Notre Dame’s Loss to Louisville Raises Doubts on Marcus Freeman, Springboards Jeff Brohm

The Cardinals are convinced they’ve got their guy in native son Jeff Brohm after Saturday’s win. The Fighting Irish faithful are still waiting to be wowed in Marcus Freeman’s second season.

How much does the right coach matter in college football? Check the field storm here at L & N Stadium for answers.

The No. 25-ranked Louisville Cardinals, in their first season under Jeff Brohm, are now 6–0 after thumping No. 10 Notre Dame, 33–20. This was no fluke, no gimmick, no outlier result—Louisville was the better team. The victory sent the largest crowd in stadium history, 59,081, spilling onto the artificial turf in euphoria. Brohm, already the favorite son here, is halfway to deity status now.

“It’s a great day to be a Cardinal,” said Brohm, a Louisville native who played at the school, as did both his brothers and his father.

The other half of the answer about how much a coach matters left the field through yellow ropes that were pulled taut by security to provide safe passage for the Fighting Irish as the fans flowed from the stands. Marcus Freeman is no bum, but he’s also no savior so far. A definitive assessment of his ability to lead Notre Dame remains elusive, but the grumbling is growing louder.

Notre Dame has yet to beat a top-10 team under Freeman, and is 3–5 against top-25 teams :: Jamie Rhodes/USA TODAY Sports

The Irish are 5–2, with a signature victory against Ohio State eluding them two weeks ago in South Bend when they played the final two defensive snaps with only 10 players on the field—including the winning touchdown with a second remaining. They followed that up with a gritty win at Duke, but that was followed by this listless offensive performance. Whatever College Football Playoff hopes Notre Dame had before Saturday were terminated by the Cardinals.

Freeman is now 21 games into his tenure as the Notre Dame football coach. He’s 14–7, a .667 winning percentage, which for the moment puts him squarely in between the school’s greats and the school’s failures. He’s treading water in the middle, and that’s about it.

Above him, in terms of win percentage: Knute Rockne (.881), Frank Leahy (.855), Ara Parseghian (.836), Lou Holtz (.765), Dan Devine (.764), Brian Kelly (.739). Beneath him: Bob Davie (.583), Tyrone Willingham (.583), Charlie Weis (.565), Gerry Faust (.535).

At least Freeman has Mario Cristobal to use as cover Sunday when America is discussing poor coaching jobs from this weekend. What he did at Miami makes having 10 men on the field against Ohio State look forgivable.

Freeman was given a Cadillac job at age 35, when he might have been better off going the route Brohm did—three seasons at Western Kentucky, then six at Purdue, now in his dream job at age 52. He was ready for it.

Brohm is an accomplished tactician, an intense motivator and a savvy roster builder. The work he did in the transfer portal to pull this team together has been excellent: he added quarterback Jack Plummer from California (and before that Purdue, with Brohm), receiver Jamari Thrash and some key linemen. The game plan for Notre Dame was airtight.

The portal doesn’t flow quite as easily into Notre Dame, given some of the academic restrictions in place. But Freeman did land what was considered to be the top transfer quarterback in the nation, Wake Forest’s Sam Hartman. While Hartman has compiled some good statistics, the Irish offense he’s directing is listless and lacking in big-play ability.

Notre Dame has scored just 55 points in its last three games. It ran for just 44 yards against Louisville, fewest since Freeman’s first game against Oklahoma State in the Fiesta Bowl. The longest Irish run was 13 yards. The passing game was similarly unexplosive, with just one completion of longer than 20 yards until a garbage-time touchdown in the final minutes. That was to walk-on Jordan Faison, a lacrosse recruit who was appearing in his first college football game.

That tells you about the state of the Notre Dame receiving corps, which was an identified problem spot coming into the season. But the Irish also had an overwhelmed offensive line that gave up five sacks. And to be clear, Hartman was once again a turnover machine in Louisville.

Last year as the QB for the Demon Deacons, Hartman had three fumbles and three interceptions in this stadium—two of which were pick-sixes. This year he threw three picks—his first of the season—and lost two fumbles. Eleven turnovers in two games in one place by one player is pretty ghastly.

After making the BCS Championship game once and the Playoff twice under Kelly, Notre Dame had re-established itself as a top-10 program. When athletic director Jack Swarbrick moved quickly—and somewhat surprisingly—to promote Freeman to replace Kelly, he took a chance. So far, returns on that risk are not great. They’re also not quite terrible, but they’re certainly not great.

The quarterback-poor Irish were not playoff contenders last year. With an accomplished QB, they’re not a playoff contender this year. They could well finish the regular season where they did last year, at 8–4. Not bad, but not what Notre Dame expects of itself.

Louisville doesn’t often dare to dream of 6–0. But the schedule presented a good chance to get to 5–0, and then the Cardinals aced their first big test Saturday night.

Brohm finished his Purdue tenure with two straight winning seasons, and is one win away from clinching a winning campaign in his first year at Louisville :: Jamie Rhodes/USA TODAY Sports

At 6–0 and potentially favored in their next four games, the Cardinals are benefiting from not playing Florida State or Clemson in the Atlantic Coast Conference regular season. Games at Miami Nov. 18 and against rival Kentucky Nov. 25 could loom large in determining how high the Cards can fly. As it is, there are fewer than 10 undefeated teams left, and Louisville is one of them.

“Once you win a game like that, the bar goes from here up to here,” Brohm said, holding his hand first at eye level and then moving it over his head.

The stakes are rising for the Cardinals, while they’re evaporating for the Fighting Irish. Those divergent paths say everything about the impact the right (and potentially wrong) coach can have.