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Notre Dame

The latest on Notre Dame football independence from Marcus Freeman

IMG_9992by:Tyler Horka•06/16/25•

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Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman. (Michael Clubb/South Bend Tribune/USA TODAY Network via Imagn Images)

Marcus Freeman has changed a lot about Notre Dame football in his three going on four years as the Fighting Irish’s head coach. He’s winning his way, not Brian Kelly‘s.

One thing hasn’t changed, though. Notre Dame is still independent, and the Irish will remain so for as long as they can. Period.

That’s been the messaging from South Bend in the last handful of years amidst name, image and likeness popping up, conference realignment on a scale never seen before, the House settlement ushering in the revenue-sharing era, new apparel and television deals for Notre Dame and so much more. It remains the messaging in the face of all of it.

Notre Dame is independent. And that’s how Notre Dame likes it.

“It’s what this football program was built from,” Freeman told Joel Klatt on ‘Big Noon Conversations.’ “As long as we can [remain independent], we will. I got a lot of confidence in our administration and Pete Bevacqua, our AD, that he’ll always keep us in a position to be successful.

“So as long as we can keep that independence, we will, but if there ever comes a time we are at a disadvantage because we are not in a conference, I’m sure he’ll make the decision, along with our president, to say, ‘All right. We’re going to join one of these conferences and position ourselves to not be negatively impacted by being independent.'”

The first thing Freeman messaged as a potential inhibiting factor to Notre Dame as an independent in an ever-changing college football landscape?

“Being at a disadvantage to make the postseason.”

The second?

“If there comes a time when teams won’t schedule you because the Big Ten or the SEC are saying, ‘We’re going to play nine games and we’ll play a crossover game and who cares about Notre Dame,'” Freeman said. “Well, then I think there is going to be a point where we’re forced to join a conference. Until that point happens, which it doesn’t look likely, we’re going to stay independent as long as we can.”

Freeman alluded to money being the biggest driving force that directs college football one way or the other. As powerful of a face as he is in the sport, he’s not at the wheel. No one head coach is. Heck, no one person is. The NCAA has become increasingly less powerful with the emergence of super conferences; SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti are the voices of CFB these days.

How long will that remain the case? Anybody’s guess. College football could take on a new form tomorrow and nobody would be surprised. Even Freeman.

For now, he’s going to relish in Notre Dame’s longstanding independence.

“There might come a time when there might be an outside entity takes college football away from the NCAA,” Freeman said. “I don’t know. The future is uncertain, I say. But I can see a college football system where everybody is independent and somebody else is — very similar to the NFL — somebody else is scheduling the games, when you play each other. Then all of a sudden it’s not based off TV deals with your conference anymore. It’ll be based off regional location and things like that.”

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