Aggressive Approach By Marcus Freeman, Notre Dame Is Destroying Narratives
Notre Dame is too tight with its money.
Notre Dame is not willing to pay top dollar for coaches.
Notre Dame is not a place where top coaches want to go.
Notre Dame isn't serious about competing for championships.
These are many of the narratives that have existed for years in Notre Dame circles, and especially to the outside college football world. For quite some time these weren't narratives, they were realities about the Notre Dame program. Over the last decade the moves made by out-going AD Jack Swarbrick started to change the reality about Notre Dame, even if the narrative remained.
The moves being made by Notre Dame and Marcus Freeman this offseason are blowing them up.
We are learning quite a bit about Freeman in recent months, and we are also learning about Notre Dame's commitment to him and the football program.
Freeman is an interesting coach to evaluate. He has different parts of his personality that come out at different times. When he's in front of a camera he's all smiles, he's calm, he gives thoughtful and calm answers. You don't see the blow ups with media that were somewhat regular occurrences by his predecessor.
When he first took over as the head coach that stoic demeanor is what we saw on the sidelines on game day, but after Notre Dame started 3-3 under him that changed. Coming out of the loss to Stanford we saw the passionate young coach that we saw when he was a coordinator.
As we've been around Freeman longer you can start to read him better, and that was never more true than during the final two games of the season. Notre Dame dominated Wake Forest 45-7 and Stanford 56-23, ending the season by outscoring opponents 101-30. The Irish outgained their opponents by an average of 485.5 to 295.5 in those two games. Outwardly it would see as though Notre Dame was finishing the season on a great note, and it would seem to be a time to be happy.
Then you'd look at Freeman on the sidelines, and he was animated, frustrated and often times looked as though his team was losing 45-7 instead of winning by that margin. Without knowing what's in the man's heart, it seemed as though Freeman didn't really care about beating up on weaker opponents because the season did not go how he thought it should have.
There was a clear frustration in his body language, that was easy to see. It was good to see the head coach at Notre Dame would not be satisfied with being up on teams the Irish are supposed to be. Instead, it seemed from his body language there was frustration about what should have been.
While that's great, the important question was what would he do about it.
There is still plenty of offseason left, but so far Freeman is showing that the status quo isn't anywhere close to good enough. Freeman has taken a very, very bold approach this offseason. Even better, Notre Dame seems to be on board with all of it.
It began shortly after the season ended, when Freeman fired wide receivers coach Chansi Stuckey. The ensuing portal madness brought out some "woe is us" among Irish faithful, but there were much brighter days ahead.
In the coming weeks Notre Dame landed the best transfer quarterback in the portal when Riley Leonard (Duke) committed. The Irish also landed a pair of talented wide receivers (Beaux Collins, Kris Mitchell), one of the best edge players in the portal (R.J. Oben), a deadly accurate kicker (Mitch Jeter) and an experience nickel player (Jordan Clark).
Leonard and Collins are undergraduates, which is a break from the past for Notre Dame, who has primarily focused on graduate transfers. This can't happen without the school working with the football program to be able to better compete in the modern landscape.
Notre Dame also signed an outstanding 2024 recruiting class that saw no drama down the stretch, which isn't what we are used to seeing, and certainly isn't what happened with the rest of college football.
Freeman also hired Loren Landow as his new director of strength and conditioning. I didn't know much about Landow when he was hired, but the more I learned about him you realize he is exactly the kind of strength coach Freeman wanted, and he is incredibly well respected in the profession. There are a number of former Notre Dame stars who have trained with Landow and they think incredibly high of him.
Outside of five years with the Denver Broncos (2018-22), Landow has worked in private training, and his company is quite successful. You can be assured that Landow wasn't cheap, and you can also be assured that he didn't take the job while also embracing the status quo from a staffing and facilities standpoint.
Freeman could want Landow all he wants, but getting him on board required a level of commitment from the University that past narratives would indicate they aren't willing to make.
But they did.
All of this built to what happened over the last week. After former offensive coordinator Gerad Parker left to become the head coach at Troy, Freeman entered a period that would go a long way towards determining whether or not he had what it took to take Notre Dame to the next level, and whether or not the University would support him even if he did.
That's not really a question anymore.
Freeman swung for the fences with his offensive coordinator hire, targeting LSU offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock. Landing Denbrock wasn't going to be easy, as the former Irish assistant was well-paid and was set to get a big pay raise to stay in Baton Rouge.
Remember, the narrative is that Notre Dame doesn't pay top dollar for assistant coaches.
That's no longer the case, as Notre Dame did what it took to make sure it had a reunion with Denbrock. According to John Brice of FootballScoop, Notre Dame is set to make Denbrock the highest paid offensive coordinator in college football. Brice reports the deal will be a guaranteed four-year contract for about $9 million dollars.
Yes, you read that correctly. It's not Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State or Texas that is re-setting the market for top coordinators.
Brice has also reported that Notre Dame is also working on a contract extension for defensive coordinator Al Golden. That means if Notre Dame can keep Golden from jumping to the NFL the Irish will have an argument for being the team with the best coordinator duo in all of college football.
Whatever happened in the past is the past. Notre Dame sent a signal to the college football world. Marcus Freeman isn't going to settle for just being good, he wants to be a champion. Notre Dame's administration just let the college football world know that it would support its head football coach in that quest.
Whether or not this is a new era of Notre Dame football remains to be seen, because ultimately that is decided by what happens on the field. One thing is for sure, this past week showed that Freeman is going to be bold as he looks to build a champion, and Notre Dame showed it has its coach's back.
A fan base that just a few weeks ago seemed reserved to another 30 years without a title has been rejuvenated, and the bold moves by Freeman - and the support he got for those moves - is the reason for it.
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