I've Been Spiraling For 48 Hours About Notre Dame And I Still Don't See A Path Forward
In the videos above I was emotional. I wasn't thinking clearly. I was lashing out at everyone in the wake of one of the WORST losses in Notre Dame history. That first loss to Navy was bad. The Charlie Weis loss to UConn felt like absolute rock bottom. Then Notre Dame lost to Marshall, a 3-9 Stanford team, and Northern Illinois at home. Those last three losses are all under Marcus Freeman
Now I want to say I really like Marcus Freeman. He seems like a good dude. A great family man. I think he works hard. His players seem to like him. I would LOVE it if Marcus Freeman were my neighbor. I am not sure I want him to be my head football coach at this time. We are in year 3 of Freeman and things are most certainly worse than they were under Brian Kelly. Brian Kelly seems like the opposite of how I described Freeman above in many ways, but he revived the program. He made Notre Dame genuinely relevant again. Multiple undefeated seasons. Multiple playoff appearances. Solid recruiting with genuine development. It felt like Notre Dame had a plan and they had an identity. The produced ELITE NFL talent on the offensive line and at TE. They really good talent at every position except for the quarterback position, but their formula worked. That formula was to big boys to smash people in the running game, have a few big play WRs, and play tough defense. That's why they never really dropped games as big favorites under Kelly. That formula had a ceiling and when ND faced teams that had Trevor Lawrence and big time athletes in the secondary and WR, Notre Dame couldn't get it done.
The only part of that identity that Freeman has seemingly retained is issues at the quarterback position. It does feel like the biggest loss for ND is actually offensive line coach, Harry Hiestand. Tommy Rees brought Hiestand back in 2022 and then Hiestand retired. Yes, Notre Dame is very young upfront, but that never really mattered before. They had a season recently with two true freshman on the offensive (Joe Alt and Blake Fisher) and they managed to maintain their same formula. They largely kept their identity.
Now it's just NIL QBs, transfer portal receivers, and a complete inability to get out of first gear on offense. Even against Northern Illinois. I hate the fact that NIU and Miami OH are even on the schedule to begin with. ND should've breezed through this schedule until a rematch with Louisville and then USC to end the year, but now no game feels safe. Do you feel good about beating Purdue this weekend? I don't. The idea of beating USC on the road feels impossible at this point.
Marcus Freeman and Notre Dame need to find out what they are immediately and they need to build their team accordingly. The recruiting hasn't improved under Freeman and development certainly seems worse. I don't know what the answer is, but the way it's going isn't good enough. I hate the transfer portal. I don't think you can really stop gap a program like Notre Dame. They haven't been able to recruit, keep, and develop WRs or QBs. The O-Line isn't the pipeline it was. Notre Dame doesn't have an identity under Freeman. The defense was saved by Howard Cross, Rylie Mills, and Xavier Watts delaying their NFL careers. Those three plus Ben Morrison are gone after this year and then things get really scary because who do you trust to step up after they all leave?
Freeman is officially on the hot seat and it pains me to say that because I like him so much. I want to believe. I want him to be the guy to take Notre Dame back to the mountaintop. There's just not any evidence to say that this group is on the right path. I think Notre Dame will end up going like 9-3. Playing in some mediocre bowl game and then the new Athletic Director who did not hire Freeman will have some real thinking to do. Can Freeman learn and improve? Does the new AD want to wait to find out? We have a long season in front of us and in this new landscape Notre Dame can't afford to slip.
PS: Guys on my radar if I were the AD in no particular order
Jedd Fisch, Washington
Alex Golesh, South Florida
Bill O'Brien, Boston College
Glenn Schumann, DC Georgia
Eli Drinkwitz, Missouri Tigers