Everything Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman said in final news conference before Miami game

On Friday, Notre Dame football coach Marcus Freeman met with the media for the final time before the No. 6 Irish open the season against No. 10 Miami on Sunday night. Here is everything he told reporters in his 10-minute news conference over Zoom.

On the long-term quarterback development plan for the guys who are not starting

“Well, I think, every role is different in how they prepare for a game, but the overarching theme is everybody has to continue to develop. I’ve said this from probably a year ago — that I want to continue to find our quarterbacks through high school recruiting and develop them. I think that’s an example of both CJ [Carr] and Kenny [Minchey] and you’ll see it in Blake [Hebert].

“Blake’s role right now is to be the scout team quarterback. I think it’s better for his development to be that guy as it was with CJ Carr last year. So he’s been doing a good job of being a scout team quarterback developing and watching it and meeting.

“Again, Kenny’s got to be prepared, so Kenny’s going to get a lot of reps in practice as you do with all your backups. So again it’s about preparing for the game, but also it’s still a developmental period for all of our players and especially our quarterbacks.”

On how many kickers they plan to use 

“Right now, Noah [Burnette] will be our field goal kicker at any distance and Marcello [Diomede] will be our kickoff specialist. Eric [Schmidt] is a guy that has a huge leg. Right now, the plan isn’t to play him as of today, but we have a lot of confidence in that entire room. All three of those guys.

“If it comes to a point where we feel like somebody might give us a better opportunity to make a field goal from a certain distance then we’ll do that. We compete. We obviously name roles for each week, but we also still have to compete. We will do that. But we feel really confident in what Noah provides in terms of being able to make field goals from the distance that we will decide once we get down there and then you know we feel great about Marcello and his leg for kicking off.”

On how they’ve prepared for the weather in Miami

“No, we had some practices in the rain during fall camp where you got to get used to the wet balls, but I don’t think — we’ll see what the weather is going to be at game time. I’m hearing it might dry off and not rain once the game starts, but we’ll be ready. 

“I don’t know if there’s a lot of reward for taking a football and making it wet and trying to throw it every — you know — with a wet ball. I think sometimes that’s probably over-evaluated or overemphasized, but we’ve had some opportunities to practice with wet balls in practice and if it happens to rain I think our guys will handle it perfectly.”

On a game being played the day before at Hard Rock Stadium

“No, we’ve been in communication — some of our people here and in facilities and people down at Hard Rock — and again the confidence they have in their playing surface in terms of being able handle a certain amount of rain and back-to-back games, like this isn’t something that’s new for them so they’re prepared. 

“Our guys will have multiple cleats if we need to. We’ll have cleats that have longer studs and cleats that have shorter ones in case they want to change. Some of our guys changed cleats for the Orange Bowl. I’m not worried about the game before. I’m not worried about the field surface. It’s just the comfort our guys will have in playing on grass. We practiced on it but practice and playing on it are two different things.”

On getting a read on a team between anticipation, excitement and nerves and what as a coach he can do to turn nevers into proper anticipation

“I think you have to be able to utilize those nerves, which is a natural human kind of an instinct to have when you’re anticipating a game. My thing for them, Chuck [Freeby], is to remind them there’s work that has to be put in. You hear me say all the time delayed gratification is patience plus work. Like, we have to work these next 48 hours.

“You can’t sit here and daydream about Sunday night and forget to understand the pain that you have to put in and practice — the pain that’s associating and achieving those things that you want.

“So, listen, our guys are going to be excited. I think every person’s going to have some nerves. I’ll have nerves. That’s just a natural human reaction but we got to make sure we really channel those emotions the right way and my focus is, right now, the next 48 hours, to continue to channel that focus into to work.”

On the rule changes and if there are any concerns, such as defensive false start

“Yeah, we’ve spent a lot of time, really with our ACC officials during training camp, of really trying to get a clarification on how they’re going to call defensive delay a game. The objective on defense isn’t to get the offense to false start. That’s not our objective. Our objective is to, at times, change the look for the offensive line. We want to make sure that we don’t get called for defensive delay of game.

“So, we’ve practiced it. We’ve had officials evaluate it — officials at practice throw penalties. ‘Hey you’re calling it on which side of the ball for what reason?’ We just got to try to make sure we are coaching it and teaching it and executing in a way that we believe is fair. They’re going to call it the way they’ve said they’re going to call it.

“So, officials are human too. I can’t sit here and say they’re going to be perfect but we have to make sure we’re coaching it in a way, and practicing in a way, that it’s not going to encourage the officials to throw a penalty on our defense.”

On defensive linemen Cole Mullins and Elijah Hughes putting themselves in position to help him in this game and season

“Those two have had a great training camp. You talk about Cole, a guy that didn’t get to practice a whole bunch last year because of some lingering issues from his knee in high school. I think he messed it up a little bit last year. But he’s developed tremendously. He has really done a great job in practice of earning trust.

“And the same thing with Elijah. A guy that transferred here in the spring and has continued to learn the system. Those guys are continuously working. They’re practicing hard. We’ll see what their role is in the game, but I’m very confident if they’re in the game that they’ll get their job done.”

On what they’ve seen from Carr this week as the guy

“Well, I think that a lot of the things he’s done in the past since he’s been here has told me he’ll be ready for this moment. The fall camp has told me he’ll be ready for this moment. This week’s been really good. He’s done a really good job at doing what his coaches have asked of him to do. 

“As I’ve told him, there’s growing pains of elevation that every person has to go through. It’s never going to be how we dream about it. It’s never going to be how we foresee it. But I truly believe that we can expedite the process of getting better quicker and that’s what I want him to know. You’re not going to be perfect. There’s growing pains. You got to go through some ups and downs of figuring out what being the quarterback at Notre Dame is all about. 

“I’m sure he thinks he has an idea but he’ll go — and I’m not talking about one game, I’m just talking about a career. I’m talking about what this season will look like. So, he’s just got to do what he does best. And that’s — he’s an ultra competitive individual. He’s a natural leader. Has extremely strong arm strength. He prepares his tail off. So all those things are going to help him perform the way we need him to perform.

“There’s a lot of people around him on that offense, between the players and coaches, that are also there to support him, that he has to utilize and he will utilize. As I always say, he emulates the head coach more than anybody else in this program. So just know it takes people. It’s not one person. It takes people and I’m confident what he’ll do on Sunday.”