Everything Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman said Thursday before Stanford game

Fighting Irish coach Marcus Freeman addressed the media for the final time before No. 11 Notre Dame faces Stanford on Saturday. Here is everything he told reporters in his about 15-minute news conference over Zoom.

On the motivational techniques for the team against Stanford:

“I hope that the motivation from the Louisville loop wasn’t to mentally get them motivated as more as it was to see plays from that game of (one) years ago that could help them learn so they could perform better on Saturday. The same thing this week, right? 

“(There are) times that you have to study the past to learn from the mistakes, so you can make sure you can perform better on Saturday. It’s a rivalry game. So that’s a lot of our motivation — is to compete in this rivalry game. But at the end of the day, we got to continue to chase being the best version of ourselves — reaching our full potential, and that’s all the motivation you need. 

“There’s different ways that you can motivate them daily, but at the end of the day, we are trying to chase to reach our full potential, and we want to make sure we win this Legends Trophy.”

On what it was like to see Alabama, Michigan and other AP Poll top 10 teams last week:

“I didn’t get a chance to watch all the games. Saw bits and pieces of each game — maybe being at home with the family. But I think for me, I’ve really tried to research, ‘Hey, what are the coaches saying are the reasons that they didn’t succeed on that Saturday?’ 

“As you look, there’s a common thread of not starting fast, right? Getting behind early in the game. Third down, right? They struggle, maybe third down, MAs (missed assignments), penalties, turnover margin. As you go back and you look at what happened with us versus Northern Illinois, there was a very similar reasonings behind the outcome. 

“So we have to understand, as a program, as a head coach, our players like, ‘Hey, these are the areas that really factor into the result of a loss.’ Use that to attack practice; use that to prepare the right way so that on Saturday, we don’t let one of those things happen.”

On Notre Dame LB Jaylen Sneed leaving the field before the alma mater after the Louisville game:

“I wasn’t aware of that. Maybe he had to use the bathroom or, I don’t know. I wasn’t aware of that. But he’s had a great two weeks of practice. There’s a lot of opportunities to learn from the previous game. Jaylen Sneed wants to be the best football player he can be and help this team be successful. 

“He’s had a great bye week, a great week of practice this week, and expect for him to do good things in the game on Saturday.”

On how Notre Dame WR Tyler Buchner is helping the team:

“I think he’s done a great job at signaling for us. That’s so important. Like, everybody’s role is so important to get done for us, to have success. He helps with signals. He’s still playing wideout, but a lot of times, when you’re the signaler, or you’re one of the guys that are signaling during scout teams, you have to signal. So, he’s just been a vital piece of this program.”

On how they can improve the screen game:

“Practice, practice, practice. We got to continue to practice it. Work on the timing, work on perimeter blocking. See different looks. That’s a part of running a screen is, you don’t know what look you’re going to see defensively. There are certain looks that you like, certain looks that you don’t. But we have to continue to practice it. We’ve attacked it in practice, and we’ll improve our screen game moving forward.”

On how they define success this season:

“Pretty simple around here — reaching our full potential. That’s something that we chase. It isn’t an outcome. It isn’t numbers of wins and losses. We got to chase reaching our full potential and chase improvement. I think we’ll look back after the season and we’ll say, ‘Hey, thought this season was a success or here’s the areas that we didn’t succeed at.’

“You have to just kind of keep blinders on and focus on your upcoming opponent, focus on improving. After the season plays out, we’ll look back and we’ll define if we felt like this was a success or not.”

On how close they are to playing a complete game in all three phases:

“I think we are close. I think, as you look at all five games, it’s probably a reflection of most of our single games. There’s a lot of really, really good and there happens to be one, at least one detrimental play that we can’t have if we want to reach our full potential — if we want to be a great football team. So we’re continuing to attack that.

“It is one play, one life. We have to make sure we execute on that play, whatever it is, and get it done. What we can’t do is have seven good and one detrimental play. We got to continue to prepare that way. When you practice, you got to have that mindset. This play that we’re about to practice is the most important play of this practice, and we got to get it done on that play. 

“So I’m really pleased (at) that the overall picture of our special teams, we just have to continue to make sure that we’re eliminating those detrimental mistakes because they can cost you a game, and we can’t allow that to happen.”

On improving play-action:

“We’re going to call things that we believe we’re going to have success doing. If we believe play-action passes will be reductive for our offense versus the defense we’re going to see, we will call it. But obviously, the plays we’ve called, we felt are the ones that are going to help us have success in the game, and we’ll continue to do that.”

On the NCAA eliminating National Signing Day:

“We had an idea of this happening. So we’ve thought about this in the past. There are still some things to get worked out. Every school in the country will play by the same rules. So, as it affects Notre Dame, it’s going to affect every other school. 

“They’ll sign some type of agreement with the institution, which is a lot of times what you’re doing with transfers now. So, it won’t affect our recruiting class or how we recruit — it’s just a different logistics in terms of the recruit signing a different agreement instead of an NLI. They’ll obviously sign an agreement with the University.”

On what Notre Dame RT Aamil Wagner has meant to the offensive line:

“Yeah, Aami’s done a great job. In his first year starting, he’s played well. Him, like every other coach and player, has to continue to improve. But I’m really proud of the way he’s performed as our right tackle. He works consistently. He’s a great team player. As you mentioned earlier, he’s continuing to improve. So, grateful that we have him on his team and grateful he’s our right tackle.”

On Notre Dame DL Sean Sevillano Jr. and LB Tre Reader, being from Tampa, Fla., and guiding them through a time of crisis:

“Yes, we’ve been in contact with Tre, Sean and a couple of other guys that have family members down there. We’re in constant contact. I think this situation is like anything with leadership — you have to be what your players need you to be at that time, right?

“And this situation, if a certain player needs you to sit them in your office and talk about some things and get some things off their chest or cry or whatever it is, like, that’s what leadership is. That’s what we’ll continue to do with every member of this football program. 

“So we’ve definitely been in contact. We’ve been in communication with our players that are affected by the hurricane. We pray for all those that have been affected by it.”

On improving run defense:

“I think we have a mindset. We want to be elite in the passing game. Passing yards can truly be detrimental, as you talk about big plays and explosives, but there’s still ways to be better at our run defense. Are schematics part of it? Yes. It’s fitting guys up, being perfect in our fits. It’s doing different looks to different runs. So, there’s no one solution to it. 

“We got to tackle. We got to knock guys back on contact. So all those different factors that I gave you are things that we’re working on in practice to try to ensure that we do improve in the run game. There’s so much confidence I have in our defensive staff —Coach (Al) Golden and the players on our defense. It’s our pride. Like, we want to be the best. We’re greedy people. We don’t want to give up run or pass yards. 

“At the end of the day, we have to have an understanding as a coaching staff of, ‘Okay, these are the things we must stop. These are the things that we can allow to happen. And here’s the things that we have to get better at, in terms of improving in all phases.'”