Marcus Freeman reveals what must be done to keep coaches from leaving college football

Notre Dame football coach Marcus Freeman was rumored to be of interest to some NFL teams this past season, including the Chicago Bears. It’s only natural after he, in just his fourth year as the Fighting Irish coach, led the team to an appearance in the national championship game.

But Freeman opted to stay South Bend, signing a contract extension that goes through the 2030 season. He recently appeared on The Joel Klatt Show, where the 39-year-old coach tackled the question of what has to be done to keep him in the college game for the foreseeable future if NFL teams come knocking again.

“I always think about our staff and how do I as the head coach do the best job possible to make sure our staff enjoys coming to work here,” Freeman answered. “Part of that is trying not to overwork them. I think sometimes college coaches can overwork their staffs. We’re gonna work hard. I’m not saying it’s gonna be easy. But how do we continue to look at the calendar and make it in a way that there’s some type of balance for the assistant coaches? They’re the ones that are one the road 24/7.

“We’ve gotta create some type of balance for those coaches and I think we are. I see us trending from my first year to now my fourth year in a direction that is trying to create some type of balance for assistant coaches, and that’s important.”

The college football schedule can often seem never-ending with the transfer portal opening not long after the regular season ends. If you’re a team in the College Football Playoff, it can be a lot to keep up with both chasing a championship and focusing on building a roster for the next season. Then there is spring football, followed by another portal window in April.

Changes are potentially coming soon, though, with discussions among power conferences about potentially having just one portal window and getting rid of the spring window. Freeman called out the portal in particular as making it “so easy” for players to move on from adversity.

He pointed to his time as a player at Ohio State having to sit behind veteran players and how it ended up being a positive thing for him. Marcus Freeman also added that he would like to see more rules for the transfer portal, a common sentiment among coaches.

“How do we continue to have a college football structure that helps young people continuously become self-sufficient?” he asked. “I think back to my time at Ohio State and I was a pretty big recruit and there was a thought in my head where, ‘I’m gonna walk in here and start.’ Well you have three linebackers, two of them were first round picks. AJ Hawk and Bobby Carpenter. The other one was a third-round pick, Anthony Schlegel. I wasn’t good enough for starters and I had to learn for two years to embrace my role and continue to work even though I wasn’t playing as much as I wanted.

“How do I as an individual take advantage of my opportunity and better? That’s how you become self-sufficient. You overcome challenges and there was no thought for me to get up and go somewhere else. That’s the greatest thing that I had to learn to do. Stay there, overcome some adversity, take advantage of the opportunities that I got, graduate, get a degree. I just don’t want a structure that’s created when things get hard it’s just so easy to pick up and go somewhere else. I think it’s important that we create rules and some type of structure that continues to promote self-sufficiency for young people and overcoming obstacles.”