Marcus Freeman weighs in on Notre Dame's future as an independent

The talk of the college football world is what will Notre Dame do as it pertains to conference realignment, and if they’ll end up joining either the Big Ten or SEC.

Entering his first season leading the Fighting Irish, head coach Marcus Freeman gave some interesting thoughts on the matter during an appearance on Get Up on ESPN.

“Listen, I depend on our President, our Athletic Director — Father [John] Jenkins and Jack Swarbrick — to make those big decisions,” responded Freeman. “One thing I know is I really enjoy every time you bring that up. Programs are talking about what Notre Dame is going to do. We love that. We love being independent. Our program really was built on being independent.

“I think as long as we can continue to do that, we will. But I know they will never put our program in a position to fail. So if we have to join a conference, I’m sure we will.”

As you can see, Marcus Freeman isn’t pressing for Notre Dame to make a move to a conference, but he’ll welcome whatever move the Fighting Irish decide to make.

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Ryan Day on Ohio State’s emotions heading into season opener against Notre Dame

Meanwhile, Buckeyes head coach Ryan Day discussed the vibe of his team heading into their matchup with Notre Dame to open the season at Big Ten media day.

“It’s been real, I think our guys feel it. They feel the excitement, I think they feel the anticipation, I think they just feel the community rally around this team, but that first game being a night game, how else do you cut it? It’s gonna be electric and our guys know that so there’s a little bit of urgency about them and there’s going to be this pre season,” Day said.

Day also reflected on their opener last year against Minnesota, and detailed the similarities and differences between that game and team, and this year’s opener with his current squad.

“Last year we started on the road at Minnesota and that was a big conference game on the road with a very inexperienced team, so we had to play well in that game, that’s similar this year,” Day said. “Now we’re at home, a little bit more experienced team, but the plan’s gonna be the same, we had to play really good football in that first game and I think when you look at our season we have to have competitive stamina. We have to play really good at the beginning of the year and we’ve got to play really good at the end of the year and that’s the challenge of being Ohio State, you gotta win them all. And so competitive stamina is one of the things we’ve been talking about as a team.”