Marcus Freeman Is Man of the Moment As Notre Dame Wins First CFP Game

The Fighting Irish look capable of winning the national championship after dominating Indiana to set up a Sugar Bowl meeting against Georgia.

Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman celebrates after winning the College Football Playoff first-round game over Indiana. / MICHAEL CLUBB/SOUTH BEND TRIBUNE / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Three years ago, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish found themselves questioning everything about their program. 

A fortnight after wrapping up an 11–1 regular season, Brian Kelly, the longtime architect who had rebuilt the program into a consistent winner, shockingly fled to take the same position with the LSU Tigers. Just a few days earlier, their archrival USC Trojans had just poached Lincoln Riley in an equally seismic move that was supposed to alter the college football landscape.

If the Irish could come within a whisker of making the College Football Playoff and lose their coach amid a turbulent carousel, what exactly did that say about the most tradition-rich program in a sport that clutches the past to its chest?

Faced with a crisis of confidence within the fan base and a looming decision that would shape the team for years to come, then-athletic director Jack Swarbrick moved swiftly to elevate young defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman. 

At the time, it was both understandable and just as equally questionable. One of the biggest jobs in the country going to a first-time head coach who had been on campus for less than a full calendar year? That’s how Notre Dame was going to recover and move forward? 

At a place that was generally risk averse, this was going out on a limb. Freeman’s resume was paper thin and far more experienced head coaches had been chewed up and spit out by a job that is as tough as any in the sport.

In the wake of Friday night’s 27–17 victory over the Indiana Hoosiers in the very first playoff game to be played on campus, it’s safe to say Swarbrick knew something that skeptics did not.

Freeman was not only right for the job, now he’s the man for the moment with a team that looks very capable of winning it all. 

“I’m fortunate to be a part of a special, special football program, a special group of people from top down, from our president, to our chairman of the board, to our athletic director, on down to the people in our football program,” Freeman said. “This is a special place. It’s a special program, and I’m fortunate just to be a part of it. I know I’m the head coach. You’re going to get some praise. You’re going to get some criticism when things are down. But I’m a part of something special with a special group of guys.”

For much of the past four decades, the Irish have been dreaming of a return to the top of college football. Their fans have pined for it. The pundits have pleaded for it. The haters, well, they reveled in it.

The Bush Push was a classic that reverberated negatively for another half-dozen years when Charlie Weis was in charge. The Irish were run out of the building by the Alabama Crimson Tide in the 2013 BCS championship game and were less than competitive in their past two playoff appearances. Most notably, they had not won a marquee postseason game since beating the Texas A&M Aggies in the 1993 Cotton Bowl. 

It was not only painful to the team’s large fan base, it was equally unpleasant knowing that you have to go back over a decade prior to the advent of high-definition television to show the Irish actually succeeding on the big stage.

Now, things might be different in South Bend.

To be fair, under Freeman the team’s floor is still slightly lower than his immediate predecessor, who beat the teams he was supposed to like clockwork but never could get over the hump against better opponents. In Freeman’s first game in charge, the team blew a big second-half lead in the Fiesta Bowl. He lost, at home, to Group of 5 programs like the Marshall Thundering Herd and earlier this season in a stunner to the Northern Illinois Huskies.

Those bad losses, however, have also become building blocks to a higher ceiling. 

After getting a postseason monkey off their back in the biggest win in South Bend since they beat the No. 1 Florida State Seminoles in 1993, the path has suddenly opened up to where the Irish have a realistic shot at winning the national championship next month in Atlanta.

Much of that is down to Freeman, who has been tweaking the program in an effort to constantly evolve. He has hired new strength and conditioning staff, shifted the team’s weekly routine and lured back offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock to take full control on that side of the ball. Recruiting has been elevated and even the Irish’s NIL game has made them more competitive to keep talented players in the fold and lure others to join them.

“I think all of that, obviously, it makes you better,” said defensive coordinator Al Golden, a former head coach. “It makes everybody around you better.”

Notre Dame advances to ring in the new year at the Sugar Bowl against the No. 2-seeded Georgia Bulldogs. The schools have met three times and played in one-score affairs each time, including a memorable game in New Orleans where UGA won the 1980 national title.

Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs, though, don’t have Herschel Walker running the ball. It seems they won’t have starting quarterback Carson Beck either.

For all the narratives about Notre Dame’s record against more talented SEC teams, this matchup is imminently winnable. A favorable path beckons. It’s a door that Freeman is capable of pushing the team through.

“[Strength coach Loren Landow] asked me to talk to the team after one of our lifts to kind of give the school of what it was like going into the national championship in lacrosse and I was telling the guys, like we were literally in the same world,” said receiver Jordan Faison, who was part of the 2024 NCAA men’s lacrosse title-winning team. “We lost to a team we had to beat and then had to win out from there to make the playoffs. Kind of the same journey, it’s like this is a real chance and it’s time to lock in and go.”

The Irish held one of the nation’s highest-scoring teams to just 17 points and 278 yards, much in the final minutes of the game. The FBS’s top-ranked run defense was gashed for 193 yards and two scores, with Notre Dame tailback Jeremiyah Love’s 98-yard touchdown scamper in the first quarter representing 10% of the season total the Hoosiers had allowed on the ground up to that point. (It was also the longest run by any player this season.)

Love scores a 98-yard touchdown in the first half against Indiana. / Christine Tannous/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

It was a night that showcased all the legendary pageantry the sport had to offer on the grand scale of a playoff game at one of the most historic places in college football. Touchdown Jesus was lit up and watching from on high. Tailgaters survived early-morning snow flurries to make it through a cold and windy night. Leprechauns danced from the nearby Golden Dome all across the pathways that make up one of the more idyllic midwestern campuses. 

“I didn’t really get to take it all in because you’re focused on doing your job, but pregame I did. I took a minute to take it in, and obviously right now just thinking about what we were able to experience, it’s something special,” Freeman said. “Not many times in life you’re the first to do something, and as I told the group in there, we were the first to win and play a playoff game in Notre Dame Stadium. That’s historic. Something we’ll cherish for the rest of our lives.”

Afterward, as part of the rituals that the sport never seems to let go of, Freeman was presented with a game ball and a formal invitation to his next game by two officials from the Sugar Bowl. 

The head coach seemed slightly dazed for a moment before stepping up to speak to the media, quickly saying he accepted the invitation to some chuckles from the assembled Notre Dame personnel in the room. Freeman joked he hadn’t consulted with any of his bosses before doing so, including current athletic director Pete Bevacqua and the school’s president, Robert A. Dowd.

After notching a record 12th win against a ranked team in his first three years in charge, that’s probably O.K. 

To win like this, in a game of this magnitude, Freeman has plenty of latitude and more than enough confidence to do much more at Notre Dame.