Marcus Freeman Is Creating A Proper Form Of Accountability At Notre Dame

How Marcus Freeman has handled accountability, with a top-down approach, is a welcome change at Notre Dame

Growing pains were always to be expected when Marcus Freeman took over at Notre Dame as a first-time head coach. The smooth sailing coaches like Ryan Day and Lincoln Riley had as young, first-time head coaches is far more an exception than the rule.

Day led Ohio State to a 13-1 record, with his only loss coming in a College Football Playoff semifinal in his first season after Urban Meyer retired, while Riley was 12-2 and also reached the CFP semis in his first season after Bob Stoops’ retirement at Oklahoma.

Freeman similarly took over a successful program after Brian Kelly’s exit for LSU. While some growing pains were bound to happen, what they would look like was the great unknown, but how Freeman would deal with them when they occurred was the biggest question considering he was, after all, a first-time head coach at arguably the most high-profile program in the country.

Mistakes have happened.

Like the third quarter zero blitz that gave Ohio State a lead it never relinquished in the season opener.

Like the 3rd and nine play from the Marshall seven-yard line the Thundering Herd converted that sparked an 11-play, 94-yard go ahead touchdown drive.

Freeman’s response to those adversities has been different than the responses anyone around Notre Dame football has seen or heard for at least the last dozen years. It was one of accountability beginning at the top, and then next in the coaching offices, not the locker room.

"As the head coach, I’m not pointing the finger at the player,” Freeman said this week when asked about how he goes about fixing plays and players after on field breakdowns. "I’m looking at the coaches and saying, we didn’t coach it well enough and that’s on us.”

There’s no purple face. There’s no finger pointing. No lengthy tirades, berating players on the sidelines after a mistake. It’s an accountability-based approach to getting better.

Remember the 53-yard touchdown pass to BYU’s Kody Epps last Saturday night? Everyone saw what happened, so how did Freeman get everyone on the same page after the fact?

"They were on the same page,” Freeman explained. "Everybody was on the same page, we didn’t execute. The guy that had that responsibility knew what he was supposed to do, and so let’s figure out why. That’s what I just said on the headset. Figure out why he didn’t do it, what he was thinking, what he saw. He might have (seen) something and then, oh I was running the out route, I tried to jump the out route. That's not what we want, but at least we know why. If he starts saying, 'I didn’t know what to do,' then it’s a serious issue.”

Freshman cornerback Jaden Mickey had coverage on the play.

"Jaden knew what he had to do,” Freeman said. "He had to carry No. 2 vertical and didn’t do it. He was jumping a different route. So we have to make sure that he understands, 'Hey, you can’t jump the out route right now in cover two, you’ve got to make sure you carry that guy up the seam.'

“If I heard over the headset, 'Hey, I don’t know why he did that, he has no clue what he’s saying....and Jaden’s saying, I didn’t know what I was doing, then there’s serious concerns,” Freeman continued. “The challenge is, 'Hey, let’s coach it better. Let’s coach it better and Jaden’s got to execute better, and he will. He’s going to be a great player.”

Finding the proper balance between being honest about mistakes and holding players accountable, while also putting the burden ultimately at the feet of himself and the coaches can be a tricky thing. So far, Freeman has done a fine job of this.

As the Fighting Irish defensive coordinator last season, Freeman’s defense surrendered troubling big plays early in the season.

Freeman was able to simplify things for his players that cut down on big plays for the majority of the rest of the season, but it’s not quite the same now that he is the head coach.

"I think it’s a little bit different,” Freeman explained. "When you become the head coach, you challenge your coordinators to figure out why the execution isn’t where we need it to be. As the defensive coordinator, I challenged myself and said, ok, what do I need to do to and that was simplifying what we were doing. As the head coach, I sit down with (offensive coordinator) Coach (Tommy) Rees, I sit down with (defensive coordinator) Coach (Al) Golden and (special teams coach) Mason and say, ok, we had a mistake here, tell me why. Is the player confused, is it a lack of coaching? And you always evaluate.”

The self-critiques don’t just come after wins, either. The 0-2 start to the season, intensified by the upset loss to Marshall, forced Freeman to look inward, but his focus was the message he was giving to his team.

“Finish” was his training camp mantra that lasted only through the week-two loss to Marshall. He quickly swapped it for “preparation and execution” and held himself and his staff under the magnifying glass to figure out what they needed to do to better prepare his players, not putting the onus on his players to account for the coaching they had already received.

"It’s tough, because when you feel a certain way after Marshall, it’s easy to go ahead and say, I’m already angry, right,” Freeman said. "I don’t like that and we’re going to challenge each other. Right now, everybody’s like, 'Oh man, I feel good after yesterday and now today we’ve moved on.' We feel good after a big win over a really good opponent. We have to ask those same critical questions.

Freeman’s focus has remained far less on “who” made the mistake, but instead on “why” the mistake happened.

"What happened here, why is it happening, what do we (have to) do to fix it,” he explained. "It could be we have to simplify. It could be we have to coach it better. It could be we have to move the kid, so he understands exactly what he has to do, but I know you guys have been around long enough, I’m not going to sit here and point the finger at the player.

These players have class, they have life, they have everything else going on. We get them for a couple hours a day and try to get them to execute what we need them to do. This is our life; this is what we do. We as coaches have to meet that player. I’m going to challenge them. We’ve got to challenge them; we’ve got to push them. I think it starts with us challenging ourselves and saying, ok, if he’s not performing at the level, we need him to perform, let’s figure out on our end why he’s not doing it.” 

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