Marcus Freeman Brought What Notre Dame Football Always Needed to Break its Glass Ceiling: Belief

And it’s worth eight figures

You could write a Ph.D. thesis about what exactly kept Brian Kelly from making Notre Dame a true national title contender. Whatever animosity you may hold towards the man for the way he left Notre Dame or whatever other reason, you have to admit that he’s a quality football coach. As proof, he inherited a dumpster fire in South Bend, and by the end of his tenure — with the help of some admittedly weak schedules — had taken the Irish to the championship stage three times and posted a 30+ game winning streak over unranked competition.

But Kelly clearly had faults. For one thing, he was a weak recruiter, whether because he was disinterested, because he lacked the ability to relate to elite prospects and/or because he was at a school that (in his perception or in reality) discouraged him from pursuing the best prospects for the sake of academic and institutional integrity. And maybe that played a part in his mindset when it came to coaching Notre Dame in big games. Because while Kelly brought much competence to the table in South Bend, he never seemed to have a belief that he could get his team over the hump.

Hindsight is 20/20, and you can spin examples to fit the narrative you want to fit. But the moment I think I had to come to grips with the fact that Kelly lacked true belief in this program’s championship capabilities was the 2020 season’s College Football Playoff game against Alabama. Sure, Notre Dame was clearly outmatched at almost every position, but in that circumstance a coach should feel free to take risks because he has nothing to lose. Instead, they were running QB power with Ian Book in the first quarter; kicking an extra point down 18 with a minute left when their only hope was converting three two-point conversions after a couple of onside kicks and scores; and looking like they were going to punt down 24 with three-and-a-half minutes left before a timeout gave OC Tommy Rees a chance to tell Kelly how stupid he was for not going for it.

But there’s none of that with Marcus Freeman. From day 1, he’s had belief, as evidenced by the admirable fight at Ohio State to start his career and the rout of Clemson the following November. He hasn’t always had Kelly’s level of competence, to be sure. There were the Marshall and Stanford debacles, the failure to bring in a transfer portal quarterback in year 1, the 10-men fiasco against Ohio State, the flat performances against Louisville and Clemson in year 2 and an apparent failure to learn his lessons with a year-3 loss to NIU.

But now the acumen is there. Freeman just made Georgia coach Kirby Smart look like Brian Kelly coaching in a big game as Notre Dame won the Sugar Bowl 23-10 to snap their 31-year drought of “major bowl” wins.

To be fair to the Bulldogs, they did have their backup quarterback, which I’m sure plenty of Notre Dame haters out there are using to put an asterisk on this win. But asterisks be damned, just like when the Irish beat a No. 1 Clemson team without Trevor Lawrence. That Georgia team still has blue-chip recruits and NFL prospects galore gracing their sidelines (and Parker Jones). All a team can do is beat the team they happen to line up across from that day, and that’s what Notre Dame just did.

Stephen Lew-Imagn Images

In fairness to Kelly, this season, Freeman hasn’t had to face a generational player like Lawrence, DeVonta Smith or Najee Harris, nor an NFL-lite team like those Alabama squads Kelly got blitzed by in 2012 and 2020. But again, all you can do is beat who you play.

College football has been marked by much more parity this season — a result of NIL and the transfer portal allowing teams to siphon talent from the usual hoarders. There’s also the power vacuum left by the departures of Nick Sagan and Jim Harbaugh from the coaching ranks. And Freeman, to his credit, is making the most of it, and doing it with a roster that’s seemed at multiple points to have been doomed by injury. That’s a result of enhancing the depth of Notre Dame’s talent, which was the safest bet that Freeman would do when promoted as a first-time head coach. But it’s also a result of him growing between the headsets, instilling the Irish with an attitude that they are capable of beating anyone and making sure that attitude isn’t hollow on gameday.

That’s the power of positive thinking in action. It’s the power of belief plus exceptional competence, a simple formula that’s somehow eluded the Irish for 31 years.

Not anymore.