Marcus Freeman issued two challenges to Notre Dame ahead of win vs. UNC

Marcus Freeman was promoted from defensive coordinator to head coach at Notre Dame when Brian Kelly left for LSU. It was his first time as a head coach, and things didn’t start out smoothly. Losing to Oklahoma State in the Fiesta Bowl was excusable. So, was losing at Ohio State to open 2022. But losing to Marshall should never happen.

Since then, Marcus Freeman and Notre Dame added a tough win over Cal and a more impressive win over Mack Brown’s North Carolina Tar Heels. Following the game, Freeman explained some of the challenges his team has been facing.

“We’re obviously extremely happy for our group of guys and our coaching staff to go out and play, listen, for the entirety of a game they played really, really well. We played really really well,” Marcus Freeman said.

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“You know, and the beauty of it is there’s always room to get better. We can go and we can learn from a lot of situations that happen in the game, but it was a challenge to our offense to be able to run the ball and it was a challenge to our defense to stop the run.”

Marcus Freeman clearly felt that part of Notre Dame’s problems have been related to the run game. With the offense struggling to run the ball, young quarterbacks have needed to win by throwing. With the defense failing to stop the run, they can’t get off the field in key situations.

“I think the lowest amount they had offensively in the first three games was, I think, 183 rushing yards and to hold that offense to 66 rushing yards was a great accomplishment by our defense.”

It’s worth pointing out that Notre Dame only allowed 112 rushing yards against Cal. However, the team was allowing 167.6 rushing yards per game, compared to gaining just 117.6 yards per game on the ground through Notre Dame’s first three games.

“Coach [Al] Golden and Coach [Tommy] Reese did an unbelievable job of preparing this group and I’m really happy for where this team is progressing, and that’s what I just told them in the locker room. Sometimes we let the outcome kind of mask some things, right? And continue to look at, is this a football team that’s getting better? And it is.”