to our football program, too. We have to continue to have a competitive schedule that we're not going into the season and say, ‘Hey, if you lose one game, you're out of the playoffs.’ That's not the same as the SEC and the Big Ten and really any of the other conferences. We’ve got to continuously have a challenging schedule that is truly coast-to-coast."
On why Notre Dame can be a consistent championship contender and why last year won’t be a one-off:
”Recruiting. The personnel you have that you can get through a 16-game season and have to use multiple different people with starters. You go into the semifinals game and you're losing starters, putting backups in, but if you don't have the depth that you can put somebody and get the job done, then all of a sudden that becomes a hole and it becomes a deficiency and you lose. I think number one is the depth. Two is the culture in terms of understanding the culture we have, the expectations we have and probably the most important is that if you don't put Notre Dame in front of yourself, you're not going to be a part of this thing and that's what you do.
"Somebody asked me, how do you keep people happy? It's not about keeping people happy. I don't come the office and say, ‘how do I keep everybody happy?’ I moreso come to also how do we continuously make sure that every person in this program chooses Notre Dame before themselves, and we define your role for a game and then no matter what that role is, as long as we achieve the desired result, which is a win that you're happy because we win not because of what your role was defined for that game.
“I think the culture is important and probably is the development. How do we develop the talent that we have? How do we get them better in a year, in four years? How do we continuously develop the talent that we have as a football program?"
On what makes Jeremiyah Love an elite running back:
”It starts with freak talent, skill set, straight-line speed, balance. He has some of the best balance that I've ever been around. The way he sees the holes and explodes through the hole. Those things are uncommon to have speed, explosion and balance. Usually, if somebody has balance and explosion, but they don't have the long speed. To have all those traits - the vision is what makes him.
“I think, about the USC play, the one play he jumps over top of somebody and then he ducks his shoulder and he runs over the other guy. That's not common. Either you're going to be the guy that jumps over somebody, or you're the guy that ducks your shoulder and tries to run somebody over. Well, he does them both. That's where you talk about a unique skill set - it's very, very uncommon.
“It's a little bit of everything. He's a freak and he's been able to stay healthy. That's the other thing. He's been able to stay healthy. I know he got nicked and bruised throughout the playoff, but the way he plays to stay healthy. I hold my breath a lot of times when I see him running the ball and I'm like, ‘Gosh, just go down.’ But for him to stay healthy with the way he plays is really a tribute to some of his genetic makeup. He's Gumby.”
On balancing evaluations from the head coach to GM to assistant coaches:
”No one person in this program has too much power. There's no one person who has autonomy, and that's including head coach. If I really, really like somebody and the position coach and the GM and the coordinator don't like him, well guess what? It doesn't matter. I'm not ego enough to say, ‘OK, maybe I'm missing something.’ I really like this guy, but if you guys don't like him, forget it. If the position coach really, really likes some guy but the coordinator hates him, the GM doesn't like him and the head coach, we're not going to take him.
"We have to all collectively make a decision on guys, and I think that's how I want to run this program. There is no hierarchy. Like, ‘Hey, if he likes him but you don't, we'll take him.’ No, we have to come to a collective decision.
“Now, if there's three guys that like him or two guys that like him and two guys don't, at some point the head coach will be able to give his final opinion. I think for the majority of our guys, we can come to a consensus of whether he's good enough for us or not."
On entering camp with an inexperienced QB vs. an experienced starter and trying to play complementary football:
”It's funny, I think about Riley Leonard last year, and he had experience playing quarterback in major college football, but he didn't have experience in our offense, right? He didn't have spring ball to go through. The experience he had with Mike Denbrock was fall camp and then the changes that we had to make throughout the early part of the season to make sure we were calling things that really fit him.
"I think they're at an advantage in terms of understanding the offensive system because they've heard it for a year and a half now. They practice with Mike Denbrock, so Coach Denbrock knows what they do well, what they like, and what they don't like. They're lacking the in-game experience.
“How do we find ways in fall camp to put them in as many high-pressure situations as we can? There are many different examples that I can think of for high-pressure situations. One of them is to say, 'Hey, you know that you're going to be taken out if you don't execute.' That's a stinky situation, but it's high pressure, right?
What we've got to do is put them in as many of those situations, to get them to execute before we go and play down in Florida. That will be one of the ultimate challenges. In-game experience is a high-pressure experience. Let's create that in practice."
On the health of Jordan Botelho, Ashton Craig, Boubacar Traore and Malachi Fields:
”100 percent by game one. Do I expect them to be ready to go by the start of camp, but I'd rather say they'll be ready by game one. They should be 100% as long as there are no setbacks in the summer, but I expect them to be ready to go."
On if Tyler Buchner will play QB or WR:
”I'll let you guys know the first press conference of fall camp. I don't want to announce it. I'll make sure we put it on the depth chart for fall camp."
On if he learned anything from the competition between Tyler Buchner and Drew Pyne that he can apply to CJ Carr and Kenny Minchey:
“I think going into that quarterback competition, my opinion and how we truly had that competition was slighted one way. That was just based on the things I was hearing and I saw going into fall camp. It was slated as slightly towards Buchner, 'Hey, we expect you to win this competition.'
"What I've learned from that is you don't ever go into a competition expecting somebody to win it. We will evaluate your performance and that's what we'll do, right? We're truly gonna evaluate both of those guys' performance. We'll make sure it's fair in terms of the reps and the situations they get.
"You have to base it on what you see and what you evaluate and not what you want to see happen.”
On finding a get-out-of-jail-free card on offense (Leonard/Mayer/etc.):
”About a month ago, I had a meeting with the sports analytics people that we use and one of their greatest compliments was how we sequenced things on third down to go for it on fourth down and our success rate on fourth down on offense.
"I wanted to be like, 'I like your book and all those things and thanks for the compliments, but the reason we went for it on fourth down was because of the confidence we had in getting that first down.'
“Even Kenny Minchey isn't the running quarterback that Riley Leonard was, so how do we create that confidence in the head coach that we can sequence things on third down knowing that we're going to go for it on fourth down?"
It's a great challenge, right? It's a great challenge for our offense and myself to come up with, OK, what will be our short-yardage packages. I know, as a defensive guy, when you run the quarterback, you're adding a hat on offense, right? So, on defense, you either have two choices: to play zero coverage, where there's no middle of the field safety, so to try to match gap for gap, or you say they're going to run the quarterback, somebody's got to beat a block.
"Well, that's an advantage for the offense. How do we find unique ways on offense to get an extra hat to the point of contact, so we feel very confident we'll get the first down? That's one of the great challenges we have."
On if he feels college football needs one or two transfer portal windows:
”One transfer portal window. There are pros and cons for both times. If you made me vote, I would vote for the spring, but I wouldn't be upset if it were the winter or the spring, right? I'm a big proponent of one transfer portal window, but if you made me choose one over the other, I would choose the spring.
"Probably more than anything, not dealing with that distraction during your postseason play, the ability to get people into school, right? After the spring semester is an advantage for us, but I'm not opposed to some of the other times, like the winter. I'm not overly opinionated about it, but if you made me choose, I would choose the spring, but I truly understand the viewpoint from the winter.
"The other side of it is I'm a proponent for young people having to - the minute there's uncertainty, they pack up and go somewhere else, right? I think about it, as a lot of coaching changes happen, right? It might be best for that young person to stay there and if there's no option to get up and leave, when the coaching changes, maybe they say, "Well, I do like this new head coach. I do want to stay here. I do want to get my degree from here’ - instead of getting up and leaving the minute there's uncertainty with who's the head coach.
"If you put it in the spring, at least, it gives that new coach a chance to convince that player it's the best thing to do to stay at the university because I'm a proponent of our young people getting degrees. That's so important and not just making decisions based on what's going to be best football-wise, but also, like the longevity of my life. Education is so important."
On how Notre Dame retained its players this offseason:
”I think that just speaks to the value of the education. I wish I could go and say, 'It's because of our culture, its because they love our football program.' No, it speaks to the university and a lot of our young people seeing the bigger picture and the game of football is going to end for the majority of them here with their college football careers.
"They have a chance to earn a Notre Dame education that, to me, will continuously open doors for them for the rest of their life. I think that's what that's a reflection of, is that people don't make just football decisions. They make long-term decisions and maybe they're saying, 'Hey, I won't transfer. I'm gonna get my degree, and then I'll look to transfer.'
"It speaks to the university, and the network, and the education and young people who choose this place, having the maturity to see beyond just the instant gratification of football."
On if he helps players find new places to go if they enter the portal, especially grad transfers:
”We're always available to help. We're proponents of helping. We'll call people that we know and want to be used as a resource for them to bounce ideas off of. There's never a situation where somebody says, 'Coach, I'm transferring, good luck. See you later.' Our doors are always open to help these young people.
“When they make a decision to come to the university, you tell their parents, 'Hey, we're gonna treat them like a son.' I don't want parents to think that if their son makes a bad decision or a decision you don't agree with, you say, 'good luck,' and the doors are shut. There's some that do that, but I hope not many."
On how he develops leadership:
”The first thing is, you have to educate them on what you believe leadership is. I think that's the biggest mistake, is that we talk leadership, but what is leadership to them? There are certain ways I want our leaders to view leadership and that's the most important thing, to define what I view leadership as for them and then you put them in leadership situations, right?
“We're going to have different teams this summer, and the teams will vote on two leaders, or captains, whatever you want to call them. If you're a leader of a team, and somebody on your team makes a poor decision, well, I'm not going to the person who made a poor decision.
"I want to talk to the leader because as a leader, the assumption is you're going to fix the problem, no matter if you can or you can't, no matter if it's your fault or not, like that's what leaders are in a position to do, to problem solve. Well, this person missed or did something wrong. We're looking to the leaders to fix that problem, right? That's what leadership is, it isn't this guy (rah-rah), that ain't what I believe leadership is. It's you're a problem solver.
“You elevate the people you lead, and if the people you're leading aren't elevating, your performance isn't better, then I'm gonna look at you as the leader. That's the way we're going to continuously grow and promote leadership."
On differences in recruiting since appearing in the national title game and if he’s felt that recruiting in the South:
”I think young people are interested in Notre Dame football. We all think that's a crazy statement. Who wouldn't be interested in Notre Dame football? But some of the young people, before we made this championship run, probably weren't just, ‘Hey, I'm just interested in Notre Dame Football.'
“Now, the brand, the faces, it is recognizable for all those guys and they want at least want to hear about Notre Dame football. Now, that's just a part of the piece, right? You're interested in listening. Now, how do we get the young person to believe in what the entire package of Notre Dame football truly can offer you? If you don't get them to even listen, then you have zero chance. I think now at least we have a chance."
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