Everything Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman said in a revealing ‘Wake Up the Echoes’ interview

Each week during Notre Dame football’s season, coach Marcus Freeman joins Wake Up the Echoes, the official show of the Fighting Irish. In this Tuesday’s edition, Freeman spoke one-on-one with host Tony Simeone for about 10 minutes.

Here is everything Freeman told Simeone in Episode 9. Quotes have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

On what Clemson did that made it difficult for Notre Dame to reach its full potential:

“It’s a talented football team. They were well prepared. They played extremely hard, and they found a way to make those plays that can change the outcome of a game. As disappointing as it is, the outcome of the game, there was a lot of good. There was a lot of good. There’s a lot that we have to improve on. 

“Always, the challenge is, no matter what the outcome of the game is, the mindset of improvement, the mindset of continuously getting better, is what we have to have. That’s what these next few days will be about, right? Is understanding that we’re disappointed with the outcome of that game. But we have a lot of head force and great opportunities ahead. 

“There is no failure of a season. We have a lot to continue to play for. We have to get our minds back to where they need to be to attack the work that we have to do and finish off this season the right way.”

On how he communicates there is not a failure of a season: 

“We had a similar conversation after we lost to Ohio State or we lost to Louisville, right? Is that, ‘Okay, we’re not going to be national champions this year.’ All 130 teams are chasing that. At some point, all 129 teams realize they won’t be national champions. 

“The competitive spirit these guys have — that we have to have — will never go away. The opportunity to go out and play in our two last regular season games and compete and the chance to become winners of those two contests — and then to play in a bowl game and the chance to win that — you’re going to look back and say, ‘Okay, if we got a chance to win 10 games. 10-3, is that what we started out wanting? No. But if you go 10-3 and look at this season, it’s not a failure.’ 

“We improved, and we have to continuously improve. I’ll say that once or twice because I want them to see the hopes of what the season can be. But then we have to go to work and go to work at our process that will give us a chance to finish off the season with three wins. 

“That’s the challenge, right? Here’s your hope. Here’s what this season can bring if we finish 3-0. But now let’s do the things that it’s going to take to continuously improve and make sure that we have a chance to finish off 3-0.”

On what he is hoping to see improved on offense after watching the Clemson film: 

“I think we started the game establishing our run game, but we weren’t finishing those drives, right? We had to settle for field goals. It’s one play here, one play there that puts us in third and long situations where the percentage of converting third-and-8, third-and-9, third-and-10-plus is not good, right? Especially against a good defense like Clemson. 

“So what we have to do is eliminate the one play per series, per drive that puts us in a position where we can’t finish in the endzone. Then, in the second half, we came out, the defense did a great job of giving the offense the ball on the 2-yard line. We score. Then we come back the next drive, go probably 70 yards, and end up with a touchdown. And then we kind of stalled. 

“Why did we stall? They did a good job of adjusting to the run. So we said, ‘Okay, there’s two ways to attack this. We can continue to adjust to run with some lateral running plays, or we want to throw them out of stacking the box.’ We didn’t have success completing the balls for many different reasons, from protection, from decision-making, from all different levels on your offense. We didn’t flip the field.

“That is a result of all three phases. It’s not just the offense. Like, defensively, we can’t let them get first downs, right? To flip the field. We have to make sure we flip the field on our special teams units. 

“So, it’s so easy to point at one or two things, and the only thing that does is make yourself feel better, right? You pass the blame. If we would have just not thrown a pick-six? Or if we would have not muffed the punt, we would have won. Like, ‘Okay, what does that do? That makes you feel better about the rest of it?’ No, there are plays all over the field, all three phases, that must be improved on. We have to go back to work and improve, right? Schematically, executionally, we got to improve and make sure that we’re ready to go this next contest.”

On the positives of the defensive performance against Clemson: 

“They just kept battling. The first half wasn’t up to our standard. Our defense will tell you that. We want to create takeaways. We gave up a long 41-yard touchdown run. But they just continued to battle, right? We played well enough to put us in a position to win that game. But there are a lot of plays that we have to correct. 

“Each side of the ball is chasing perfection, right? That’s the challenge: to look at the positives. There were a lot of positives, really, though, on both sides of the ball — there were positives. There were some good things defensively — good. Again, for four quarters, the way they continued to compete, they got another takeaway in the fourth quarter to give our offense a chance. 

“It was a resilient group that continued to battle. I’m proud. I mean, they’re playing at a high level. Coach (Al) Golden has that group rolling. But there’s another level, right? We have to continue to chase that next level.” 

On how they will spend the bye week: 

“You got to visually improve, right? Watch film and look at the mistakes and how we can attack them. But you have to have three good physical workdays. We have to go out and work on the weaknesses and deficiencies that we have. 

“The challenge that I have is let’s enhance the strengths that we have on all three phases. We have strengths on all three phases — enhance those and make them better. But really, we have to fix and attack the weaknesses that we’re having on all three phases. 

“We got to defensively continue to tackle better. We got to make sure we’re stopping the run. We’re really good in pass defense. We got to stop the run. 

“Offensively, we have to continue to enhance our pass game. We have to make our pass game better, right? Enhance what we’re doing run game-wise, but make our pass game better schematically and executionally. Finish in the red zone. We got to win in the red zone. We can’t settle for field goals. 

“Then, special teams. It’s just been the inconsistencies, right? The punt return touchdown that we had versus Pitt, and then we muffed the punt, and our coverage wasn’t great on punt. So those are all things that you have to attack during the bye week before you start preparing for Wake Forest.”

On what it feels like to come up short: 

“I think everybody goes through their mourning process, right? You go from wanting others to feel your pain. You go from pointing the finger. I can point the finger, as the head coach, if this guy would have done this, that guy would have done that. You go through the state of anger, right? Where you’re angry. Then you finally settle down and say, ‘Okay, hold on, let’s continue to evaluate. Let’s not let the emotions cloud the truth, the film, or the reality of things.’ Then you have to get back to work. 

“As I’ve told the team, getting back to work and finding ways to improve doesn’t guarantee you victories. We got better last week. It didn’t guarantee us a victory. We didn’t get a victory. But that doesn’t mean this team didn’t get better. If we didn’t get better, then we have failed as coaches. We’re getting better. Like that’s the weekly challenge to get better — get better faster. But it doesn’t guarantee you a victory. Right? 

“That’s the challenge: In the midst of an outcome you don’t want, can you still be motivated to get better and to improve? As an individual, too, right? You talk about the team. That doesn’t guarantee victory. As individuals, we challenge our guys to get better. That doesn’t guarantee you a chance to start. But it does guarantee you that you’ll get better. And that’s the only thing that we can control. 

“We didn’t get the outcome we wanted. Let’s figure out why. Let’s find a way to improve, and let’s make sure that we are a better football team before this next opportunity we get.”