Live updates: Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman Week 3 press conference
Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman has a lot to answer for following the Fighting Irish’s 16-14 loss to Northern Illinois this past weekend. He’ll step to the podium in front of local South Bend reporters at 12:30 p.m. ET today for his weekly Monday press conference.
Watch Freeman via the YouTube video player below or follow along with real-time, written updates of what Freeman is saying at the bottom of this page.
WATCH: Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman Week 3 press conference
What Freeman is saying
**Keep refreshing this page for live updates of what Freeman is saying.**
• Freeman says the key factors that led to a loss to NIU were the turnover margin, explosive gain disparity, time of possession, rushing yards and third downs. “No matter who the opponent is, if you lose in all those key areas you’re going to lose the game.”
• Freeman says Notre Dame needs to learn how to handle success.
• Freeman says Notre Dame did not respond to winning the “big game” for the first time in his tenure.
• Freeman: “The reality is we have the talent and coaching staff to be a great football team. Much better than we displayed on Saturday. But we have a lot of work to do.”
• Freeman says he has a lot of respect for Purdue quarterback Hudson Card and offensive coordinator Graham Harrell.
• Freeman says Purdue is going to stack the box against Notre Dame and make the Irish pass the ball. Same can be said for about every opponent the last two years.
• Freeman says the “go 11-1” and “run the table” talk doesn’t matter. Notre Dame just has to beat Purdue. He said Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden told him in the aftermath of NIU that “preparation has no opponent.” Notre Dame is really leaning into being better prepared to avoid things like what happened this past Saturday, which sounds like a bit of a broken record.
• Freeman: “There are a lot of different things that go into the passing game that we have to improve on. He added, “As coaches and players we have to be aligned on what we want to do and then go do it on Saturday.”
• Freeman mentions run fits as something that is plaguing the Notre Dame defense, particularly in the interior. The film backs that up.
• Freeman says Notre Dame will not pull back from physicality in practices. He does not believe the Irish were worn out or anything against NIU. He doesn’t think it was a physical issue in that game by any means.
• Freeman on RJ Oben: “We just got to get him to play better, and he will.” Oben only played 11 snaps against NIU. Josh Burnham played around 50, and he’s injured this week.
• Marcus Freeman says the Irish coaching staff never thought to put Steve Angeli in the game against NIU. It was Riley Leonard’s game, start to finish. “No, there was no consideration of that. We have a lot of believe in Riley and him running our offense.”
• Freeman says everyone pointing the finger at Leonard needs to put it down and look at Notre Dame as a whole. He says this isn’t all the quarterback’s fault, being 1-1 and sputtering on offense in a big way.
• Freeman says the back and forth in practices between Notre Dame wide receivers and defensive backs goes both ways. He sees the wideouts do good things. They just have to do that on Saturdays, he says.
• Freeman keeps harping on the three-and-outs that have hurt the Notre Dame offense in the first two weeks. The Irish are 5-of-21 on third down, 129th in the FBS.
• Freeman: “Overall, I thought our five offensive linemen played better in Week 2 than they did in Week 1.”
• Why has it been three steps forward and just as many or more steps back in your tenure, Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman? “That’s the game of football.”
• Freeman says he has all the trust in the world in his analytics department led by Anthony Treash. He feels happy with the game unfolded in that department. Notre Dame just didn’t get it down on the field.
• Freeman: “I’m confident in the players and coaches we have. I know we’ll get it right.”
• Freeman is asked about “what he sees around the corner” from Riley Leonard. He says he tries not to look too far ahead. He says he knows what he can expect from Leonard this week, and that’s a quarterback who is going to improve and play better than he did last week.
• Freeman says he wants to see the same hunger and same approach in terms of the mental preparation for the game this week against Purdue that they had for Texas A&M. It should be the same for every opponent, he says, including NIU. But he says that’s only for the players to answer if they’re actually going to do that.
• Freeman says he doesn’t think Notre Dame will need much motivation this week. “They’re hungry and ready.”
