Everything Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman said in final press conference before Texas A&M

Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman spoke to the media Thursday afternoon for the final time before the Fighting Irish take on the Texas A&M Aggies in College Station on Saturday night. Here is everything Freeman said in his Zoom press conference.

On Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard’s competitive nature

“I think there are so many different situations where I’ve seen Riley show his competitive spirit. It’s easy to say it’s on the football field in different competitive situations, but even off the field. When you spend time with guys you see how competitive they are. We had the players at our house during fall camp, and you can see Riley Leonard on the basketball court or playing ping pong and the competitive spirit comes out. You see it in two-minute drills, win-or-lose situations in practice.

“That is so contagious. Leaders and competitive people change the output of those that they lead and those that they’re around. Riley is no different. It’s definitely been a great addition to our program and especially our offense.”

On why both Notre Dame coordinators, OC Mike Denbrock and DC Al Golden, will be on the sideline for games

“I don’t think the iPad availability changed much in terms of who goes up and who stays down. It all starts with the comfort but also what the coordinators feel what’s best for them to do their job and to elevate the play of the offense.

“When we were in Cincinnati, Denbrock was on the field for majority of the year so we were together. And Gino [Guidugli] was actually up. So they have a comfort in terms of Denbrock being on the field and being able to see what he needs to see to call the game, to make the necessary changes and adjustments with the offense but also having somebody upstairs you have a level of comfort with that can give you feedback and see the things you need to see as a coordinator.

“I was a coordinator that was on the field for majority of my career, but you have to have people up in the press box that can give you the information that you need. Obviously he feels comfortable with Gino, and coach Golden obviously feels comfortable with the guys that are up in the press box with the defense.”

On if Howard Cross III will be full-go, no pitch count

“Yes.”

On the recovery of Gabriel Rubio and the emergence of Armel Mukam

“I would say Rubio is still about a month out. He’s in his rehab phase as we speak. Armel Mukam has really stepped up. He’s one of the guys from year one to year two that’s done a really good job at physically developing but also in terms of his production on the field he’s definitely improved tremendously and will be a guy that will have a chance to help us starting in this game. We have a lot of confidence in that defensive tackle room, the depth of that room, even with Rubio being out a month or so. But we obviously want him back as soon as we can.”

On Leonard as a runner

“It starts with his size. He’s a physically impressive person — he’s almost 6-4 and 200 plus pounds — that can take a hit. We don’t want him taking a lot of hits. We obviously want him to get down when he has a chance to get down and limit the hits that a quarterback has to take. But he has speed, he has athleticism and he’s not afraid to run. He wants to run. He wants the ball in his hand. That’s an added element to your offense. I don’t want to see the quarterback running the ball every play. That’s not our plan. But to have the ability to have designed quarterback runs or truly read defenders with a quarterback that can pull it is something that’s going to help our offense have success.”

On drawing from playing experience in big stadiums and imparting that on players

“Our mindset as a coach, especially as a head coach now, is do different than it was as a player. I think any competitor, myself as a player, myself as a coach, enjoys these bigs environments, enjoys the big games, the primetime games. But as a coach it’s the ability to have your guys focus on the things that matter. You’ve heard me say this before, but its 12-x53 1/3. It’s what you do within those white lines is all that matters.

“We made sure to truly give our guys a feeling for what the stadium will be like. I wanted them to know exactly where our tunnel is, what sideline we’re on, where we’re warming up, where the 12th man is. I think it’s important that we have a great idea of the environment that we’re going into so we’re not surprised. We can talk about it being a big, rowdy crowd, but until you show them examples and really until they get there they won’t truly understand that. We try to give them as much insight to what it’s going to be like. But at the same point, once you do that then you got to get them to focus on the things that matter and that’s what you do between the white lines.”

On himself and Mike Elko both being former Notre Dame defensive coordinators

“In terms of being a defensive coordinator at Notre Dame, what a great honor that it is and what great opportunities you get because of doing a good job as the defensive coordinator at Notre Dame. You see Mike Elko and you see it with myself, the opportunities that presented themselves after we were coordinators here at Notre Dame.

“I followed two coordinators after Mike, it was Mike then it was Clark [Lea] then it was me. But a lot of the people that were here when I got here still spoke very highly of Mike and the job he did here and the type of defense that he installed here. And you see it now. You saw it with his defenses and his teams at Duke. I’m sure we’ll see it as we get ready to play A&M. He’s a really good football coach. He’s great at developing his players and getting them to play fast and hard. And that’s the objective of any head coach or any coordinator. We want to have a scheme that’s tactically very challenging for our opponent but at the same time we need our guys to play hard, we need our guys to play with passion, play fast and physical. That’s definitely something you see with Mike Elko-coached teams.”

On who’s wearing the green dot on defense for Notre Dame

“You can have as many green dots as you want, but only one can be on the field at a time unless it’s the kickoff. Kickoff, you can have everybody in a green dot. The guys with green dots will all have two helmets. Jack Kiser will start out with the green dot on defense. The guys who have the chance to wear a green dot will have a second helmet. If something happens where either Kiser is out or we put somebody else in to be the person wearing the green dot, then their helmets will change. But you have to have two helmets for the guys with green dots.”

On the surgeries for Notre Dame freshmen Taebron Bennie-Powell, Tae Johnson and Styles Prescod

“You see it with a lot of freshmen, they have preexisting injuries that probably started in high school and when all the sudden you get them here and their shoulder pops out or they have shoulder issues, you take an MRI and you say, ‘OK, we have to make a decision. Do we fix it now and have them miss the season and have them back for spring ball, which is so crucial for their development, or do we wait until after the season?’ [Bennie-Powell and Prescod], I don’t know what the future would have been if they didn’t get surgery. But I would say at the moment they were probably redshirt-potential guys. We thought it was best to just get their shoulders fixed now and have them back for spring ball.

“As far as Tae, we expect him back at some point during the season. He got injured probably right at the very end of camp with his foot. But the other guys was just an accumulation of things that happened in high school and one or two incidents that happened here that made us get MRIs on those shoulders and say, ‘OK, we need to fix it.'”