Marcus Freeman Transcript: Notre Dame's Head Coach Talks Cal, Defense, Manti Te'o

Transcript of the Thursday meeting with Notre Dame head football coach Marcus Freeman

Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman discussed the Notre Dame vs California matchup, his conversion to Catholicism and more.

On converting to Catholicism

"Yeah, it was a personal (decision) and I've tried to keep it as private as I can ... private as I could. (It's a) Family decision and personal decision. Obviously when you're head coach at Notre Dame, nothing's private but yeah, just the decision I made and was confirmed. I wish I could tell you the date (of confirmation) ... September.”

On the coordinators being made available to the media

"I'm trying to give you guys as much access as you guys would want. I know I can never give you as much as you really need and would hope for, but trying to give you a little bit more access. And again, I think it's great for our coordinators to get an opportunity to speak and to be able to talk about the different things that's going on in our program on their sides of the ball. So, it was just something that I had been thinking about and decided after last week to go ahead and give them an opportunity to meet with media.”

Notre Dame great Manti Te’o is coming back this week

"Anytime you can have one of your greats come back, it is a great thing for our program. And I try to do that often is if we're going to have a former great football player but somebody I can just talk to our players as one that has gone through it, I love that opportunity. And so when I found out he would be coming back, I think this is a great opportunity for him to come back to Notre Dame but for us to also as a football program to utilize one of our own being back on campus. And so, I hope that it depends on what time it's like gets in but we'd love for him to be able to say hello to the team. Listen, I'm not looking for a big speech, but it's an opportunity for our guys who know who Manti Te'o is to be able to sit down and meet them and get a chance to meet one of our own.”

On Jarrett Patterson's week of practice

"He's been great. He's had a great week of practice. I don't know if I could sit here and say that he feels 100%. I think this will be something over time that he'll feel better and better as time goes on. But he's a warrior and he really, really competed his tail off last week. (He has) had a great week of practice, has been a great leader for our group and I expect him to play really well on Saturday.”

Preparation for the Cal Golden Bears

"You know what, I think the game plans are in and now it's about really making sure that we know exactly what we want to get done and our players know exactly what we're looking for. And so, we just had a meeting and as I told those guys, it's about us as coaches making sure our players know exactly what we want, why we want it and have the ability to go out there and execute it. And so, if there's any gray area from now until Saturday, throw it out. Condense the packages, but this is going to be about making sure that we give our players the best opportunity to go out there and have success with the ability to go out and execute, because they know exactly what they're doing and what we expect from.”

The challenge Cal’s defense poses

"I think they give you a couple of different looks. They'll play three down, but they'll also get to some four down. The big nose guard 91 (6’4, 335 pound Ricky Correia), man he is a house. He is going to be hard to move and they're (an) aggressive unit. Obviously, the linebacker (Jackson Sirmon) being the defensive coordinator's (Peter Sirmon) son, he knows exactly what is expected and I'm sure he's the quarterback of that defense. And so, they're going to present a great challenge for our offense. And, again, I think the week of preparation has been good. Now we still have 48 hours to continue to prepare. But, we know we have a very tough challenge ahead of us with a really good defensive unit.”

On handling pressure that comes with being at Notre Dame

"No, I think that the focus from myself to our team has been we have to look at why we haven't been successful the first two games and really studying and put into action in practice the things we've learned that it's going to take to make sure that we have success on Saturdays. And so, that's the pressure that I as the head coach and us, as our coaching staff has put on our players is here's what we have to do to have success, here's what we can't do if we want to have success and now let's make sure in practice that we execute exactly what we're looking for to a tee. And so, as I told them, you if you continue to listen to all the voices out there that have opinions about what you're doing or what we're doing as a football program, you will feel the weight of the world. 

"Focus on the things that matter to dictating the outcome on Saturday. That's what I want the pressure to be on. Okay, what things truly dictate the outcome of a game? And if we continue to focus on those things we don't have to worry about added pressure from outside and don't don't play for Coach Freeman. We're gonna play to make sure that we have a chance to have success. And so, that's what the really the focus and the message has been is to really, let's be critical of our actions in the game and then really take those actions and say okay, how do we apply that to the way we practice and to ensure that in the game, there is no miscommunication. There is no missed assignments, there is no missed execution. And that's what we've really been focusing on this week.”

Recognizing issues and fixing problems

“No, I think maybe it's going against a different opponent. You know, when you practice 20 something days against the same opponent, you slowly start to figure each other out and what things are good and what things are not. And then all sudden you face an opponent and you look and say okay, there was a lack of execution on this play at this position. And that's what to me...what you have to see as you go throughout the season is you really got to take a deep dive in a really honest and realistic look at what are the issues. And if we could have foreseen some of the issues that we've had the first two games in camp we would have corrected them. 

"But, that's to me what you have to be able to do, no matter if you win or lose and that's the biggest message I've been sending to our players and our coaches that we can't let the outcome dictate the critical eye we must have as we evaluate the games and in practice. Sometimes we let the result of a play, or the result of a game kind of mask the reality of what's going on in terms of by play by play or by position by position.

"You can have a really good play, but there's somebody on the field that's not doing their job and so, do we really take a critical eye no matter if it's a good play or bad play at every position? That's what I've been really trying to focus on is that hold on, let's make sure we look at every position on every play, and are we executing our assignment or not? Okay, if there's confusion, what do we have to do to correct that? That could be coaching it better, that could be taking the play out, that can be changing something within the scheme. And so, that is to me, what I've been doing and what we've been doing is really trying to focus on practice and the past two games with a really critical eye. 

"Not looking at the outcome, not looking at it was the player success or not, but really looking at each player on the field at that time and was he getting his job done or was he not? And not overlooking that if we need to stop practice, stop practice to correct mistakes. If we need to take something out of the scheme take it out. But let's give our guys a chance to truly have success, because they know exactly what they're doing on every single play. And then you know what, on Saturday you can go play and know that hey, the things we're going to call offensively and defensively. Our players know exactly what they have to do now we got to go out and execute it.”

On the fourth quarter play

"I think if you looked at the Oklahoma State game, you looked at Ohio State game, even if you looked at Marshall game, you could kind of get distracted by the fourth quarter and say 'Okay, we didn't finish'. That's what I think I took from the Oklahoma State game or in the Ohio State game and say 'Okay, what do we have to do to finish'? And then, after the Marshall game has said 'Okay, look at the entirety of the game and just look at every single play', because there's plays in the first quarter that could have truly dictated the outcome of the game. And so, the GPS numbers don't tell us a great story in terms of why we didn't win the game. But to me, it's more so throughout the entirety of the game, where are the plays that we're not executing that really can dictate outcome. It's not just the fourth quarter. There's plays throughout the entirety of the game that we have to make sure we correct.”

Recalibration approach on defense

"I think there's a lot of similarities to it. It was kind of to be emotionless about it. Like, take the emotions out, take the outcome out of the game out and really take a a really critical eye to what's going on. And that's something that I knew we had to do after the season at Cincinnati when we finished 96 in the country defensively. I knew that was something that we did last year defensively. I remember I just told the group our first two games that that we had given up close to 70 points. The feeling was we were 2-0 and it's okay, but I know as a defensive staff it wasn't. We were struggling and to really say 'Okay, let's stop, let's really, really dissect everything we're doing. Let's see what we're doing well, okay, let's enhance it. 

"The things we're not doing well, let's either change it, let's throw it out or come up with a new way to do it'. And so, that to me, the formula is very similar. Is that we have to, again, not focus on outcome but really take a critical look at everything we're doing. Look at the mistakes and figure out why. We can't, I told the staff that we cannot continue to say 'If Johnny would have done this, we would have been successful', We've got to say why he did or didn't do it. And what we have to do to make sure he does do it.”

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