Joel Klatt: Marcus Freeman ‘elevated’ Notre Dame back into elite program

Following Monday night’s national title game, the national media has come out in full support of Notre Dame and losing coach Marcus Freeman.

FOX Sports’ Joel Klatt was the latest to endorse Freeman and the job he’s done, citing the team’s battle in the national title game despite being down 31-7 as evidence that the Fighting Irish are here to stay.

“Marcus Freeman is a hell of a football coach, but he took the foundation that Brian Kelly laid and he elevated it,” Klatt said. “That’s an elite program right there. And they’re not going anywhere.

“Think about the fortitude and fight and grit that that culture has to have, that locker room has to have, that sideline has to have to go back out there and just keep fighting and fighting and fighting when you’re getting handled in a national championship game. It’s 31-7 and then they just kept chipping away and chipping away and chipping away and chipping away and now all the sudden it’s an eight-point game.”

Notre Dame couldn’t climb all the way back, but the program likely learned some valuable lessons about what it takes to win on that stage.

More importantly, Marcus Freeman will get back many of the players who got that training.

“They’re going to have a ton of those offensive linemen back,” Klatt said. “They’ve got a lot of good, really good young players. They’re fast, they’re physical and Marcus Freeman has elevated them to an elite program.”

But what makes this iteration of Notre Dame football different than the Brian Kelly version? After all, the Fighting Irish played for a national title under Kelly too, as well as making the playoff.

This just feels different to Klatt.

“I don’t know, even though they played Alabama for a BCS National Championship, and even though they went to the College Football Playoffs, there was at least this sense for me that Notre Dame wasn’t in that upper crust that could actually go out there and win it,” Klatt said. “And now, after Monday night, after this season, and looking at what they have on their roster and what they’re going to be over the next couple of years, Notre Dame could absolutely win a national championship.

“They were in a one-score game in a national championship on Monday night, in the fourth quarter. So that’s an elite program, and Marcus Freeman is largely to thank for that because he elevated a great program to a point where they’re an elite, upper-crust program right now.”

So what’s next for Notre Dame? Well, time to start building toward the playoffs again. And not just building toward the playoffs, but engineering things to sustain a long run through them.

Klatt thinks with Marcus Freeman at the helm, Notre Dame is well-positioned.

“It wouldn’t surprise me at all if in the next few years Notre Dame is able to hoist that trophy,” Klatt said. “Because in a lot of ways you need some of these kind of forging moments for your program so that young guys feel it and then all the sudden Notre Dame will be the team where everyone comes back and everyone commits and they’re veteran and they’ve got guys that are out there with 50 starts each and 50 games played in college and then you’re the veteran team and then you win the national championship.

“I firmly believe that. Marcus Freeman has done one hell of a job.”