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Marcus Freeman addresses how he, coaching staff can improve

Alex Weberby:Alex Weber09/06/22
notre dame marcus freeman
Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman. (Chad Weaver/BGI)

Given the expectations for Ohio State’s explosive offense coming into the season, Notre Dame’s performance in the Buckeyes home stadium Saturday was pretty good. Of course, a win would be nice. But the Fighting Irish, in their first game under a new head coach, gave Ohio State all they could handle for three quarters and only let up 21 points agains a Heisman favorite and one of the best offenses in the country.

When asked what he liked from his first game as a coach from an operational-standpoint, Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman pointed to the communication between he and his staff. Here was his answer from a recent press conference.

“You know what? I thought the communication was really good on both sides of the ball. You know, I was really happy with that. I was really happy with the time outs and the communication. You heard from the offensive coaches to the defensive coaches. I challenged them a little bit. Tn terms of, you know, when we sub. There was too many times we’re looking for somebody.”

While it was a fairly smooth first outing on the communication front, Freeman still sees plenty of ways in which they can improve as a staff. As well as himself individually.

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“So we have to improve on our sideline communication. Making sure those guys that have a chance to go in the game are ready to go. I got to do abetter job of being able to click over from one side to the other, you know, and make sure that I’m communicating with both sides.”

Marcus Freeman also remembered one moment in particular.

“It happened right before half-time. I’m on the defensive side of the ball. We’re talking about getting things corrected and what we’re looking for. Then by the time I clicked over to tell the offense — ‘Hey, I want to take a shot with 30 seconds left. I want to take a shot. I want to be aggressive’ — It wasn’t communicated in time. So, you know, those are different things that I got to clean up. But we as a program and a staff have to clean up.”