Marcus Freeman addresses Manti Te'o returning to Notre Dame this weekend

Former Notre Dame star linebacker Manti Te’o — most known now for infamously being publicly catfished in 2012 — will be back on campus this Saturday for the Irish’s game against Cal. For first-year Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman, the chance to have his team meet a former Irish great is too good to pass up.

Ideally, Freeman would love for Te’o to get to South Bend in time to speak with the team ahead of the game. Freeman doesn’t expect a rah-rah speech, but really just wants the players who know who Te’o is and watched him play growing up to meet him. Freeman was not going to turn his back on one of the Irish’s own.

“And so my hope — it depends on what time his flight gets in — but would love for him to be able to say hello to the team and, listen, I’m not looking for a big speech but an opportunity for our guys, who know who Manti Te’o is, to be able to sit down and meet him,” Freeman said. “And get a chance to meet one of our own.”

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The news trickled out earlier this week that Te’o, recently the subject of a Netflix documentary about his catfishing ordeal, would be back on campus for the game, one of his first public appearances with Notre Dame since 2012.

For Freeman, it’s a no brainer to bring a former Irish great in for some time around the time.

“Any time you can have one of your greats come back, it is a great thing for our program,” Freeman said. “And I try to do that often. If we’re going to have a former great football player, but somebody that can just talk to our football players as one that has gone through it, I love that opportunity. So when I found out he would be coming back, I think this is a great opportunity for him to come back to Notre Dame, but for us too also, as a football program to utilize one of our own being back on campus.”