Marcus Freeman reflects on what he's learned in Year 1

Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman is approaching the end of his first year as the leader of the Fighting Irish. Asked to reflect on the takeaway from the, so far, 7-3 season, the former NFL player revealed he believes he is far from a finished product.

“Man, the gamut, we’ve checked off almost every situation throughout this season,” Freeman said. “I’m still learning. I hope five years from now or two years from now I come up here and say I’m still learning. There’s no book for this.

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“You can’t just have a plan and think that the plan is going to fix things. You have to correct the things you see with urgency. That’s what I’ve learned more than anything, you have to evaluate and address issues right away. Get them corrected right away. You have to have a sense of urgency for improvement, every day, no matter what your record is. If you have that sense of urgency, it will carry out throughout your program.”

For the former defensive coordinator, learning is a process you go through every day, not just when things are going poorly.

The Irish have two more opportunities to learn before the postseason with a game on Saturday versus BC and the rivalry game versus USC. The 2:30 p.m. kickoff on Saturday serves as a sendoff for the team’s veterans who helped Freeman shape his team in Year 1.

Freeman commends seniors

Notre Dame will be looking to send their seniors off on a high note this weekend, as they take on Boston College in their last home game of the season. Reporters asked Marcus Freeman about his senior class on Monday. As expected, he noted their importance and impact on the program in his first season as the Irish’s head coach.

“I think I’ve told the captains but what I’ll tell those seniors is they’ve built the foundation of what I believe is the future of the Notre Dame football program under me, and that’s different than previous head coaches,” Freeman said.

“Notre Dame football has been successful for a really long time, but the leadership has changed and you have to rebuild that foundation to fit the new leader. And that’s what I’ll credit this group for, is really building the foundation for what I believe is gonna be an extremely bright future of Notre Dame football.”

Freeman explained that he couldn’t have implemented the team’s new culture without the veterans.

“I’ll be forever in debt to this, this will be a special group forever, forever to me because they had blind faith,” Freeman said. “They didn’t choose me to be their head coach and they came to Notre Dame for other reasons, well you know what, I was named head coach no matter if they chose me or not and they committed to the vision I had for this football program. They worked tirelessly, they really built the bond, they established, probably the best word is they implemented the culture that I put on the walls.”

On3’s Kaiden Smith contributed to this report.