Marcus Freeman & Jeremiyah Love Reflect on Title Game Loss, Preview 2025 on First Take

Notre Dame’s media run in New York continued Thursday morning as head coach Marcus Freeman and star running back Jeremiyah Love appeared on ESPN’s First Take.

ESPN analyst Monica McNutt steered the conversation toward Notre Dame’s loss to Ohio State and sought to find out what the Irish had learned from the long night in Atlanta. 

For Freeman, the loss was a moment that highlighted where Notre Dame needed to improve, but it also proved to be a key experience that the program can benefit from going into 2025. 

“No. 1, losing sucks,” Freeman stated. “Nobody likes to lose at any point, but especially at the end of the year. I think we understand what it takes to get to that moment and that’s not obviously the ultimate goal as we want to finish it. But there’s power in experience and we understand what it takes. Now, we have to get back to work and utilize that.” 

Love echoed Freeman’s comments. The Heisman Trophy candidate also saw it was a positive experience that can help the program elevate. 

“For me, I just saw it as like a learning experience of what it takes to get to where we want to be,” explained Love. “It takes consistency. It takes just the brotherhood and having trust in your guys, trusting your coaches to be able to form a bond strong enough to get your far enough to make it to the national championship. 

“I took it was a learning experience for what we need to do in order to be a better than we were last year. It's not so much as to we're striving to, you know, ‘We got to go win a national championship. It’s to be the best version of ourselves. That's what I take it as. Just being the best me and what I have to be to help this team achieve success.” 

The path to the national title game came with several bumps in the road as the offensive and defensive lines were ravaged with injury after injury. Those adverse moments led to growth and the Irish boast a deep roster with several players with reps on the biggest stage.

Notre Dame proved it could handle adversity, which hit again with starting right guard Charles Jagsuah breaking his arm earlier this month while riding an ATV.  Despite their injury to Jagusah, Freeman remains sky high on the potential of his offensive line. 

“I think as you look at our offensive line, we probably ended up starting at least nine to 10 guys throughout the year, just through injuries, through different situations,” said Freeman. “As we go to 2025, you have a group of guys that have all had game experience, starting big game experience.  I've always believed that we're going to be driven by our O-line and our D-line and I think those guys benefited the most.” 

Behind the offensive line, Notre Dame returns arguably the best backfield in the country with Love, Jadarian Price and Aneyas Williams headlining a deep group that likely has at least five players Mike Denbrock would feel comfortable throwing into the game. 

It’s a room filled with competition, but it’s also a healthy environment with encouragement, support and belief in each other. 

“They're my brothers,” stated Love. “I can trust those guys with anything. They can trust me with anything. We built a very, very strong bond. Me, JD, Gi’Bran, I’ve been with them for two years now. Aneyas came in last year and Kedren (Young) has been there as well. You got a new running back, Nolan James, he’s a dog. 

“Everybody loves each other. Everybody competes in a healthy way. There's no animosity in the room. None of that. We all make sure that we're on each other, that we're doing the right things every single day and just pushing each other to be the best version of ourselves as a running back room. We got each other's backs. If I'm down, JD's up. JD's down. The next man's going to step up. We train in that way.” 

Notre Dame will begin practice at the end of the month, but there has already been a shift in focus to the season opener at Miami. 

Freeman and his staff have already started preparing for life without quarterback Riley Leonard, which means putting CJ Carr and Kenny Minchey in high-pressure situations on the practice field over the first three weeks of August. 

“We're going to obviously have a new quarterback,” explained Freeman. “How do we get whoever this quarterback is to get as much experience in training camp without having in-game experience, right? We have to put them in high-pressure situations, so they have to execute and understand the real pressure comes when you go down there and there's 80-90,000 screaming fans like that's pressure. Let us try to simulate some type of pressure in practice so you're ready for it.” 

Notre Dame’s media tour in New York might be controlled and lack the hard-hitting questions of a conference media day, but even ESPN had to get Freeman’s thoughts on the structure of the College Football Playoff. 

2024 was the first year of the 12-team playoff and Freeman has no complaints. 

“I think it benefits teams five through whoever,” said Freeman. “The more teams that get the opportunity to get into the playoffs, the better chance they have to try to win. so when it's set at four teams, which has been previously, those four teams only got a chance to compete. We'll see what the future holds, but the people who get an opportunity to go into the playoffs and compete are the ones who benefit the most.” 

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