What Notre Dame's Marcus Freeman Said About Penn State Ahead of the Orange Bowl

The Notre Dame coach found similarities between the Nittany Lions and Fighting Irish.

Notre Dame Fighting Irish head coach Marcus Freeman reacts on the sidelines in the final minute against the Georgia Bulldogs in the Sugar Bowl. / Geoff Burke-Imagn Images

Notre Dame faced a quick turnaround after its Sugar Bowl victory over Georgia, beginnning preparations for Penn State on the flight home. But coach Marcus Freeman said the team embraced that opportunity.

"If you don't prepare the right way, the reality is that that moment on Thursday will be our last great moment, and nobody wants that," Freeman said Saturday.

During his first press conference ahead of the Orange Bowl, Freeman discussed the Nittany Lions' assets that his staff has been poring over since the Sugar Bowl. He also shed insight into how Notre Dame has handled its 12-game win streak. Here's a look at what Freeman had to say.

On Penn State: I've got a lot of respect for coach [James] Franklin and the job he's done at Penn State and Vandy before that. It's a very disciplined, tough football team, very creative offense that utilizes a bunch of different personnel, a bunch of different formations. They're going to force you to be extremely disciplined in terms of your eyes and your adjustments in terms of defensive football. I think their tight end, [Tyler] Warren, is one of the best players in college football period, regardless of position. Very impressed by the film I've seen of him. Both of their running backs [Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton] are extremely good players and both of them are home-run threats. They're power runners, they've got speed, good balance, they're tough. I think they're extremely talented players, and the quarterback [Drew Allar] is playing as well as he has all season. He's playing confident, throwing the ball well, making really good decisions, staying in the pocket and delivering good balls. So their offense is going to present a great challenge for us. Defensively they create a lot of havoc, and it doesn't have to be with pressure. Their front four creates havoc. They do a good job stopping the run and getting after the quarterback in the pass game. And like I just said about the tight end, their defensive end [Abdul Carter], he's as good as anybody in college football at his position.

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On handling success: I think it's human nature to enjoy people saying good things about you. But we talked all year about being misfits, and that's what we have to continue to be. You have to make the choice to either waste time listening to people tell you how good you are, or what the past has been, or you're going to put your time into preparing for this opportunity right in front of us. And that's been my message loud and clear, and we all have to make that choice. It's not the initial thought of daydreaming about the past or an uncertain future. It's the second thought that, as soon as you start thinking about the past or what somebody's saying about your future, that's it's uncertain, get back in the moment and put the work in that it takes to get the outcome that you want.

On quarterback Riley Leonard's performance in the Sugar Bowl: It just confirms what we've all learned about him. He is an ultra-competitive individual that finds ways to get his job done. And it's never perfect, but in the most crucial moments, he's going to find a way. That's through decision-making, that's through his legs, that's through having to jump over somebody and flip on his head to get a first down. He's doing exactly what we asked him to do. And he's the first one, just like I would tell you about myself, that wants more.

On beating Georgia and devising a gameplan for Penn State: [Penn State] does a heck of a job on defense, and their offense creates challenges. They're probably built similar to us in terms of the way they've had success. They don't run the quarterback as much as we have, but I think each week it's, what does it take to win? And [Georgia] was the best defense we've seen all year. I don't care about stats, I'm just talking about personnel and about scheme. That was a really good defense, and so we knew we weren't going to be able to just have 400 yards of offense. We had to be really smart. We had to take care of the football. We knew our offense, no matter what it was, we had to find ways to get positive rushing yards, and that means even sometimes running [quarterback] Riley ]Leonard]. But we had to take care of football, and they did that. And defensively, we wanted to stop the run, and that's the No. 1 thing we did defensively. We stopped the run. I knew in my heart, passing yards aren't going to beat us this game. It's rushing yards, and we did a really good job defensively. Our special teams were superior. ... There were positives in all those phases, but that was the formula for that game. We we haven't defined yet the keys to victory for this game, but for certain, there's going to be something similar to what it was last game.

Penn State meets Notre Dame in the Orange Bown on Jan. 9 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. Kickoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.

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