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Mike Brey on Notre Dame football head coach Marcus Freeman: ‘I think we’re in great hands’

On3 imageby:Patrick Engel•08/02/22•

PatrickEngel_

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Mike Brey has made 13 NCAA tournament appearances as Notre Dame head coach (Photo by Ben Solomon/NCAA Photos via Getty Images).

Mike Brey has seen the second-floor corner office inside the Guglielmino Athletics Complex churn out a few tenants in his 22 years as the Notre Dame men’s basketball head coach. He has been around long enough to remember when the Irish football coaches shared the Joyce Center with him and his staff.

All told, Marcus Freeman is the sixth man to lead Notre Dame’s football program since Brey arrived in July 2000 — two months before Bob Davie began his fourth season in charge.

Brey saw the final two years of the Davie era and the infamous George O’Leary hire — which yielded his staff a legendary keepsake. He saw trials and triumphs from watching every season of Tyrone Willingham’s, Charlie Weis’ and Brian Kelly’s tenures. He was even around for Kent Baer’s one-game stint as the interim in the 2004 Insight Bowl.

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Bowl practice, staff building, an NCAA tournament run, spring practice, recruiting efforts and offices in separate buildings made Brey and Freeman wait more than six months before finally spending extended time around each other since the latter was named head coach Dec. 3.

When they did meet, though, Freeman’s demeanor immediately impressed Brey.

“I’ve spent some time with him,” Brey said Tuesday before his Coaches vs. Cancer Celebration of Hope golf outing. “It’s energy. Enthusiasm. Positive stuff coming off him. Players don’t want to let him down. There’s pressure on the players to deliver for him. I love it. He has a great staff.”

Brey understands the weight on Freeman’s shoulders having witnessed his predecessors bear it. He empathizes with the growing pains that come with being a first-time head coach. Brey was once one himself in 1995, when Delaware hired him to lead its program after eight years as a Duke assistant.

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Inheriting a Notre Dame football team that is 54-10 since 2017 is a different beast for a rookie head coach than a taking over a basketball team that competed in the America East Conference, of course. Freeman became one of the most visible coaches in America the moment he strolled into the Irish Athletic Center for his Dec. 6 introduction. He’s in the ultimate fishbowl. But the learning process and adjustment of going from assistant to big whistle has similar themes wherever it takes place.

“They always say in basketball, as an assistant, you have all the answers until you slide over 18 inches into that seat — ‘Uh, oh, now it’s on me,’” Brey said.

Freeman has surely encountered those moments in his first nine months on the job. They probably aren’t over. The Sept. 3 opener at Ohio State is fodder for creating them in game prep and game day. Brey, though, doesn’t expect Freeman to succumb to any resulting pressure or struggle with the weight of the job even at its heaviest.

“I want my son to play for him,” Brey said. “If my son was with Marcus Freeman every day, he will make him a man. I think we’re in great hands. There’s nothing like starting in Columbus, Ohio.”

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