CFB insider lauds Marcus Freeman for creating "elite" program at Notre Dame
Marcus Freeman might have fallen short Monday night, but those who keep a close eye on the college football landscape were encouraged by what they've seen. The Notre Dame coach has put together a team that's set up to contend for hardware in the seasons to come, especially if Freeman sticks around.
Freeman was hired to succeed current LSU coach Brian Kelly, who left for Baton Rouge before the 2022 season after a dozen years in charge of the Fighting Irish. Kelly is Notre Dame's all-time winningest coach, having gone 113-40 with the program. Freeman has boosted the Irish even further.
"Marcus Freeman has elevated that place back to the elite level," FOX Sports college football analyst Joel Klatt said Tuesday on his podcast. "I know that Brian Kelly played for a national championship, and I know that he went to College Football Playoffs. ... he brought them back, in a lot of ways, to a place where they were a prominent, upper-level college football program.
"Marcus Freeman is a hell of a football coach. He took the foundation that Brian Kelly laid, and he elevated it. That's an elite program right there, and they're not going anywhere."
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Notre Dame fell behind by 24 points at one point in the College Football Playoff national title game matchup with Ryan Day and Ohio State, but didn't lay down. That's part of what is so promising to Klatt.
"Think about the fortitude and fight and grit that that culture has to have — that locker room has to have, that sideline has to have — to go back out there and just keep fighting and fighting and fighting when you're getting handled in a national championship game," Klatt said. "It's 31-7, and then they just kept chipping away. ... Now, all of a sudden, it's an 8-point game."
Why is Notre Dame different under Marcus Freeman?
Kelly guided the Irish to the national title game against Alabama in 2013. Nick Saban's rushing tandem of Eddie Lacy and T.J. Yeldon combined for 248 yards on the ground in a 42-14 Crimson Tide win.
Notre Dame reached the College Football Playoff semifinals twice under Kelly, being beaten 30-3 by Clemson in 2018, then 31-14 by Alabama in 2020. Those teams, in hindsight, didn't have what it took. Klatt didn't feel at the time like they were the real deal.
"There was all this sense that — at least for me — that Notre Dame wasn't in that, like, upper crust that could actually go out there and win it, Klatt said. "Now, after Monday night and after this season, and looking at what they have on their roster and what they're going to be over the next couple of years, Notre Dame could absolutely win a national championship.
"Marcus Freeman is largely to thank for that."
Freeman has gone 33-10 in his tenure of just over three seasons with the Irish.