Marcus Freeman reveals challenge to both lines prior to fall camp

New Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman posed a challenge to both his offensive and his defensive lines before Fall camp. Now, he’s explained what that challenge was.

In essence, Marcus Freeman asked them to be the leaders of the team. That’s because Notre Dame is a program driven by its trench play and most successful teams are led by those linemen. On top of that, with a young quarterback in Tyler Buchner, he may not be ready to lead the team from his position.

“To start of Fall camp, I challenged the o-line and the d-line,” Marcus Freeman said. “And I said, ‘Listen, we need our biggest guys to be our best leaders.’ And that means our offensive line and our defensive line. And, to me, when you really study the great teams, man. When those teams have those big guys up front that are intimidating looking, that are the best leaders, to me that really is a special team.”

Marcus Freeman said that players like Isaiah Foskey and Josh Lugg are the ones who need to step up. Those talented and experienced players need to lead the Irish.

“It starts up front. We’re an o-line, d-line driven program. I say it every time I meet with them. And, so, yes does it entail that you have to lead because you’ve got a young quarterback? Yeah, that’s part of it. But, to me, I want our program to always be led by the o-line and d-line.”

Marcus Freeman is turning toward a young QB

Marcus Freeman recently named sophomore Tyler Buchner the starting quarterback at Notre Dame. The young quarterback may not have much experience, but he has flashed all the potential in the world.

“There’s a huge criteria I’m sure that Coach Rees has in terms of how we evaluate those guys, but those are the three things that I really, really look for, and we’ve been in constant dialogue about who was going to be the starter,” Marcus Freeman said.

That evaluation ended in Buchner as the starting quarterback in South Bend.