Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua spoke with a small group of local media on Tuesday afternoon to cover all aspects of Fighting Irish athletics.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Part I | Q/A with Notre Dame Athletic Director Pete Bevacqua
On where Notre Dame stands with renewing the rivalry with USC:
Bevacqua: “I've said it, Marcus has said it, and we make no secret about it, we want to play USC every year. As I've said in the past, I just think that would be just a horrible thing if we don't. I think it'd be bad for us, I think it'd be bad for college football. And USC knows that. We're going back, we're having conversations to try to put something together.
“You'd have to ask them specifically, but we are 100% committed to doing everything we can to keep that series going. I think Marcus said it well, whether it's the beginning of the year, the middle of the year, the end of the year, we want to keep that going. Whether it's working in a neutral site every once in a while, we want to keep that series going. I think it's one of the great series, not just in college football, but in sports.”
On what the men’s basketball program could be, as it’s been 10 years since Notre Dame made an appearance in the Elite 8:
Bevacqua: ”If you were to ask me what's a program I'm incredibly excited about sitting here today, men's basketball would be at the top of the list. I'm excited about what Coach Freeman's doing with football, I'm excited about a lot of our programs. Men's basketball and Micah and what he's doing is right up there.
“I think Micah is doing an unbelievable job now as he enters into his third year of bringing the talent we need to turn the corner. We're getting stronger and stronger with the types of student-athletes that are coming here to play basketball. It's been a few tough years, not for lack of effort, but he needs the time to build the program, to bring in the type of student-athletes that compete in his system.
“You look at the class we have that came in this year as freshmen, it's one of the strongest we've had in a long, long time. The success we're already having, talking about building the class for next year. Markus Burton, now going into his third year and what we're expecting out of him.
“It's going to take time. You're not going to just flip a switch and be in the final four, but I think what he's doing, our commitment to the program, I think, no secret, bringing in Pat Garrity - I spent a ton of time with the two programs over the course of the last two years, the men's program and the women's program, with the change of modern, big-time college sports, it became very apparent that we needed to bring somebody in in that general manager role.
“You think about our football program. You think about Marcus, who I just can't say enough good things about, but he's surrounded by wonderful individuals. He has Mike Martin, who we brought in from the Detroit Lions. He has Ron Powlus. The work that Ron does day in and day out for the benefit of Marcus and the benefit of that football program, we needed that for these two programs in 2025 and beyond.
“In bringing in Pat Garrity, you have somebody who obviously knows Notre Dame, played Notre Dame basketball at the highest level, had a great NBA career, had significant time in NBA front offices. When I started the conversations with Pat, it was always about those two programs, not one or the other, and how can he free up both Micah and Niele (Ivey) to do what they were born to do, which is to coach at the highest level. You start to put all these pieces together. I'm really excited about the trajectory of the program.
“I also think in this age of transfer portals and cultures on teams, one of the great attributes and differentiators for Notre Dame is that student-athlete experience. There's so many college, major universities that have major programs that when you go onto a college campus, there's a divide. There's the athletes, and there's the students, and they might as well be on two different planets. That's not the case here. We won't allow that to happen.
“I think you get a student-athlete to come here to play basketball, and we're going to do everything we can to make sure that he or she has a wonderful athletic experience, but has the same type of academic experience. I think what that's hopefully going to show is we're going to have more kids come here and stay here.
“If you were to talk to Marcus, Niele, Micah, they would each say, we have to major in high school students. We're always going to be opportunistic with transfers, particularly graduate students, undergrad transfers, but it's homegrown. I think that's what Micah believes in. He wants to get these young people to come to Notre Dame to play basketball and to learn in his system.
“My job is to surround him with the resources he needs and I think Pat Garrity is going to be a tremendous resource as that program takes its next step and continues to develop.”
On why he believes Micah Shrewsberry can get the job done after getting to know him over the last year:
Bevacqua: “What I admire is the way he connects with those student-athletes on his team. He knows them, he knows what makes them tick, he knows the game so well. You think about the connections he has, his relationship, his knowledge of the college game, the NBA game. I think these student-athletes realize, OK, I can come to Notre Dame, one of the greatest schools in the country, I can play for this person who knows the game so well, has college experience, has NBA experience, has unbelievable connections, and yet can communicate so well with these student-athletes.
“He's out there. I was out there yesterday. He's on the court. He is part of it. He's not sitting back, sitting on his desk, looking at it through a window. He is out there on the court. He is tireless. I just know that he is going to give every ounce of energy he can to making this a success. I'm incredibly excited about it.”
On where a program like baseball stands with a possible rise in scholarships with the new revenue sharing model as other ACC programs already bumping their scholarship numbers up:
Bevacqua: “We are going to add scholarships to our programs. I would tell you the majority of those scholarships for us are going to women's sports. Unlike some schools, we're not going to fully scholarship every student-athlete, but we work hand-in-hand.
“I was with Shawn (Stiffler) yesterday and our baseball sports administrator, JP Abercrumbie. So much of what we talked about was the number of scholarships you have, Shawn, how do we utilize them most effectively? What are the other resources that you need? Think about this great run we had to end the season. How do we keep that momentum going? How do we talk about the Notre Dame student-athlete experience to these young men, these student-athletes who want to come here and play baseball?
“Again, he is someone who understands what it means to be at Notre Dame, has the passion. I think the student-athletes feed off of that. Are we going to fully scholarship every spot on the baseball program? No, but we're going to give him as many of the resources as we can to have that program succeed at Notre Dame.
“I think if you look at how we ended that season, we want to build off that momentum. We are doing everything we can to fundraise for the baseball program and all of our programs. One of the great benefits of Notre Dame is we have alumni all over the country and all over the world that want to give back to these programs and help them achieve success.”
On assessing how the women’s basketball team ended last season, including the Transfer Portal departures:
Bevacqua: ”I would tell you, I think we had so much talent last year. Unbelievable talent. At a certain point in the year, I think we were playing like we were almost unbeatable. We had these great stretches. No secret, it didn't end with that level of success. I know you all would agree with me, but we did not want to bow out in the Sweet 16. We had higher ambitions and higher goals than that. The end was disappointing, no doubt about it, but you've got to rebuild.
“Niele, in her tenure as coach here, has had real solid success and understands the program, understands what it means to be a student athlete at Notre Dame - had success as a student athlete, had success in her career, and now back here leading the program.
“I also think it was a question of proving the need that we had to have someone who's waking up every day thinking about roster retention, transfer portal, movement of players in the country.
“What is the modern landscape of women's basketball? As a head coach, you can't do everything, and that again is why I felt the need to bring Pat Garrity in to every waking moment to be thinking about these things. How do we make sure we're prepared at the end of the season? Things happen so rapidly.
“You're on that plane flying home from that game and the world is changing under you. You have to get out ahead of it. I think going forward we're going to be better prepared to manage that moment of change, so we can continue to revamp, recruit, be opportunistic in the transfer portal.
“You think about our women's basketball program, it has such a great history. I think it's so important to Notre Dame, it's so important to this community. I'm all in. Niele’s all in, in doing everything we can to get back to the top.”
On what Marcus Freeman and the football program need to take the last step:
Bevacqua: “I had a meeting last week. I asked Marcus, Ron, and Mike Martin to sit with me and I asked just that question. What do we need that we don't have? Is there anything we don't have that we need? And it was a good conversation.
“I think if you think of facilities, I think we have one of the best stadiums in the country. I think we have one of the best indoor practice facilities and overall practice facilities in the country. The Gug, when it opened, was amazing. But we've outgrown it and now with Shields Family Hall, I think we're going to have three of the absolute best football facilities in the country. We have a wonderful 30-plus year relationship with NBC. I could speak to that probably better than anybody else. The back and forth we have with NBC is enormous and terrific.
“We have the expanded college football playoff and being independent in a four-team playoff, well you better go undefeated, or if you lose, you better lose to somebody really good in a really tight game. But now with the expanded playoff, we can knock on that national championship door more frequently and that’s the key to winning one.
“I just turned 54. I graduated in 1993. The last one we won was the year before I got here. It's been way too long. We've got to keep knocking on that door. We have to win national championships in football.
“We have a coach who, I think if you went in a laboratory and designed the perfect coach for Notre Dame, it would be Marcus Freeman. He's become not just the football coach of Notre Dame, he's become such a part of this university and this campus. He has a tremendous staff around him, whether it's Mike Denbrock, Chris Ash, Mike Mickens, Al Washington, Marty (Biagi), Mike Brown. They go on and on and on. Mike Martin, GM, Ron Powlus.
“And then it's getting the talent. Fingers crossed, knock on wood, but we are firing on all cylinders right now with recruiting.
“My long-winded answer is, I think we have what we need. We're there. You never know, like I said, to win a national championship in any sport, you've got to be good, we're good. You've got to stay healthy and no matter how good we are, you're going to have to get lucky a couple of times.
“I really feel like we're positioned to keep knocking on that door. Are we going to play in the national championship game every year? No, unfortunately, right? There's too many good teams, but we're going to keep knocking on the door.”
On the university being all-in on the football program:
Bevacqua: ”I can't express the alignment we have from the top of the top, from the chair of our board and our president, John Veihmeyer, and Father Bob, all the way down to everybody who are making decisions for this university. There is no secret, no doubt, no hesitation. We want to win national championships in football.”
On Jack Shields wanting Shields Hall to provide a place to accommodate former players:
Bevacqua: “It's very important. Jack (Shields) and I spent a ton of time together the last two years, and he's become a really good friend. You're right, he is absolutely committed to that because he believes so fundamentally in the forever promise, and is really focused on the forever part. How do we keep our student-athletes, not just football players, but all of our student-athletes connected to this university? Whether it's career advice, whether it's helping them in their lives, that's the purpose of Life After Notre Dame.
“My perspective on it is I want to keep those generations of Notre Dame football players incredibly connected to the program. Marcus has done an amazing job of welcoming them back and not just players from the last few years, I mean players from ages ago that feel part of the program. I think as much now as they ever have.
“Then you add Jack Shields, and now we're designing Shields Family Hall. Hey, if you're coming back because you want to work out and prepare for a tryout, or just stay in shape before you go back to your NFL team, there's going to be a spot for you with your name, there's going to be all the resources you need.
“Ian Book is a perfect example. Ian's here in town, and he is working out at our facilities, throwing every day. I had lunch with Ian last week, and he's got the phone next to him if he gets that call. ‘Hey, come report,’ he'll be ready to go. We mean it when we say it's not a four-year decision, it's a forever decision.”
On what he thinks when he hears other coaches talking about Notre Dame’s independence:
Bevacqua: “I think everybody has to make their own decisions. There's wonderful conferences, they have great histories and I applaud that. I think that's fantastic for college football. You think of some of those conference rivalries, they're also some of the very best in sports. But for us, there were a lot more independents once upon a time. So many of those schools, they're the ones that have changed, not us.
“We feel good about being independent. It's working for us, I think it's important to us. There's pros and there's cons. A lot of people wrote the story last year that with our march and the CFP, the payouts were reported. But the story that wasn't written is if we don't make the CFP, we don't get that money.
“We're on our own in that regard and that's great because we can play different teams and we can move around the country and move around the world and really have a national and international presence and we love that aspect of it. But it makes things harder at times, too. We feel more confident in our independence, or as confident as we've ever felt.
“When you think about the relationship with NBC, when you think about our coach, our staff, the state of the program. The ability to play some of the best teams around the country year in and year out. I think it's part of our fabric, it's part of our DNA, and our hope is to keep it going as long as we possibly can.”
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