Marcus Freeman Enters His Most Important Period
We have yet to reach the one-year anniversary of Marcus Freeman being hired at Notre Dame, but it's been quite the whirlwind. As wild as his tenure has been, Freeman enters his most important period yet.
Freeman was initially hired to be Notre Dame's defensive coordinator, and from both a recruiting and coaching standpoint he did an outstanding job. He was hired as Notre Dame's next head coach in early December and he has already wrapped up his first signing day and a major bowl game.
There have been some ups and downs along the way, but Freeman enters a period where he has to bat a thousand.
Freeman has four coaching vacancies he must fill, and making strong hires is an absolute must for the first-year head coach, which makes this such an incredibly important period, and the biggest he's faced thus far.
As we learned with Brian Kelly for the last decade plus, a good staff can be brought down by one or two coaches at key positions, and Freeman is filling some very key positions.
The first-year head coach needs to make sure he surrounds himself with great teachers, great coaches and strong recruiters. Hiring coaches with a proven track record at doing each of those things is crucial. Making great hires will determine whether or not Freeman can become a championship caliber head coach.
OFFENSIVE LINE
Notre Dame's line play has been mostly erratic during the previous four seasons, which are the four years Jeff Quinn coached the position. Quinn is a good man who has always been incredibly kind and gracious in our few in-person encounters, but he simply didn't get the job done.
Quinn won't be back next season, and Freeman needs to replace him with a stud. All of my sources indicate that Freeman and Notre Dame are working to bring back Harry Hiestand. This would certainly be the kind of home run hire a first-year coach needs to make.
Hiestand is one of the most respected coaches in the business and he did a tremendous job at Notre Dame during his first stint (2012-17). Notre Dame won the Joe Moore Award as the nation's best offensive line in 2017, the 2015 unit was arguably the nation's best and during his six seasons Hiestand produced four first-round NFL Draft picks (three were Top 10 picks), a second round pick and a third round pick.
Hiestand also recruited and coached for at least one season two more second round picks (Liam Eichenberg, Aaron Banks) and a third round pick (Robert Hainsey). Three more Hiestand recruits and players from Notre Dame are in the NFL, and all three have earned starts.
Should Freeman be able to get this done it would be a tremendous start to putting together an elite staff. It would also give young coordinator Tommy Rees a tremendous resource to build the offense around.
WIDE RECEIVER
Notre Dame will also be looking to fill a skill position on offense, and one way or the other they will need a new wide receivers coach. There are two options here, and that is because of the presence of Lance Taylor. Currently Notre Dame's running backs coach, Taylor coached wide receiver in the NFL and also played the position.
Should the best option be a running backs coach, Freeman and Rees could simply move Taylor outside, a move I've been told he's more than open to, and insert the new running backs coach.
Should the best candidate be a wide receivers coach it would obviously be a smooth transition.
Notre Dame needs another dynamic recruiter on its offense staff, so that is a must for the new coach. The Irish wideouts were also not coached well enough, and that's been true for years. Young players have been slow to develop the last five seasons, the Irish wideouts were often poor getting off the line of scrimmage, the overall route running was average and many of the finer points of the position were missing from too many players.
That needs to change if Notre Dame is going to have an elite offense.
DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR
I am very, very curious to see if how the Fiesta Bowl played out is going to impact what Freeman does at defensive coordinator. I'm not so much curious about whether or not he's going to promote from within or go outside based on how the game played out, but is he willing to completely give up control of the defense?
Freeman noted throughout the bowl preparations that he wasn't as involved in game planning and daily practice instruction. He was focused on the entire team, something he might be less willing to do after the Fiesta Bowl.
Hiring Hiestand and another strong and experienced skill position coach on offense, along with a veteran like John McNulty and talented young coaches like Rees and Taylor could persuade Freeman to spend more time with the defense, at least for a season or two before fully handing things off.
I would imagine who exactly he hires to fill out the staff will have an impact on whether he's willing to do that. Should Freeman bring in a veteran defensive coordinator, especially if it's something he's worked with in the past, Freeman will likely be more comfortable handing over complete control of the defense.
Should he hire a younger coach with less experience he might want to spend more time on defense to help install the principles - philosophically, schematically, from a teaching standpoint - that he believes are essential to success on defense.
It would be great if Freeman hired a defensive coordinator that was also a strong recruiter, but honestly this is the one position I'm not quite as concerned about that for two reasons. One, if a coordinator puts a good product on the field it sells itself to a degree. Two, that coordinator will have Freeman as a dynamic recruiter he can lean on.
SPECIAL TEAMS
I'm curious to see how Freeman handles hiring a special teams coach. My personal opinion is that hiring a special teams coach who can also legitimately coach a position is the ideal scenario. This would also give Freeman some flexibility to hire a defensive coordinator that could roam during practice and position meetings.
Beyond that finding a coach that can develop more impactful special teams and be a strong recruiter are musts.
Freeman needs to hit it big with these hires. Notre Dame needs a dynamic staff that can coach and recruit. He must avoid the anchors that Kelly had on his staffs, either as coaches or recruiters (and sometimes both).
There are other aspects of the program that will require good hires, especially in the back office, but priority number one is the on-field staff.
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