How Notre Dame, LSU face ‘the biggest test case’ with Marcus Freeman, Brian Kelly

Two years ago, Marcus Freeman was the defensive coordinator at Cincinnati. He was going viral for making TikTok videos with his wife and children in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. He was completely content with where he was in life as a 34-year-old college football coach.

Now, he’s the head coach at Notre Dame. Life comes at folks fast. Sometimes that’s a good thing. For Freeman, in this instance, it absolutely is. He recently said there are times he still has to take a step back and pinch himself to truly internalize the magnitude of the position in which he’s been placed.

It’s been five months since Freeman was named the successor to Brian Kelly, now the head coach at LSU. Freeman has coached one game as the man in charge of Notre Dame, a disappointing Fiesta Bowl loss to Oklahoma State. That feels like ages ago. Nothing that happened in Glendale, Ariz., that day is going to define what Freeman could be during his Irish tenure, just as silly dances and an apparent feigned southern accent aren’t going to tell the tale of Kelly’s time in Baton Rouge.

We’ll have a better understanding of Notre Dame’s future under Freeman and LSU’s under Kelly in the same amount of time it took to go from Freeman TikTok dancing in Cincy to Kelly boogying in the bayou, though, and that’s one of the most “fascinating” realizations in all of college football according to The Athletic’s Brody Miller.

“It is literally going to be the biggest test case on what both programs or both coaches are,” Miller said on The Andy Staples Show. “We are literally going to find out the truth about Notre Dame. We are literally going to find out the truth about Brian Kelly. It’s very rare that it’s literally right in front of you, straight forward. The pieces are in place. Who are you?”

Notre Dame football recruiting

• Notre Dame on the road: Irish checking in on five-star quarterback Dante Moore

• Father of four-star WR Rodney Gallagher: ‘Marcus Freeman is a stud’

Did Kelly need Notre Dame more than he thought he did? That’ll be revealed through his results at LSU. And is Notre Dame’s current streak of 10-plus wins in five straight seasons more of a Kelly thing, or is it because Notre Dame is … Notre Dame? How Freeman fares will dictate that narrative, too.

Kelly cited an improvement in resources and a more opportune recruiting landscape as reasons for his seemingly abrupt departure from the program he led for 12 seasons. Freeman currently has Notre Dame’s class of 2023 ranked No. 1 in the On3 Consensus Team Recruiting Rankings in spite of Kelly’s quarrels. Put a tally down under Freeman’s name for that, but it won’t mean anything if on-field victories don’t ensue. Kelly won, and won a lot, without being billed as an elite recruiter.

Freeman hasn’t totally overhauled the Notre Dame culture in the wake of Kelly leaving either. The strength and conditioning coach is the same, as are multiple other assistants. He realizes Notre Dame had success under Kelly. He also realizes the Irish can have even more of it with just a few tweaks.

“I would assume Marcus Freeman would follow a similar blueprint there,” The Athletic’s Andy Staples said on his show. “He’s a more aggressive recruiter. So it will be really up to him as an X’s and O’s guy on the field on game day to find out if he’s going to have the same amount of success — or more, or less.”

“The perfect scenario is you keep that system and elevate your ceiling at Notre Dame with the recruiting,” Miller added. “That’s totally possible.”

It’s not going to be the exact same system. Nobody’s system is truly the same from one year to the next anyway. Even Alabama evolves under Nick Saban. It’s the name of the game. So the question becomes, can Kelly implement his teachings at LSU and continually change them enough to not only match what he did at Notre Dame but take the Tigers a step or two further than he ever guided the Irish?

That’s not going to be easy. Not in the SEC.

“Notre Dame plays a tough schedule most years, but Brian Kelly is now in a shark tank,” Staples said. “He has Nick Saban every year. Jimbo Fisher every year. He’ll have Lane Kiffin, Mike Leach, Sam Pittman every year. These are really good head coaches. And oh by the way, you might have to see Kirby Smart. And you have to see Billy Napier.”

“The floor of your competition is different,” Miller added.

There’s a chance Notre Dame doesn’t miss a beat and even improves a bit with Freeman at the helm. The last three LSU head coaches all won national titles, so it’s not unreasonable to think Kelly might finally reach the mountain top at his new location. But there’s also a chance both coaches and programs flop entirely. And there is a whole lot of gray area in the middle.

So, as Miller said, maybe we do have one of the most fascinating test cases on our hands after all. There’s not much to do but wait and watch, and maybe make a few TikTok dance videos in the meantime.