Notre Dame football coach Marcus Freeman explains his recruiting strategy
Marcus Freeman has taken a fierce and fearless approach to Notre Dame football’s recruiting operation since taking the reins as the university’s football coach in December 2021.
Whether that has meant signing recruits from Irvington, N.J. (Adon Shuler) or Hannibal, Mo. (Aneyas Williams) … or securing verbal commitments from prospects out of Lucedale, Miss. (Deuce Knight) and Bryant, Ark. (Daniel Anderson) … Freeman has cast a wide net across the country when constructing the Fighting Irish football roster.
Sure, Freeman has succeeded in targeting Catholic and private schools, too. Notre Dame has added 22 prospects total from those programs in the 2023 and 2024 recruiting cycles — Freeman’s first two as head coach. So far, in 2025, the Irish will have nine more.
Still, under his direction, the Irish have made a valiant effort to expand their recruiting reach. That strategy has been intentional.
“Notre Dame is not for every high school recruit, but it’s for more than those that realize,” Freeman said on the sixth episode of the “For Good” podcast. “It’s easy to go to the perennial private, catholic schools, find the best players and say, ‘Hey, come to Notre Dame.’ They understand Notre Dame. They’re at a school that values spirituality, academics and those things.
“But I’ve really tried to go to those places or see the young people that don’t realize they are Notre Dame kids, but they are — to show them what makes this place so special. To show them the endless possibilities that Notre Dame provides.”
Freeman put his plan into practice during the NCAA winter recruiting contact period. He visited prospects from over a dozen public schools, including ones at Folsom (Calif.) High, Miami Palmetto and Cincinnati Winton Woods.
Among Notre Dame’s top targets in the 2025 class are recruits from Geneva (Ill.) Community (Talyn Taylor), Ironton (Ohio) High (Shaun Terry), Eureka (Mo.) High (Jack Lange), Indianapolis Warren Central (Damien Shanklin), Shaker Heights (Ohio) High (Trey McNutt), Indianapolis Ben Davis (Mark Zackery), Buford (Ga.) High (Devin Williams) and Winston-Salem (N.C.) Mount Tabor (JaDon Blair).
The Irish currently have the No. 5 class in the 2025 Industry Ranking Football Team Recruiting Rankings. Adding those players to the class will be paramount if they want to keep their top-five positioning when the rankings are finalized about one year from now.
Freeman and Company will be all hands on deck until then. Their pitch to those prospects is direct and two-fold. They can hope their message resonates to produce an outcome with those recruits realizing Notre Dame fits them best.
“We’ll spend endless amounts of time talking about football because that’s what they want to hear,” Freeman said. “‘How are you going to make me a great football player? How are you going to get me to the NFL?’
“But then I like to take football out of the picture. Let me show you what else makes this place special. When you can give them both and let them see both, you have a great chance to get them to commit to Notre Dame.”
