Documents reveal Marcus Freeman made more than $6.5 million in 2022

Notre Dame does not typically release salary information for its coaches because it is a private university. However, a report from Matt Fortuna has revealed what head football coach Marcus Freeman made during his first year as the Fighting Irish head coach.

Fortuna reports that Marcus Freeman made more than $6.5 million in his first season as the head coach in 2022. Fortuna shared that the numbers were revealed through federal tax documents.

Freeman replaced Brian Kelly ahead of that season after Kelly left for the head coaching job at LSU. He had been working as the defensive coordinator and linebackers coach at Notre Dame before getting promoted to head coach.

Marcus Freeman has gone 9-4 and 10-3 in his first two years as the head coach at Notre Dame.

Before becoming a head coach, he started off as a grad assistant at Ohio State and also was on staff as an assistant at Kent State, Purdue, Cincinnati and Notre Dame.

His salary of more than $6.5 million would have put him inside the top 20 as far as highest paid coaches for the 2023 season, according to the USA Today database. It’s fair to assume that Freeman would have also been in the top 20 in 2022.

Marcus Freeman believes Notre Dame has ‘one of the most talented rosters’ of his tenure

Notre Dame has been solid thus far under Marcus Freeman, but the 38-year-old believes the program may be ready to go to another level in 2024.

Freeman has been an excellent recruiter throughout his time in South Bend, and he feels good about where the roster is at entering the 2024 season.

Freeman spoke about the Fighting Irish’s next campaign during his press conference following the Blue-Gold Game on April 20th. He started by saying that he hopes he himself is better as he goes into year three on the job.

“Yeah, I think, you know, obviously, through experience, hopefully I’m a better head coach today than I was the first two times I was up here,” said Freeman.

However, Freeman also anticipates the roster to be their best yet. Considering what you need to have a whole team that can contend, he thinks this group has as much talent as any of the three that he has had.

“Every year, you look at what do you need talent-wise to really mold it together, to make a run? I believe this probably is – I would want to say – one of the most talented rosters we’ve had since I’ve been here,” Freeman said.

Now, from here, it’s on him and his staff to work together to make the most of their team. They have as much in front of them as the players, if not more, in order to help them be where they want to come kickoff.

“Now it’s our job to build that talent. Mold that talent and make sure we teach that talent to get to where we want to go,” said Freeman. “We have a new offensive coordinator, a couple new coaches. So we have to really continue to grow as coaches to develop that talent that we have.”