How Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman is different from Lou Holtz

What do Lou Holtz and Marcus Freeman have in common? They’re both revered Notre Dame football coaches, one past and one present. What’s different about them? More than meets the eye.

For starters, Freeman hasn’t won a single game as the Fighting Irish head coach. The way he’s held in such high regard, you’d think he’d already have won plenty. Holtz has. He won 100 while at Notre Dame, second to only recently departed Irish head coach Brian Kelly. Kelly won 113, but the NCAA will tell you he only won 92. Twenty-one wins from the 2012 and ’13 seasons were vacated for academic misconduct violations.

Ninety-two, 100, 113 — Freeman wants to reach those numbers some day. But he’s going to go about it a little differently than the way Holtz did. And the way Kelly did, for that matter. His coaching style simply does not mirror those of two of the winngest coaches in program history.

“I had a conversation with Coach Holtz a couple weeks ago, and the first thing he said to me was, ‘None of my players would ever call me a players’ coach,” Freeman said on The Zorich Podcast. “And I was like, ‘Oh, here we go.’ So I talked to Tim Brown, and the first thing he said was, ‘Coach Holtz, he wasn’t a players’ coach. We didn’t like him. We didn’t love him.”

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Holtz and Kelly were disciplinarians to differing degrees. Freeman is a self-proclaimed players’ coach. And he relishes in the title. He truly believes coaches can be successful without becoming “this guy who walks around with a stick and says everybody better do their job or you’re going to get smacked.” Freeman said, again in his own words, that he hasn’t become that kind of coach since replacing Kelly in December, and he doesn’t think he ever will.

That’s just not who he is. And for the record, he never said Holtz and Kelly were those types of guys either. They can speak for themselves on the manner in which they piled up dozens and dozens of victories at Notre Dame. In the meantime, Freeman is comfortable speaking on the manner in which he plans to achieve similar results.

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“If you talk to any of my players, the way I lead is as a teammate,” Freeman said. “I’m a leader as a teammate. What does that mean? You’re going to know me just as a teammate. You’re going to know who Marcus Freeman is. You’re going to know my wife. You’re going to know my kids. There are no curtains up. That’s always been the way I led. I’m always going to be honest.”

And sometimes, honesty lends itself to discipline. Everything isn’t always as rosy as it seems.

“You’re going to trust me,” Freeman said. “And so when I push, and I discipline, and I say here’s the standard and I hold you to it, you understand that I care about you. You understand that it’s to help you reach your goals.”

Freeman made sure he let one of his sons know the B- and C on his report card were “underachieving” grades, just as he’ll let Brandon Joseph or Marist Liufau or Isaiah Foskey know when they’ve made a mistake on the football field. Freeman loves all of those guys, from his son to the players.

Love is displayed in various forms. Freeman’s father, a military man, was 43 when Freeman was born. He was raised the old-fashioned way. When his dad asked something of him, Freeman said, “Yes sir” and completed the task. “There wasn’t a discussion,” Freeman said. There didn’t need to be. Freeman knew his father kept him in line because he loved him.

Now, there is pushback from youth. They want to know why they’re being asked to do certain things. A father of six at 36, Freeman understands that better than anyone. Sure, a parent or coach can choose to lead the way that used to be the norm. That’s their prerogative. But it might not be the most effective strategy in 2022.

So Freeman is going to keep doing it his way — especially if he proves in the coming years it works. And what better proof than 92, 100, 113 — and so on.

“For me, it’s the ability to connect with them,” Freeman said. “The ability to earn their trust. And then you discipline them. They know you love them, and then you can hold them accountable.”