Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman named On3 co-head coach of the week
For Notre Dame’s 48-20 win over USC, Irish head coach Marcus Freeman was named one of On3’s Power Five co-head coaches of the week for Week 7, On3 announced Monday morning. He shared the honor with Washington head coach Kalen DeBoer, who led the Huskies to a thrilling 36-33 victory over Oregon.
Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz (38-21 win over No. 24 Kentucky), Arizona head coach Jedd Fisch (44-6 win over No. 19 Washington State) and Stanford head coach Troy Taylor (incredible comeback to beat Colorado 46-43) were honorable mentions.
“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,” On3 senior national college football reporter Matt Zenitz said. “During the win, the Irish held USC to just two touchdowns and had three interceptions off of reigning Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams.”
Freeman had his team ready to play from the opening kickoff and fired up to play USC, Notre Dame’s historical rival. He did it with a team playing its eighth-straight game to open the season without a bye and playing at night for the fourth consecutive week.
The Irish jumped out to a 24-6 halftime lead over the Trojans, hung on as USC tried to come back in the third quarter and broke the game open in the fourth.
“Our guys competed,” Freeman said after the game. “You know, that was my message all week, is that competitors don’t pick and choose when they compete for a game. Like you don’t [compete] because of what happened last week. If you’re an elite competitor, the inner motivation and the inner adversity sometimes that you have to face, doesn’t matter as you prepare for the next opponent.”
Top 10
- 1Hot
Herman confronts Golesh
Tom Herman, Alex Golesh heated postgame
- 2New
Sankey SEC warning
Faking injury will be penalty, suspension
- 3
Drew Allar
Penn State QB expected to play vs. Ohio State
- 4
Mullen wants players fined
Former SEC coach calls for new standard in NIL era
- 5
Revenue-sharing
Conferences set initial cap on revenue-sharing, per Dellenger
One week after more than a few Notre Dame fans flirted with the idea of replacing Freeman in the near future, Irish faithful at the game chanted, “We love Mar-cus!” after the second-year coach left his postgame press conference.
The loss to Louisville made the following week long and difficult, Freeman admitted, but he was proud of the way his players and assistant coaches responded.
“We have to be an anti-fragile program,” Freeman said. “What does that mean? We just didn’t get through it, through adversity. We are better because of the adversity we faced.
“That’s easy to say. The challenge is do the things that it takes to make sure we’re better, and that’s what these coaches and players did.”
Notre Dame is off this week before a 3:30 p.m. ET matchup with Pittsburgh on Oct. 28 in South Bend.
