Marcus Freeman shares how he has grown since first year of coaching

Few first-year head coaches got a crash course in what the ups and downs of life can be more than Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman in 2022. With demerits like losses to Marshall and Stanford and gold stars like upsets of Clemson and North Carolina, Freeman learned a lot.

And more than anything else, Freeman saw that you can take those moments of adversity and power through to something better. He wouldn’t chose to lose games to big underdogs if given the choice, but those moments after losing to Marshall and Stanford made him better going forward.

“And you never wish to lose to — that Marshall game was extremely tough, and the Stanford game. And any loss is tough. But you know, as you look back, you really see the growth that our team and myself as a leader made after those tough times,” Freeman said on “The Paul Finebaum Show” on Thursday.

Freeman, prior to 2022, had only been a defensive coordinator at the FBS level. He had come to Notre Dame from Cincinnati to be Brian Kelly’s defensive coordinator. And when Kelly left, Freeman was anointed the head coach at one of the nation’s premier programs.

He thought he understood the pressure; then the season started and he really understood what it meant.

“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.”

Freeman had another unexpected challenge to address this offseason

Tommy Rees went from one historically great program in Notre Dame to another in Alabama this offseason.

The former Irish quarterback joined Nick Saban‘s staff ahead of spring practice after Bill O’Brien left to take over as the offensive coordinator for the Patriots. The timing took Freeman by surprise.

“You always have a list. The timing, though, I would be lying if I didn’t say I was a little bit caught off… surprised, you know,” Freeman said.

Rees spent three seasons as the offensive coordinator at Notre Dame and six seasons overall on the Irish staff. The Irish won at least 10 games in five of those six seasons, before winning nine games in 2022.

Freeman is thankful for everything Rees did, even if the timing of his departure was a bit of a shock.

“Tommy did an unbelievable job, and when he decides to leave, you say, ‘OK, man, what is the next steps to replacing that guy.’ And you look internally and you look externally,” Freeman said. “The only thing I wanted to do is make sure we kept some type of pro-style offense. And when I say pro-style I’m talking terminology, I’m talking concepts. I’m not talking two backs, run the ball down hill and try to run the clock out. But I wanted to make sure we can keep the terminology and keep the concepts the same offensively. Because I think we owe it to our players to help them translate to the NFL, if they’re good enough to make that transition.”