Marcus Freeman reflects on growth of Notre Dame program since he became head coach

Marcus Freeman took over Notre Dame when Brian Kelly shockingly took over at LSU. The hype was real, but it took a couple of games for him to find his footing as the leader of an entire program.

Now, he’s primed to be one of the top coaches in all of college football for what seems like a long, long time. Speaking with FOX’s Joel Klatt, the Fighting Irish head coach reflected on everything he’s been through in South Bend, and how it’s helped shape him into the man he is now,

“I think we were in a really good position when I took over,” Freeman reminisced. “What Coach Kelly had done for this program had been tremendous. How do you elevate from that point we were at? For us, actually, for me, it actually took taking a dip. We lost the first game I coached, which was the bowl game. We lost the next game I coached, which was Ohio State. Then, we lost the third game in a row, which was Marshall.

“For me, it was almost — you had to take a dip. You had to regress a little bit to understand what it takes to progress forward.”

That dip certainly provided perspective for Freeman. There’s a myriad of key factors that went into Notre Dame’s resurgence under his watch, and hearing him speak on them, it’s easy to see how it all culminated a College Football Playoff run.

“You’re always trying to improve talent,” Freeman added. “That’s any company, any organization. How do we continue to improve the talent and personnel that we bring in? That doesn’t always mean athleticism. There’s personalities, mental capacity — there’s a lot of different things that go into increasing your talent.

“The next thing is, how do we continue to develop the talent that we have? We’ve got to continue increasing the talent. We have to develop. We have to have a great plan to develop that talent in the present, but also in the future. Year 1, Month 1, but also, how do we improve them over three or four years?

“Then, the third thing was, how do we continue to enhance our culture? The culture is what they feel, what they believe every time they walk into that building. What does that output? Those are the things we spend constant amounts of time trying to continue to improve — the talent, the development, and the culture.”