Notre Dame football coach Marcus Freeman spoke for the final time before Saturday's game vs. Pitt.
On when the team found confidence in quarterback CJ Carr:
“There's not one time. There's not like one moment. It’s an accumulation of moments where you see the confidence, right? It's built and it's built over time. I wish I could tell you there's just one moment that I knew they were confident in the quarterback, but it's built through fall camp. It's built through success during the season and it's ultra high obviously right now
“I think the same goes with their (Pitt) quarterback. It's built over these five games that he's made the decisions and made the plays that he's made and that's how confidence is built in others.”
On what Signing Day was like as a parent:
“It's different, right? Obviously my first time being at a Signing Day ceremony for one of my children. It was a proud moment, it's his moment. Sometimes you wish you could be disguised because you want to make sure to focus on him because of what he accomplished and what he's given his future. It's a proud moment as a parent because you know a lot of hard work goes into that moment.”
On kicker Erik Schmidt’s new routine:
“There's some different things we did in the Tuesday practice. Usually, on Tuesdays, you have a field goal period where you kick for that five-minute period. We were intentional about kind of spreading some kicks throughout practice to simulate a game. You go out there with the field goal unit, you kick one, and make it or miss it, you gotta move on. We let him have some input in terms of the script where he would be kicking the ball from.
“A lot of mental work with Joey Ramaeker and Marty Biagi. Again, just trying to get his mind focused on the right things to reinforce habits that we want him to be able to have when it matters in a game. We got to continue to do those things, continue to enhance and ultimately just have confidence in producing a better result.”
On if he addresses the coaching job rumors with the team:
“I feel like it's necessary. I do. A lot of times, things I say to the team may come out in terms of great examples. What's the noise you're putting in your head? Just because the noise in somebody else's head is one thing doesn't mean it has to be your noise.
“As I told them, I'm sure I've said before, like just because somebody else might be saying my name's up for whatever job or being considered, that isn't the noise that I'm gonna put in my head or I need. That ain’t my noise and so I can address it directly, indirectly.
“If I'm gonna spend time talking about something like that I got to make sure it's it's in a way that it's beneficial for the players. Your time in front of the players is so limited and so if I can use it as an example, I will. But also more than anything, I want to make sure I can give them some type of message to make sure that they're doing something positive for themselves.”
On Madden Faraimo’s performance vs. Navy:
“He did a good job in practice. We kind of paired him up with Kyng (Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa). You had (Jaylen) Sneed and Drayk (Bowen) together and Kyng and Madden in practice. In the game, we did at times, too.
“He showed in practice that he could get his job done. We knew it would take a little bit of time because he hadn’t faced it in college. He really caught up to the speed of the game pretty fast and he did a really good job.
“What does that mean for the future? The next time we play Navy, hopefully, he'll have experience with what the speed is gonna be and his expectations.
Madden is gonna do great things for this program in the future and currently.”
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