Notre Dame quick-hitters: Marcus Freeman on his new staff, recruiting, being a head coach

The first staff is off to the races.

Just hours after the addition of new defensive coordinator Al Golden — the final piece of head coach Marcus Freeman’s inaugural staff at Notre Dame — the Irish football coaches spoke with the media for the first time since the Fiesta Bowl.

Freeman was the first coach up on Wednesday, and he went into detail about a number of offseason questions and situations:

On assembling a staff

“It’s a sigh of relief for me to finally say the full-time staff is complete with the hiring of Al Golden yesterday. It’s been a learning cycle for me. Being a first-time head coach, you think you have one vision of how this is going to go, and you realize it doesn’t always go as smooth and as easy as you think. Ultimately, I did not want to rush this. I wanted to get the right people, and there was no timetable on what that was to get the right people.”

On OC Tommy Rees’ role in hiring new assistants

“I leaned heavily on Tommy Rees on the offensive side of the ball. You think before you become a head coach, you say, ‘OK, when I become a head coach, I’m making all the hires. I’m bringing the guys I know and that I trust it.’ That’s not what’s best for the program or what’s best for the team. You have to make decisions that are best for the program and are best for the team. That is to empower your offensive coordinator.

“So basically with the majority of hires, I said ‘Tommy, you bring me your No. 1 candidate, and then I’ll interview them. But ultimately, I’m going to trust you if this is the guy you want. Let me interview, and let me get to know them, but I’m going to trust you as the offensive coordinator.”

On player involvement in hiring

“When Tommy interviewed a lot of the offensive candidates, he had his players involved. That was a part of the process on the offensive side of ball. Defensively, I did not get the players involved, but I knew what they were looking for. I knew those guys, I was with them every day.”

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On what makes a good recruiter

“I think you have to be a relentless worker to be a relentless recruiter. There’s times that we as coaches don’t feel like having this conversation with a kid, but you have to. It’s about putting in the effort, getting on the phone, and making sure that you’re developing a relationship with the kid, with the parents, with the coach and with anybody that has an impact on this kid. That, to me, is what makes a really good recruiter, somebody is willing to work at it, and be very intentional about the relationships he’s trying to build with that person.

“But also it’s the ability to evaluate. We all can look at the different ratings and websites and say, ‘Okay, we’re going to recruit X, Y, and Z because they have offers, they have high ratings.’ But to truly evaluate and figure out is that kid, talent wise, the best player for this program? And then develop a relationship and see is he is the right fit for Notre Dame? Because not every kid is. So that, to me, is what we’re looking for.”

On learning how to spend time as a head coach

“I know what I would love to do, but every day something comes across your desk that takes you out of the meeting rooms. I’ve tried to be in office meetings at some point, and something happens that brings me out.

“And so I don’t know (how to spend my time as a head coach) yet, right? I’ve never had spring ball as a head coach. I’ll learn it. I have a vision for being able to sit there and see what we’re doing defensively, see the enhancements and changes we’re making on a deeper side of ball. I want to learn the offensive side of ball. If I can get in there and learn what they’re doing, it’s going to be great.”

On why he hired DC Al Golden

“I was looking for a guy with head coaching experience. That was something that we did not have on our staff that I thought was going to be extremely valuable. He has that. But I also wanted a guy that has intelligence. The more we met, the more we talked, I learned right away that this person understands football. He understands scheme. I was also looking for a person that didn’t want to come in here and just drop his playbook and say ‘Hey, this is what we’re doing.’ No, Al Golden was a guy that said ‘Hey, let me evaluate what you all are doing, let me evaluate your players, and let’s put together the best scheme.'”