Marcus Freeman: Notre Dame must keep identity through positive noise

There are only four teams left in the College Football Playoff. One of those teams, despite suffering an early season upset to Northern Illinois that seemed to threaten the entire season, is Notre Dame led by head coach Marcus Freeman.

With the more recent success that Notre Dame has had, there has been an outpouring of support and positive noise about the program from the outside. Despite that, Freeman knows it’s important for the Irish to maintain their identity amid all of that positive attention.

Get your team’s official College Football Playoff watch from AXIA by CLICKING HERE: “Watches that tell so much more than time”

“Yeah, it’s probably, probably louder than this week than it’s ever been,” Marcus Freeman said. “And, you know, I think it’s human nature to enjoy people saying good things about you. It’s human nature. But we’ve talked all year about being misfits, right? And that’s what we have to continue to be. You have to make the choice to either waste time listening to people tell you how good you are or what the past has been, or you’re going to put your time into preparing for this opportunity right in front of us. And that’s been my message loud and clear. And we all have to make that choice.”

At the time, the Northern Illinois loss garnered plenty of negative outside noise. Freeman was able to get the Irish to respond well. Notre Dame has since won 12 straight games since then. Only one of those wins was less than a two-score margin. That also includes two physically dominant Playoff wins over Indiana and Georgia.

Now, for Marcus Freeman and Notre Dame, the focus remains internal and on the task at hand. That’s Penn State and the upcoming Orange Bowl.

“You know, it’s not the initial thought of daydreaming about the past or an uncertain future. It’s the second thought that as soon as you start thinking about the past or what somebody’s saying about your future that’s uncertain, get back in the moment and put the work in that it takes to get the outcome that you want. Like, don’t dream about the outcome, put the work in,” Freeman said.

“The minute you start dreaming about the outcome put the work in that it takes to get that. And that’s a personal challenge for everybody in our program.”

The Orange Bowl between Notre Dame and Penn State is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. EST on Thursday, January 9th. The team that wins is set to play for a national championship.