Can Notre Dame take the next step? What Marcus Freeman has learned and what's next

New York Times

a day ago

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — In almost exactly two months, Notre Dame will open preseason camp with something to defend and something to chase. Because as Marcus Freeman enters his fourth season in charge, Notre Dame's head coach will be both trying to recreate the magic of last season's run to the national championship game and figuring out how the Irish get over that final finish line.
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It will take everything Freeman has learned on the job for the Irish to do either.
On Thursday, Freeman met with a small group of reporters to set the stage for summer as Notre Dame balances two competing ideas. The program's 37-year wait since its last national championship is the longest since Knute Rockne won Notre Dame's first 101 years ago. And yet, it feels like the Irish may be as close to ending that barren spell as at any point since Lou Holtz left the building.
'Where am I better? The experience at every situation that has to do with being a head coach,' Freeman said. 'The experience with dealing with (media), the experience with dealing with making high-pressure situation decisions, the experience of two-minute situations, the experience of recruiting. I'm better at every area of being a head coach because of experience where there's no substitution for it, and that's what I have to continue.'
Freeman did some professional development this offseason, sounding out Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni on what it took to win a Super Bowl after falling short before, going all the way in his fourth season. Freeman has made NFL connections before, from Mike Tomlin to Sean Payton. But the questions are different when there's a national championship game appearance on your resume.
'If you have a camera on me or you're in my brain 24 hours a day — 'Oh, he's better here.' Why? Because he's done it. He's experienced, he's more confident in it,' Freeman said. 'He's been there, but there's just not one area where I can point out and say, 'Hey, I'm better here than every other place.' I hope I'm better in every area and every aspect of being a head coach.'
Two months from now, Freeman will need to start to show that on the practice field.
Three months from now, the curtain will go up at Hard Rock Stadium against Miami.
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As for what that show looks like, Freeman explained how some past experiences might inform future decisions while also detailing how last year's postseason continues to impact Notre Dame moving forward.
When Tyler Buchner battled Drew Pyne to be Freeman's first starting quarterback, the competition wasn't entirely a fair fight. Freeman expected Buchner to win the job before the first practice period of camp. The sophomore figured as much too. Then Buchner suffered a season-altering shoulder injury in the season's second week and gave way to Pyne.
Would the competition have turned out differently if Freeman was more open-minded? Probably not. But Freeman doesn't want to go down the same path of presumption with CJ Carr and Kenny Minchey.
'I think what I learned from that is you don't ever go into a competition expecting somebody to win it. We will evaluate your performance, and that's what we'll do, right?' Freeman said. 'We're truly gonna evaluate both of those guys' performance. We'll make sure it's fair in terms of the reps, the situations they get.'
The presumption is Carr will win the job with Steve Angeli out of the picture to Syracuse and Minchey remaining as the competition. And that presumption might become reality during the first couple of weeks of August. But Freeman wants to stress test both quarterbacks before choosing one. Maybe Carr struggles with a starter's burden. Maybe Minchey excels.
The greatest unknown for Freeman is how either will react when the lights come on at Miami. Neither has started a game. Only Minchey has thrown a pass. It's all a big jump to opening night in south Florida. Working in favor of Carr and Minchey is they both have a year under offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock, with Minchey also logging two with quarterbacks coach Gino Guidugli. It's just that what's working against them is the thing coaches seem to value most: having been there and done that.
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Neither Carr nor Minchey has.
'How do we find ways in fall camp to put them in as many high-pressure situations as we can?' Freeman said. 'One of them is to say, 'Hey, you know that you're going to be taken out if you don't execute.' Like, that's a stinky situation, but it's high-pressure, right? But what we've got to do is put them in as many of those situations, to get them to execute before we go and play down in Florida. So, that will be one of the ultimate challenges.
'In-game experience is a high-pressure experience. So, let's create that in practice.'
Freeman may not come out and say this, but he knows Notre Dame ran into a better roster on Jan. 20. The Irish may not have taken their best shot at the Buckeyes in a game that collapsed around Freeman in the middle quarters, but it was clear Notre Dame needed to be much closer to perfect than it played. And that's because the Buckeyes had a talent edge before opening kickoff.
Notre Dame doesn't have to get back to the CFP to change that reality either, with the 2026 Irish recruiting class ranked No. 2 in the 247Sports composite, one spot ahead of the Buckeyes.
'I'm always trying to get better, man. We want to be bigger, we want to be faster, we want to be stronger. I know that's a general statement, but I don't look at a team and say we need that,' Freeman said. 'You know what? Jeremiah Smith, I wouldn't turn away. He's dang good football player, but I'm pleased with what we got.'
Catching Ohio State at the top of the food chain might be harder than what Freeman has already accomplished further down the roster. The Ohio State lesson in recruiting isn't just about topping off the roster with elite skill-position talent. It's about keeping the middle stout enough to endure a 16-game season. The Irish lost two starters on the offensive line during the CFP, never mind going without defensive tackle Rylie Mills and watching Jeremiyah Love come up lame.
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That doesn't touch season-ending injuries to cornerback Benjamin Morrison and defensive ends Boubacar Traore and Jordan Botelho. Freeman said both ends, along with center Ashton Craig, would be back for Miami.
'The personnel you have that you can get through a 16-game season and have to use multiple different people with starters,' Freeman said. 'You go into the semifinals game and you're losing starters, putting backups in, but if you don't have the depth that you can put somebody and get the job done, then all of a sudden that becomes a hole and it becomes a deficiency and you lose.'
A month ago Freeman counseled with a group of sports analytics experts, leaning into how to call a game with maximum efficiency. The analytics teams praised Freeman for how the Irish offense sequenced its play calling to get to fourth-and-short scenarios, the kind of down-and-distance where the math says go for it even if conventional wisdom doesn't always agree.
'I wanted to be like, 'I like your book and all those things, and thanks for the compliments, but the reason we went for it on fourth down was because of the confidence we had in getting that first down.'' Freeman recalled. 'And so, I sat with the offense and said, 'OK, Kenny Minchey isn't the running quarterback that Riley Leonard was — how do we create that confidence in the head coach that we can sequence things on third down, knowing that we're going to go for it on fourth down?'
Herein lies the rub for Freeman.
Going for it on fourth down with Minchey or Carr at quarterback won't make as much sense as it did with Leonard, even if the analytics are agnostic to a quarterback's ability to gain the hard yards. So how does Notre Dame get those inches when it absolutely needs them? Is there a get-out-of-jail-free card in this offense like Leonard's legs or former tight end Michael Mayer's catch radius?
'It's a great challenge for our offense and myself to come up with, 'OK, what will be our short-yardage packages,' right?' Freeman said. 'How do we find unique ways on offense to get an extra hat to the point of contact, so we feel very confident we'll get the first down? That's one of the great challenges we have.'
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Working in Notre Dame's favor is an offensive line that could challenge for the Joe Moore Award, plus a running back in Love who might be the best in the sport. Working against the Irish, a green quarterback and a receiver group that still needs to prove itself. Yes, figuring out the starting quarterback will be a priority of the preseason. But once the Irish get that down, creating an offensive identity will be a close second.
It's not clear exactly what that will be just yet, but if Freeman wants to call games with the same aggression as last season, he'll need to figure that out.