Live updates: Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman Week 4 press conference
Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman speaks to the media at 12:30 p.m. ET this afternoon to recap the Fighting Irish’s 66-7 victory at Purdue and look ahead to this weekend’s home matchup against Miami University. Watch the press conference live via the YouTube video player below and/or follow along with real-time, written updates from Blue & Gold at the bottom of this page.
WATCH: Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman Week 4 press conference
What Freeman is saying
Keep refreshing this page for real-time, written updates of what Freeman is saying.
• Freeman says the performance at Purdue spoke to the depth of Notre Dame’s team.
• Notre Dame players of the game at Purdue: Jeremiyah Love, Jordan Botelho and Max Hurleman.
• Notre Dame starters Jordan Botelho and Ashton Craig are out for the season with knee injuries. Billy Schrauth is out for for a few weeks with an ankle ailment.
• Freeman stands by the left guard spot being Sam Pendleton’s best place and Notre Dame will continue to invest reps in him there.
• Freeman: “If we need to throw it to have success I’m sure we’ll game plan in a way to throw it… We’re not looking for stats. We’re not looking for how much we run it vs. how much we throw it. We’re looking for success.”
• Freeman says Bryce Young is “different.” Notre Dame feels Young is going to keep coming along and continue to improve in his freshman season.
• Freeman on freshman safety Kennedy Urlacher: “He’s a ball hawk.”
• Freeman: “It can’t take a loss to have the mentality we have to have mentally and physically to prepare for an opponent.”
• Freeman: “We can be a really good football team. We got work to do.”
• Freeman: “You can beat anyone in any week and you can lose to anyone in any week. That’s the beauty of college football.”
• Freeman says he hates to lose Ashton Craig for the year and Billy Schrauth for a few weeks, but he has a lot of confidence in the Notre Dame offensive line depth to step up and make that unit not miss a beat.
• Freeman says Botelho was playing the best football in the time Freeman has been with Notre Dame (since 2021). He feels “awful” that Botelho is out for the season.
• Freeman was really happy with the way Notre Dame junior quarterback Steve Angeli played. Only gripe was the couple of sacks he took.
• Freeman: “You have to be committed to running the ball. That’s what we want our identity to be; to run the ball… We got a couple guys who can run the ball and take it all the way. We know that. We got to continue to play to our strengths.”
• Freeman says you can’t have too many guys like Kevin Bauman and Pat Coogan on your team. Two Notre Dame veteran players who have been in and out of the lineup but never waver in their commitment to the program.
• Freeman says Notre Dame really needs to evaluate what it’s asking punter James Rendell to do. Freeman knows Rendell has a ton of leg talent, but it hasn’t surfaced in a game yet and that might be a preparation and game-planning issue.
• Pretty insightful stuff from Freeman at the end of his Monday press conference on the way he coaches his guys… “You can’t fall in love with what they do in practice. You got to really fall in love with what you know they can do in the game.”
