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SOUTH BEND – Asphalt being applied to the two lanes of Leahy Drive that divide the Notre Dame football building from the practice facility on an otherwise lazy July afternoon offers the first sign that something’s up.
As does the excavator doing serious excavating of the sidewalk and landscaping outside the front corner of the facility. Step inside the aged-out Guglielmino Athletics Complex for one of the few days that it remains the nerve center of Irish football and more clues surface.
Like the empty trophy stands that once populated the lobby entry area, now pushed to the side and naked. Their respective awards have already been packed up. On the second level, if the overall quiet/emptiness of the building doesn’t get to you, another stack of cardboard moving boxes that lean against one wall will.
Noie: It's already been a long, strange trip for Notre Dame football
Noie: Notre Dame football ends spring practice, and we have a few thoughts
Change is coming to Notre Dame football. Again. Soon.
Nothing new to see there.
Change has defined the tenure of head football coach Marcus Freeman. There have been changes to the roster, changes to the coaching/support staff, change in the athletic director, changes in the way Irish football does day-to-day business, changes in the way players are compensated, change in the way players go about playing out their college football careers.
Change has been omnipresent since the 40-year-old Freeman stepped from the defensive coordinator’s office to the one reserved for the head coach in December 2021. It has been everywhere and all-consuming around Notre Dame football.
Except for the head coach. The one constant has had to adapt and adjust and, sigh, roll with the changes as the game and college athletics world has changed since promoted to a job he never dreamed of doing. He’s won games he’s supposed to win. He's lost some games he wasn’t supposed to lose. He’s been praised. He’s been criticized.
Through it all, he’s stayed the same (somewhat) level-headed, big-picture leader in the biggest pressure cooker of college coaching jobs that many believed (hoped) that he was the right coach at the right place at the right time.
Has it been easy? Hard? Frustrating? Rewarding? Likely all of the above. Maybe none of the above for Freeman, who enters season No. 5 in the coming days with a career record of 38-10 that has included three straight (and counting) double-digit win seasons.
“The answer that I want to give you is not, Marcus Freman has done all this,” Freeman said during the first of two scheduled 45-minute small group meetings with select media members on Tuesday, July 21 from the soon-to-be vacated conference room on the Gug’s second floor. “It’s being able to surround yourself with really great minds and allowing them to be great.”
Allow Deputy Athletics Director for Football (now chief operating officer) Ron Powlus to be great. Allow general manager Mike Martin to be great. Allow coordinators Chris Ash and Marty Biagi and Mike Denbrock to be great on defense, special teams and offense even if great does not produce the best result.
Allow people behind the first down and touchdown scenes the time and space and energy and effort to do their jobs so the head coach can best do his. It wasn’t always that way. As a first-time head coach, Freeman didn’t know what he didn’t know.
Now he knows.
“You learn to trust people,” he said. “I’m responsible for all of it, but I also have a lot of confidence and trust in the people we hired to be experts in their area.”
That means knowing the pulse of the program for Powlus and the payroll for Martin. That means scheming nickel/blitz packages for Ash and fake punts and field goals for Biagi and third-and-shorts for Denbrock. It also means trusting all the people behind the scenes of Notre Dame football to do their jobs. Freeman does, so they do.
∎∎∎
In the coming days, maybe before preseason camp opens the first week of August, Notre Dame football will have a new home when it moves a few yards to the south and into Shields Hall (with a likely nine-figure price tag when done). Everything will be new. Different.
Everything will change. Again.
“I don’t want to know about the carpet in the new building right now,” Freeman joked. “I trust you. Those little things, you’ve got it.”
The big things, maybe the biggest thing, Freeman has. That would be navigating the 2026 college football season. With everything seemingly in place — the coaching staff, the roster puzzle pieces, the support staff, the backing of an administration that has pledged to do anything and everything to win big — Freeman can go about one specific bit of business.
Winning the school’s first national championship since 1988. The Irish have been in the chase; time to finish first in the race. Everything’s there for the Irish to do that, be it the roster, the schedule, the motivation and the head coach.
One challenge that awaits Freeman and the Irish is to not let that expectation of winning a national championship hover over every practice, every game, every meeting, every think session of a season that many believe (expect) will run from early August to late January.
Freeman knows the outside expectations of this Notre Dame football season. The Irish know. We in the media know. The fans (casual and otherwise) know. In some ways, in many ways, it is national championship or bust.
Nothing less at this time for this program won’t be good enough.
“I know everybody wants a national championship,” Freeman said. “Everybody talks about it.”
How Notre Dame gets there will be the ultimate test. In a way, it’s an exam that Freeman has already aced. In 2021, as the team’s defensive coordinator during a regular season that saw Notre Dame go 11-1 before Kelly left town for LSU. Freeman had many thoughts bounce around his head that first season in South Bend.
Succeeding Kelly was never among them.
“I was trying to stop Toledo, you know what I mean?” he said. “You work and work and something happened and the next thing you know, you’re the head coach of Notre Dame. If I’m sitting there daydreaming about being the next head coach of Notre Dame, that opportunity wouldn’t have happened.”
The message on this late July day, is obvious. Control what you can control. Be better today and tomorrow than you were yesterday. Stay focused and the ultimate result can be achieved.
“Master what you have,” Freeman said. “Take advantage of what you have right in front of you. That’s how we’ll handle that expectation.”
Change is coming next month and again next year, regardless of how 2026 unfolds. Win it all? Change is coming. Come up short? Change is coming.
You ready? Freeman will be.
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at [email protected]
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: How Notre Dame football coach Marcus Freeman is ready for this marathon
Continue reading...
As does the excavator doing serious excavating of the sidewalk and landscaping outside the front corner of the facility. Step inside the aged-out Guglielmino Athletics Complex for one of the few days that it remains the nerve center of Irish football and more clues surface.
Like the empty trophy stands that once populated the lobby entry area, now pushed to the side and naked. Their respective awards have already been packed up. On the second level, if the overall quiet/emptiness of the building doesn’t get to you, another stack of cardboard moving boxes that lean against one wall will.
Noie: It's already been a long, strange trip for Notre Dame football
Noie: Notre Dame football ends spring practice, and we have a few thoughts
Change is coming to Notre Dame football. Again. Soon.
Nothing new to see there.
Change has defined the tenure of head football coach Marcus Freeman. There have been changes to the roster, changes to the coaching/support staff, change in the athletic director, changes in the way Irish football does day-to-day business, changes in the way players are compensated, change in the way players go about playing out their college football careers.
Change has been omnipresent since the 40-year-old Freeman stepped from the defensive coordinator’s office to the one reserved for the head coach in December 2021. It has been everywhere and all-consuming around Notre Dame football.
Except for the head coach. The one constant has had to adapt and adjust and, sigh, roll with the changes as the game and college athletics world has changed since promoted to a job he never dreamed of doing. He’s won games he’s supposed to win. He's lost some games he wasn’t supposed to lose. He’s been praised. He’s been criticized.
Through it all, he’s stayed the same (somewhat) level-headed, big-picture leader in the biggest pressure cooker of college coaching jobs that many believed (hoped) that he was the right coach at the right place at the right time.
Has it been easy? Hard? Frustrating? Rewarding? Likely all of the above. Maybe none of the above for Freeman, who enters season No. 5 in the coming days with a career record of 38-10 that has included three straight (and counting) double-digit win seasons.
“The answer that I want to give you is not, Marcus Freman has done all this,” Freeman said during the first of two scheduled 45-minute small group meetings with select media members on Tuesday, July 21 from the soon-to-be vacated conference room on the Gug’s second floor. “It’s being able to surround yourself with really great minds and allowing them to be great.”
Allow Deputy Athletics Director for Football (now chief operating officer) Ron Powlus to be great. Allow general manager Mike Martin to be great. Allow coordinators Chris Ash and Marty Biagi and Mike Denbrock to be great on defense, special teams and offense even if great does not produce the best result.
Allow people behind the first down and touchdown scenes the time and space and energy and effort to do their jobs so the head coach can best do his. It wasn’t always that way. As a first-time head coach, Freeman didn’t know what he didn’t know.
Now he knows.
“You learn to trust people,” he said. “I’m responsible for all of it, but I also have a lot of confidence and trust in the people we hired to be experts in their area.”
That means knowing the pulse of the program for Powlus and the payroll for Martin. That means scheming nickel/blitz packages for Ash and fake punts and field goals for Biagi and third-and-shorts for Denbrock. It also means trusting all the people behind the scenes of Notre Dame football to do their jobs. Freeman does, so they do.
∎∎∎
In the coming days, maybe before preseason camp opens the first week of August, Notre Dame football will have a new home when it moves a few yards to the south and into Shields Hall (with a likely nine-figure price tag when done). Everything will be new. Different.
Everything will change. Again.
“I don’t want to know about the carpet in the new building right now,” Freeman joked. “I trust you. Those little things, you’ve got it.”
The big things, maybe the biggest thing, Freeman has. That would be navigating the 2026 college football season. With everything seemingly in place — the coaching staff, the roster puzzle pieces, the support staff, the backing of an administration that has pledged to do anything and everything to win big — Freeman can go about one specific bit of business.
Winning the school’s first national championship since 1988. The Irish have been in the chase; time to finish first in the race. Everything’s there for the Irish to do that, be it the roster, the schedule, the motivation and the head coach.
One challenge that awaits Freeman and the Irish is to not let that expectation of winning a national championship hover over every practice, every game, every meeting, every think session of a season that many believe (expect) will run from early August to late January.
Freeman knows the outside expectations of this Notre Dame football season. The Irish know. We in the media know. The fans (casual and otherwise) know. In some ways, in many ways, it is national championship or bust.
Nothing less at this time for this program won’t be good enough.
“I know everybody wants a national championship,” Freeman said. “Everybody talks about it.”
How Notre Dame gets there will be the ultimate test. In a way, it’s an exam that Freeman has already aced. In 2021, as the team’s defensive coordinator during a regular season that saw Notre Dame go 11-1 before Kelly left town for LSU. Freeman had many thoughts bounce around his head that first season in South Bend.
Succeeding Kelly was never among them.
“I was trying to stop Toledo, you know what I mean?” he said. “You work and work and something happened and the next thing you know, you’re the head coach of Notre Dame. If I’m sitting there daydreaming about being the next head coach of Notre Dame, that opportunity wouldn’t have happened.”
The message on this late July day, is obvious. Control what you can control. Be better today and tomorrow than you were yesterday. Stay focused and the ultimate result can be achieved.
“Master what you have,” Freeman said. “Take advantage of what you have right in front of you. That’s how we’ll handle that expectation.”
Change is coming next month and again next year, regardless of how 2026 unfolds. Win it all? Change is coming. Come up short? Change is coming.
You ready? Freeman will be.
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at [email protected]
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: How Notre Dame football coach Marcus Freeman is ready for this marathon
Continue reading...
