And that’s just fine
On Monday, Notre Dame Football head coach Marcus Freeman, got in front of the media for his weekly press conference. After two blowout wins in a row after the 0-2 start, the Irish look a little different. Most of that difference is on the defensive side of the ball — especially with Adon Shuler and Tae Johnson lined up together as the field and boundary safety tandem. The offense, however, is what really shined against Arkansas.
You’d think that in a 56-13 blowout win, and set on a similar path as last year’s national championship game run, the head coach would openly say he’s having some fun, right? Well… probably not if you’re a psychopath like Marcus Freeman.
“I think as you look back at last year as a whole, you say, ‘Man, they got momentum and they got rolling.’ I hope at the end of this season we’ll look back and say the same thing, but in the moment you just got to focus on constant improvement, right? Somebody said, wasn’t that fun to win a game like that? Fun?”
“I’m like, no, because every play you’re stressed to win it. You’re focused on staying in the moment. Let’s win this play. What do we have to do to win this play? When it’s over you go, man, we did a good job. And so that’s just the challenge, man, is to stay present, stay in the moment, improve, and hopefully we can look back and say, man, we had a lot of momentum as we move forward.”
As someone who has been a youth coach in multiple sports for over 30 years, I completely understand this mindset, and it’s one of the indicators I look for in a coach and his future success. He’s a psychopath that’s fully committed to winning… maybe he’ll have fun later.
When asked about the fate of fired Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman and Notre Dame’s fake punt while up 42-13, Freeman had this to say:
“You never want to see somebody in any profession lose their job. He’s a man who has a family, but this is the profession we chose. The human side of you feels for him and his family. But he’s going to be okay because he’s a – I don’t know him personally, but I’ve heard he is a competitive, great human. Competitive, good, selfless people succeed. That’s what we need on our team and our world, like competitive fighters who are selfless, who put others in front of themselves. I’ve heard those types of things about him. My interaction with him pregame was great. Everything I expected from what I’ve heard about who he is.”
“In terms of the fake punt, I didn’t want to relax. We had to come out of that locker room with an aggression no different than the first half. There’s no lead that’s comfortable. There’s no lead that’s comfortable. When we went three-and-out, I think, on that first drive, I felt like it was the right time to send a message to our team. This was about our team that, hey, this is something we’ve worked on. Let’s go execute it.”
“That also is something on film for the next opponents, right? I’m not even thinking about this opponent, but I’m thinking about I want to make sure the next couple opponents see that. I could really make them think deeply about how they want to attack our punt unit. That’s what went into that decision-making. We didn’t get any points off of it, but it was a mindset that we have to be aggressive. There is no taking your foot off the accelerator. This is what we’re doing and they executed it well.”
Which is a long-winded way of channeling his inner Hyman Roth.
Even when pressed about the efficiency of the Irish offense on Saturday, which scored touchdowns on all but two drives — Freeman was digging for things to improve upon.
“You see that fourth-and-two turnover on downs, and the first drive of the second half, we’ve got to get that fixed. We’ve got to get that one fixed. If we would have got that one and scored that drive, we would have scored on every drive, except for the last one. Then I would have said it was probably close to perfect, but it wasn’t.”
It’s a long road from 2-2 to 10-2, and the road to the playoff is even longer. If Notre Dame is going to get there, this is exactly the kind of mindset that they need from the head coach. Marcus Freeman isn’t having any fun right now, because that can be had later. Meanwhile… I’ll have all the fun for him as long as Notre Dame continue to boat race their opponents.
Category: General Sports
