Washington's Kalen DeBoer, Notre Dame's Marcus Freeman are On3 Power Five co-head coaches of the week

Each week, On3 selects national head coaches of the week.

For week 7, Washington’s Kalen DeBoer and Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman are our Power Five co-head coaches of the week.

DeBoer led his No. 7 Huskies to a 36-33 win over No. 8 Oregon, his second straight win over the Ducks after guiding Washington to a victory over then-No. 6 Oregon last season.

With the win, the Huskies are now 6-0 and ranked in the top-five for the first time since 2017.

“If there’s one I’ve been a part of bigger, better, I can’t think of it right now,” DeBoer said after the game. “This moment right now is something really special for our program. It embodies everything we’ve done over the last year and a half. Two years and we keep saying it, if it’s close, we’re gonna find a way to win. We’re built for this. We’re made for this. We’ve been through some things. We’ve learned from them. We take the lessons we’ve learned and apply them and you can see it. These guys care so much. There’s nothing more special as a football coach than seeing these guys enjoying that moment we just had out there.

“There was a question, ‘Did it feel like last year?’ It felt exactly like last year. I was thinking the exact same thing on the field, and that’s one of the things that kept me feeling like ‘keep fighting, keep fighting’ because those are the experiences we’ve been through together, and I know how these guys are gonna respond. Our guys just kept fighting.”

Freeman, meanwhile, led No. 21 Notre Dame to a 48-20 win over No. 10 and previously 6-0 USC.

Despite the Fighting Irish coming off a loss to Louisville, which was Notre Dame’s second tough loss in the last three weeks, Freeman led the way to a huge bounce-back victory over the Trojans. During the win, the Irish held USC to just two touchdowns and had three interceptions off of reigning Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams.

“That was my message all week, is that competitors don’t pick and choose when they compete for a game,” Freeman said after the game. “I challenged those guys and said, ‘Are we going to let a defeat that happened in the past dictate how we prepare for this?’ This wasn’t about the outcome. It was  about preparing the way we needed to prepare to give us a chance to have this kind of performance.”

Honorable mentions

Missouri’s Eli Drinkwitz: Drinkwitz led Mizzou to a 38-21 road win over No. 24 Kentucky that improved the Tigers to 6-1.

Arizona’s Jedd Fisch: After two straight one-score losses against top-10 opponents, Fisch guided Arizona to a 44-6 road victory over No. 19 Washington State.

Stanford’s Troy Taylor: Taylor’s first conference win as Stanford’s head coach was a 46-43 double overtime win over Deion Sanders and Colorado that included the Cardinal overcoming a 29-0 halftime deficit.