Marcus Freeman addresses how he's managing Notre Dame head coaching duties

Marcus Freeman took over as Notre Dame’s head coach on extremely limited notice, after a mind-boggling turn of events saw Freeman promoted from defensive coordinator in unlikely fashion.

Formerly coaching Notre Dame’s defensive unit, Freeman was recently promoted to head coach after the departure of Brian Kelly, who left Notre Dame to take the LSU job. Luckily for Freeman, a number of assistant coaches — including offensive coordinator Tommy Rees — opted to stay in South Bend and continue to build the Fighting Irish towards a national championship.

Still, Freeman is left in difficult position, picking up his duties as head coach in the middle of the season. He has to find a new defensive coordinator to replace him at his old post, he has to recruit for future classes and all the while, he has to coach the No. 5 Notre Dame Fighting Irish against the No. 9 Oklahoma State Cowboys on New Years Day, as Notre Dame managed to earn an invite to the Fiesta Bowl. It’s a lot at once — and frankly, it might be difficult to manage.

“It’s like every time I want to truly sit down and focus on x’s and o’s, there’s a lot of other things you have to do,” Freeman said. “You have to be very intentional on when it’s football time and when it’s everything else time.”

For now, it’s football time — Freeman was quick to reiterate that. In fact, one of the many tasks on his checklist this offseason, finding a new defensive coordinator, is something that’s far from his mind. For the time being, he has to prepare for the upcoming Fiesta Bowl against Oklahoma State, and sorting out his coaching staff is not one of the necessary steps. Freeman chose not to promote an internal candidate immediately; instead, he said that “all the coaches” will “plan to go as we’ve gotten here.” In other words, “we’re not making changes” in the staff until after the season.

“I’ve tried to make sure that I’m intentional with when I can study the film, when I can study our practice, but also there are things that you can’t put aside,” Freeman said. “You can’t put recruiting aside. You better get on the phone with these kids. And you can’t put decisions aside.”

Decisions, for now, revolve mostly around Notre Dame’s preparation for Oklahoma State. That is, which players get slotted where, which plays will the Fighting Irish focus on and more. But as Freeman noted, there are certain factors he can’t quite ignore, and recruiting is one. It’s one of the many reasons he’s hardly gotten to sit back and think about his recent promotion to head coach.

“You’ve got the portal, and now you have guys that you’re asking, ‘Hey, are you going to the NFL early?’ And you’re trying to get all this information to connect them with parents,” Freeman said. “There’s just a list of things that we could go over that I probably didn’t know included in being the head coach, but you know what? You just accomplish one thing at a time.”