Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman lands on prestigious preseason watch list
The eyes of the college football world are on Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman. Freeman is one of 21 coaches in college football to land on the preseason watch list for The Dodd Trophy.
The Dodd Trophy is given annually to to the FBS football coach whose program represents three pillars of success; scholarship, leadership and integrity. Per The Dodd Trophy’s official website, “the award honors the coach of a team with a successful season on the field and equally as important, stresses the importance of academic excellence and desire to give back to the community.”
If that’s not Notre Dame in a nutshell, what is?
Freeman consistently harps on the Notre Dame mission to make his student-athletes successful on and off the field. He finds a unique element in Notre Dame being able to boast an academic standard that student-athletes and administrators at other powerhouse programs in college football are not privy to.
Here is the complete 21-man Dodd Trophy preseason watch list.
- Dave Aranda, Baylor
- Andy Avalos, Boise State
- Mack Brown, North Carolina
- Dave Clawson, Wake Forest
- Ryan Day, Ohio State
- Dave Doeren, NC State
- Kirk Ferentz, Iowa,
- P.J. Fleck, Minnesota
- Marcus Freeman, Notre Dame
- Willie Fritz, Tulane
- Jim Harbaugh, Michigan
- Gus Malzahn, UCF
- Joey McGuire, Texas Tech
- Mike Norvell, Florida State
- Sam Pittman, Arkansas
- Nick Saban, Alabama
- Steve Sarkisian, Texas
- Dabo Swinney, Clemson
- Mel Tucker, Michigan State
- Brent Venables, Oklahoma
- Kyle Whittingham, Utah
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The head coaches of four of the 12 schools Notre Dame will face in 2023 made the cut; Clawson, Day, Doeren and Swinney. The names will be whittled down to a midseason watch list sometime in the fall. A panel of previous winners, national media, a member of the Dodd family and a College Football Hall of Fame inductee will narrow in on the finalists at the end of the year. The winner will be announced leading up to the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl in Atlanta.
The Dodd Trophy was first awarded in 1976. Georgia’s Vince Dooley took it home. Notre Dame has had one winner; Brian Kelly in 2018. Kelly led the Fighting Irish to the College Football Playoff for the first time in program history that year.
