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Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman named a top-five head coach in college football

IMG_7504by:Jack Soble•about 8 hours•

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NCAA Football: Orange Bowl-Notre Dame at Penn State
Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman celebrates defeating Penn State in the Orange bowl at Hard Rock Stadium. (Sam Navarro-Imagn Images)

Last offseason, Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman didn’t crack the top 25 of some college football head coach rankings. But with the 2024-25 campaign, he changed the narrative.

On Tuesday morning, On3 national college football writer Ari Wasserman put Freeman at No. 5 in his list of the top 25 college football head coaches in 2025. Wasserman cited Freeman’s work throughout Notre Dame’s run to the College Football Playoff, as well as the way he raised the bar of what the Irish are capable of in the modern era.

“There aren’t many other places who expect to compete for national titles who have more natural limitations for talent acquisition than Notre Dame,” Wasserman said. “Still, Freeman replaced Brian Kelly and elevated the talent on the roster while making the Irish a tougher out than they’ve been in recent memory.”

Notre Dame dispatched Indiana with ease in the first round of the CFP in South Bend before picking up monumental wins over Georgia in the Sugar Bowl and Penn State in the Orange Bowl. Its run fell short of a national championship with a 34-23 loss to Ohio State, but Freeman still changed the national perception around both himself and the Irish.

“Notre Dame didn’t just capture its first big win in the postseason in decades, it grabbed a few on the way to the national title game,” Wasserman said.

Wasserman believes the Irish, due in large part to Freeman’s leadership, are here to stay at the top of college football.

“The Irish are never going to be a ‘super team,’ but teams are never going to be as deep as they’ve been in the past,” Wasserman said. “Notre Dame has staying power at the top because Freeman brought it there. There were some — cough, me — who would have said that was impossible a few years ago.”

Ari Wasserman’s top 25 college football head coaches in 2025: Marcus Freeman at No. 5

  1. Kirby Smart (Georgia)
  2. Ryan Day (Ohio State)
  3. Dan Lanning (Oregon)
  4. Steve Sarkesian (Texas)
  5. Marcus Freeman (Notre Dame)
  6. Dabo Swinney (Clemson)
  7. Deion Sanders (Colorado)
  8. Kyle Wittingham (Utah)
  9. Kalen DeBoer (Alabama)
  10. Josh Heupel (Tennessee)
  11. Mario Cristobal (Miami)
  12. Curt Cignetti (Indiana)
  13. Kenny Dillingham (Arizona State)
  14. Lance Leipold (Kansas)
  15. James Franklin (Penn State)
  16. Brian Kelly (LSU)
  17. Lane Kiffin (Ole Miss)
  18. Bret Bielema (Illinois)
  19. Sherrone Moore (Michigan)
  20. Kirk Ferentz (Iowa)
  21. Bill Belichick (North Carolina)
  22. Lincoln Riley (USC)
  23. Brent Venables (Oklahoma)
  24. Kalani Sitake (BYU)
  25. Matt Campbell (Iowa State)

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