Ed Orgeron on Notre Dame head coach and old DC target Marcus Freeman: ‘He just has something about him’

One wonders if the scene Tuesday morning in the Irish Athletic Center is possible without a January 2021 phone call between Marcus Freeman and Ed Orgeron.

Notre Dame’s 12th practice of the spring ended with Orgeron, the former LSU head coach and 2019 national champion, speaking to the team Freeman now leads.

Imagine reading that 15 months ago.

Better yet, imagine if Freeman’s decline of the reported $2 million per year offer to be LSU’s defensive coordinator under Orgeron was instead an acceptance. Maybe Orgeron is still LSU’s coach. Which, of course, means Brian Kelly is likely still at Notre Dame. Maybe Freeman parlays a successful one-year stint at LSU into another head coaching job. Maybe he bolts to be the defensive coordinator at his alma mater, Ohio State, which was the possible-if-not-likely move if Notre Dame passed on him when looking for Kelly’s replacement.

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You can come up with myriad other hypotheticals, but one thing’s pretty clear: Orgeron isn’t spending a week at Notre Dame with his three sons as a practice observer and Freeman’s guest if Freeman takes his offer and moves south. Instead, he chose Notre Dame, Orgeron was fired amid a 6-6 season last fall, LSU filched Kelly to replace him and the Irish promoted Freeman from defensive coordinator to big whistle.

Freeman turning him down and picking Notre Dame was a pivotal move in each’s career. Orgeron has grown to understand even more it in hindsight.

“It was tough,” Orgeron said Tuesday. “I think he liked LSU. It was a family decision to stay up here. Obviously, six kids and a beautiful wife, hard to move them to the South from being up here. Notre Dame’s a great school. It looks like he made the right decision to me.”

Orgeron targeted Freeman for the same reasons Kelly and Notre Dame did: his work from 2017-20 as Cincinnati’s defensive coordinator. In four years, Freeman built the Bearcats’ defense from a unit that ranked 83rd in yards per play his first season to fourth in his last. His work was invaluable in their rise from 4-8 in 2017 to a No. 8 ranking in the final CFP top 25 in 2020.

More Notre Dame football:

• How Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman has learned from Al Golden, who has been in his shoes before

• Notre Dame football spring practice No. 12: Instant observations on the offense

• Notre Dame spring practice No. 12: Instant observations on the defense, special teams

Cincinnati went 9-0 to reach the Peach Bowl in 2020. The defensive infrastructure Freeman left behind helped fuel the Bearcats’ 13-1 record and College Football Playoff appearance in 2021 (as well as their 24-13 win at Notre Dame Stadium in October).

“His defensive play at Cincinnati — phenomenal,” Orgeron said. “Energy, the way they got after it, the way he had energy on the sideline. That’s the way I like to coach. He just has something about him — character, class. You can tell he’s going to be a championship coach. I think he has all the makings of being a great coach.”

Championships are the goal for Freeman every year he’s in this job, including his first one, because it’s the standard to which Notre Dame chooses to hold itself. Players who returned for fourth or fifth seasons openly discussed it as a primary motivation for coming back. It doesn’t matter if there’s a first-time head coach. Freeman wasn’t hired to replace a fired predecessor. He’s taking over a program that is 54-9 since 2017 with two CFP appearances.

“The expectations are one goal and one goal only, I imagine,” Orgeron said. “That’s what I talked to the team about. The standard of performance has to be very high. What I saw was a very good football team.”

Orgeron is just here to observe it. He can, though, appreciate being in Freeman’s shoes. Eighteen years ago, Orgeron jumped in the deep end of the SEC West when Ole Miss gave him his first head coaching job at age 43. He was fired after three seasons and a 10-25 record. Even if the advice he can give about being a first-time head coach is more about avoiding missteps he made than his successes, Freeman won’t turn it down.

And Orgeron does have advice.

“Don’t try to do everything,” Orgeron said. “I tried to do everything at Ole Miss. You can’t do everything. Hire a staff, believe in them, let them do it. Let the players know you really care about them. Offense, defense, special teams, be close to all of them. I see him doing that.”