Marcus Freeman addresses resignation of strength and conditioning coach Matt Balis

Notre Dame head strength and conditioning coach Matt Balis resigned unexpectedly earlier this week, leaving the Irish in a bit of a lurch. On Wednesday, head coach Marcus Freeman addressed the departure.

Freeman didn’t offer much information beyond what was in the press release announcing the staff shakeup, saying Balis resigned for personal reasons. Freeman explained that Balis felt he couldn’t “serve the players in the capacity that he felt he should.”

I want to just be as transparent as I can with you all, right. And I don’t know what’s being written and everything. But Matt called me on Sunday and informed me that he was wanting to resign. And I was caught off guard. We met on Monday and talked about it. And ultimately his reason was that he couldn’t serve the players in the capacity that he felt he should in his position. It’s a personal matter. And that’s how he left it with me and I tried to talk him out of it,” Freeman said.

The Notre Dame head coach reiterated that the professional move isn’t impacting any personal relationship he has with Balis.

“I have the utmost respect for Matt Balis,” Freeman said. “And we have a great relationship. But ultimately it was a personal decision and it came down to, ‘You know what, I can’t serve the players in the capacity that I feel like I need to being the head strength coach.'”

Freeman reaffirmed that Fred Hale, already on the strength staff, will take over the head job and they’ll plow ahead into a big second season one way or another.

“And as I said in the press release, Fred Hale will lead the strength and conditioning program moving forward and we’ll go forward from there,” Freeman said.

In the six seasons Balis was on staff, the Irish turned in a 63-14 (.818) record.

The staff change will be a big challenge for Freeman, still early in his head coaching career

Earlier in the summer, Freeman spoke on “The Pivot” podcast about how he’s grown in his first year of being the Notre Dame head coach. It’s experience he’ll now need to lean on with a staff change late before the season.

And this latest challenge will hopefully make him better, too.

“There’s nothing like going through the actual season, right? And you can’t — there’s no playbook for the things that you are going to come across,” Freeman said. “And as I’ve always said, the journey is never as you foresee it on the front end. And you know, as you look back at last year, I think we did and I did, as the leader, our most growing through those difficult times.”