Marcus Freeman seemed to acknowledge that even his patience was tested early in the transfer portal process when he spoke to reporters on Wednesday, but the Notre Dame head coach said the Irish ultimately benefited from staying disciplined and ultimately seeing results materialize.
After a silent opening portal stretch that drew understandable concern from fans, as the Irish added no players, Notre Dame surged late with a wave of seven portal additions over a two-day period this week that addressed multiple roster needs.
The Irish have signed wide receivers Quincy Porter and Mylan Graham along with defensive linemen Francis Brewu and Keon Keeley, cornerbacks Jayden Sanders and DJ McKinney along with kicker Spencer Porath.
Freeman attributed the turnaround to planning, restraint and trust in the program’s process.
“I’m an aggressive person,” Freeman said. “I want to go 1,000 miles an hour.
“(General manager) Mike Martin continued to reiterate to me, ‘Marcus, let’s run our race.’”
Martin brought an NFL background in free agency to his first portal cycle with the Irish, a perspective Freeman said was critical as external pressure mounted.
“There were times I had to remind him, ‘You told me to run our race, we’re good, we’re good. Let’s be intentional about what we’re doing,’” Freeman said.
Patience was essential given the structure of this year’s portal, which featured a single window and required different timelines for different types of players, according to Freeman.
“We had to have patience knowing that there was going to be a second wave,” said Freeman, referring to guys like Porter and Brewu, who didn’t place their names in the portal as soon as they were able.
“We knew that. And again, who we were targeting, if you were a grad transfer your visit date was a little bit different than if you weren’t.”
In some cases, that patience meant walking away from potential additions.
“There were some guys that we had talked to that were in the portal, but we had to tell them, ‘You have to finish school this spring semester before you come to Notre Dame,’” Freeman said. “And so we knew there were certain guys that were probably going to say, ‘No, I want to get there right now.’”
Freeman credited Martin and the personnel department for resisting the urge to rush.
“Not being in a race to be maybe the first one, but to be patient in getting the right one,” Freeman said. “He kept (saying), ‘We’re going to be judicial in our spending.’ Those are things he has from experience in the NFL.”
A major shift this cycle was Notre Dame’s increased willingness to pursue undergraduate transfers, a change Freeman said required coordination across campus.
“We had strategic, intentional conversations with Admissions, understanding the landscape of College Football has changed,” Freeman said. “There’s going to be some student-athletes that we have to get admitted into Notre Dame that maybe haven’t graduated.”
Freeman singled out Admissions leadership for making that possible.
“Micki Kidder runs our Admissions and she’s been absolutely amazing,” Freeman said. “She has conversations with the deans of the schools on what credits they’ll admit from other schools. They’re taking more than previous because we’re now getting some undergraduates admitted.”
Freeman emphasized that Notre Dame was not trying to take volume from the portal.
“We weren’t looking for a whole bunch of guys,” he said. “We had to be very strategic, very intentional about our process and who we were targeting.”
According to Freeman, adding wasn’t nearly as important to the Irish as keeping many of the guys they already had.
“I think as we looked at our plan and how well we executed, it was developed around number one, roster retention,” he said. “We wanted to take as much time as it took to retain the right guys on our current roster and that was the most important thing to do.
“The job we did in retaining our roster speaks to the culture of those guys want to be here and want to be a part of what we’re building. The transfer portal is enticing. There’s so many voices pulling at these young people from agents, from parents, from their coaches about what's the right decision. ‘If you do this, you go into the pool, you might make more money, right?”
Freeman said the decision of core players to stay sent a powerful message.
“When you see the core nucleus of our players say, ‘I’m coming back to Notre Dame, I’m signing that contract, let’s go to work,’ it speaks to the culture of our program,” he said.
A similar standard applied to portal additions.
“The guys we’ve signed were as wanted as anybody else in the country,” Freeman said. “For those guys to choose Notre Dame for the values that this place entails, it’s bigger than football.”
The portal remains open and the Irish may not be done yet, but quarterback doesn’t appear to be a spot where depth seems likely to be added.
“It was a topic we discussed, but when you talk about, ‘Hey, we want to go find somebody that's an older college football player that wants to come to Notre Dame and be a backup quarterback to CJ Carr,’” Freeman acknowledged. “That means he has to beat out Blake (Hebert) and that means he has to beat out Noah (Grubbs) and whoever else in the future.”
NCAA rules prohibit Freeman from mentioning unsigned quarterback commit Teddy Jarrard, who has reclassified to the Class of 2026 with the intention of reporting in June.
“The reality is that we didn't find that person and I don't know how much really we (sought) that person,” Freeman continued. “It was just a conversation that we had. We're confident in our quarterback room. I'm confident saying we know who our starter's going to be, but it's going to be a great battle as you go through spring, as you go through fall camp to see who our backup will be as we get ready for the season.”
Freeman said the program will evaluate the cycle once it concludes, using this year as a learning tool rather than a template.
“Every year we’ll evaluate our process,” Freeman said. “We’ll debrief, we’ll reevaluate once the portal’s over and discuss ways to improve. Each year is going to change based off of the needs of your program.”
High school recruiting, Freeman emphasized, remains the foundation.
“We’re going to major in high school recruiting. We’re going to major in development. And we’re going to supplement out of the portal.”
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