The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Marcus Freeman on Notre Dame's CFP run, staying Independent, USC Rivalry | Big Noon Conversations

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

FOX Sports’ lead College Football analyst Joel Klatt sits down with Notre Dame Head Coach Marcus Freeman to discuss the Fighting Irish’s run to the National Championship Game and how the program builds on that success. They talk about Notre Dame’s independence in the sport and whether that is something that will always make sense in the future with the changing landscape in college football. The two also get into the nature of scheduling in the sport and why Freeman wants the USC rivalry to continue on a yearly basis. Coach opens up about what he’s learned in his first 3 full seasons as the leader of one of the most prestigious programs in the country and much more in the first episode of Big Noon Conversations in 2025. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

And I know you don't like being called a young coach. Are there any other teams that you'd like to play every year? I feel like you're trying to get at a certain team that's been buzzing. What do you know now that you wish you could go back and tell that guy after the loss to Marshall? The greatest thing in life takes time. There is no such thing as instant gratification if you're talking about creating something great. On this episode of Big Noon Conversations, I talk with the head coach of Notre Dame, Marcus Freeman. All right, Marcus Freeman, head coach of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

Thanks for joining us, man. Absolutely, man. Thanks for coming. I got to tell you. And I didn't want to tell you before you sat down because I didn't want to steal kind of this line. I hate to break it to all of you out there. But we are actually sitting in, this is my singular favorite spot in all of college football. This is the locker room at Notre Dame Stadium.

I appreciate that. We're going to make sure we get that message out there a little bit more. I'm sure. It's incredible. You've mixed like, you know, and obviously they did this before you were the head coach, but mixing the old with the new and going out the door and down the tunnel and all the history. And yet it's a modern program that is excelling. Like all of that, I walk into this building and it is just quintessentially college football.

So it's really cool. That's what we wanted to be, right? Like you can't get away from the things that have made this place special, right? You embrace it. You celebrate it. you show it off, but you also want to continue to be relevant, right? You want to continue to be new and trendy and attract young talent. And Notre Dame does a magnificent job of doing that. So you say like attract young talent. I'm what I would be fascinated in, I'm 43. So I walk here

and it's just like, the history hits me and I love it. You know, I'm like, that's the tunnel that they fought Miami, you know, all this different things, right? But when you get a young kid out here, 17, 18 years old. How long does it take for them to kind of like grasp what this place is? Yeah, it depends on who it is, right? Sometimes their parents understand it, which can resonate then with the young person. But a lot of these young people now, they have no clue about the old Notre Dame, right? The history and how this program was built, the success it's had in its 11 national championships. We haven't won a national championship since 88, but how do you continue to make this relevant?

And it's important that we explain to the young person what makes this place special, right? If you're going to choose Notre Dame, it's going to do that for me. Explain to me. Like if I'm, you know, let's say I'm a dad that I've got a kid or I'm a kid that you're recruiting, how do you explain the special, unique nature of this place? You know, I think it goes so far beyond the football program, right?

And we spend time talking about the history of Notre Dame football and how it was built. And the reason why we're independent, right, and that we were looking for teams to play and we're willing to drive or go on a train from coast to from Navy or Boston College all the way to Southern Cal, right, in order to find an opponent. And that's how the Notre Dame football program was built in the independence. And that's why we will want to keep that independence as much as we can. That's what makes this place special. But I'll often talk about the education in the network and the people that are intertwined with Notre Dame. And that's, to me, what makes this place different.

Because everybody that comes to our program aspires to be that first-round pick. And you know what, if you're good enough, you will be a first-round pick. We have plenty of them to show you the example. But what else do universities provide you? And that's where we've got to make sure we continuously educate young people on, number one, the percentages of people that are those first round picks or are those draft picks, but also the realization of football is going to end. It's going to end before you know it. And we both know that, right? Ain't that the truth.

So what else do these high educational institutions provide you? And that's what we want young people understand. it makes this place different. Yeah, we want to, they like to talk in terms of stars, right? So this is a five-star football program. We get that. But there's also a five-star education. And here's the benefits of obtaining a degree from this university.

You touched on the independence. Something that I wanted to touch on with you. And you kind of referenced it there. But how important is it for you guys to retain your independence? Yeah, I think that's what I talked. about earlier is that it's what this football program was built from. And as long as we can, we will, right? And I have a lot of confidence in our administration and Pete Vakwa, our AD, that he'll always keep us in a position to be successful. So as long as we can keep that

independence, we will. But if there ever comes a time that we are at a disadvantage because we're not in a conference, I'm sure he'll make the decision along with our president to say, all right, we're going to join one of these conferences and position ourselves to not be negatively impacted by being independent. So what is the biggest threat that you would see to that? You know, like where would a disadvantage pop up? Well, I think if you talk about being at a disadvantage to make the postseason, right, because you're not in the playoffs or if it comes a time where teams won't schedule you, right?

Because the Big Ten or the SEC are saying we're going to play nine games and we'll play a crossover game. and who cares about Notre Dame, well, then I think there's going to be a point where we may be forced to join a conference. But until that point happens, which it doesn't look likely, we're going to stay independent as long as we can. Do you feel like independence fits

with the future of the sport because of what you were referencing there and maybe crossover games and scheduling? I can see it trending that way. I don't know. when that time will come. But when you start adding in TV money, you start adding in scheduling,

there's a lot of money involved with college football. And there might come a time where there might be an outside entity that takes college football away from the NCAA. I don't know, right? The future is uncertain, I say, but I could see a college football system where everybody's independent

and somebody else is very similar to the NFL, somebody else is scheduling the games when you play each other. And then all of a sudden it doesn't, it's not based off TV deals with your comfort anymore, right? And it'll be based off regional location and things like that. And you guys made the announcement with Clemson, you know, the 12-year agreement. I think, and I touched on it on the show. It's great. You know, of course, everyone, all of us want to see games like that.

We'd love to see more games like that, not only involving Notre Dame, but other, you know, big premium brands, five-star programs throughout the country. Are there any other teams that you'd like to play every year? I feel like you're trying to get at a certain team that's been buzzing. I mean, you know, you think about rivalries, and I'm sure you can go back to when you played high school football or maybe even before that. I think back to my high school years, right? And I was from Ohio, the way that played at a high school name,

Huber Heights Wayne, our big rival was Centerville Elks. The guys that have come from Centerville that you might know, A.J. Hawke. Herb Street, Mike Nugent, some really great players, but that was a huge rivalry. That was it. Then you go to Ohio State and you play Michigan every year. And the thing about rivalry games is nobody cares what the record is. That's right. You win that game.

You view that season as a success. I mean, Michigan last year with Ohio State. Amen. So for us, yeah, one of them that is continuously brought up here in the last month or so is the rivalry we have with USC. Before I ever got to Notre Dame, there's memories I have in my head of great plays in the USC Notre Dame rivalry. And I think it's important to continue that rivalry.

And so if they ask my opinion, I want to continuously play USC every year. And it takes both parties to tangle, right? And it's got to fit both institutions. And they're in a conference. We're not. When do we play all those different things? But I think it's important that we continue to have this rivalry. I'd be interested in you go around.

I mean, you cut your teeth at different places in college football. So you know what it's like to coach at different places. You obviously played at Ohio State. Everywhere else, you go and the goals list starts with a rival. Then it goes to, it used to be a division, then a conference, and then you would get to a national championship. but every time I walk on this campus, it just strikes me as like there's really just one goal. So other than winning a national championship, what matters here that you can measure towards success?

You know, I think some of those tangible goals of, you know, how many games you win, it used to be just bowl victories and national championships. Yeah, those are all important. That 10 mark was a big deal. Yeah, everybody wants to double-digit wins. And that's goals for every program in the country, right? We know we don't play in a conference. Everybody wants to be a champion at the end of the season.

If that's your only goal to view your job and your season as a success, then, man, there's a lot of people that look at their seasons as failures. And for me, we always talk about how do we reach our full potential? I think every program has a level that they call their full potential. And how do we chase that? No matter victory, defeat, what the outcome of the last game was, we're continuously chasing that improvement to reach our full potential. Are you graduating?

I think we have the highest graduation rate right now in college football. Are you developing better young men to leave your program and be one day a great husband and a great father? And that's for me why I do it. Yeah. And it isn't to come in here and say, hey, when won a national championship, coach, you all, that's a result of a lot of different things. But to impact the young people you're around every day in a positive way and make them better because of the time they spent with you, when I think of the great coaches I've had in my life, that's what they've done. Yeah, same, you know, the ones that would pour into you. That's right.

Whether it was as a player, obviously, they're going to pour you into you as a player, but as a huge. human and as a man. There's no doubt. I'm interested going back now three years. You had been here for a year. You know, you get the job. And at that time, could you identify something that you know you wanted to add, you know? And the way I would say it is that you needed to find, create, or develop to take the next step with Notre Dame football. And what was that thing? I don't think we were at a really good position when I took over, right? What Coach Kelly had done for this program had been tremendous. And 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 my coach, which was the bowl game. We lost the next game. My coach was Ohio State. Then we lost the third game in a row, which was Marshall. And for me, it was almost you had to take a dip. You had to regress a little bit to understand and what it takes to progress forward.

And you know, you're always trying to improve talent. That's any company, any organization, like how do we continue to improve the talent and personnel that we bring in? That doesn't always mean athleticism. I always mean personalities and mental capacity. It's a lot of different things that go into increasing your talent.

But the next thing that was, how do we continue develop the talent that we have? right we got to continue to increase the talent we have to develop we have a great we have to have a great plan to develop that talent in the present right but also in the future year one month one but also how do we improve them over three or four years and then the third thing was how do we continue to enhance our culture right and in the culture is is what they feel what they believe every time they walk into that building and what does that output and those are things we spend constant constant amounts of time trying to continue to improve the talent, the development, and the culture.

It probably keeps you up at night at times, doesn't it? Absolutely. Absolutely. I would be fascinated. We're sitting here now. You guys just made an incredible run in the college football playoff. You play for a national championship. What do you know now as the head coach of Notre Dame that you wish you could go back and tell that guy after the loss to Marshall? Probably one very clear statement is the greatest things in life take time. And there is no such thing as instant gratification if you're talking about creating something great. You learn so much more from the losses. You can't lose, right?

You can't continuously lose or you're not going to have a job. But losing is a part of continuous growth. And nobody enjoys it. But there's a desperation I think every individual naturally has when they're in the dumps when they've lost where they feel embarrassed And then I think I've done my most growing as a leader have my most growth as a leader from some of those difficult losses But just understanding like if you would have told me when I was hired as the head coach here I would play in a national championship game by year of three I kind of heck yeah, that's awesome man here we go that's a good start

But if you would have said, hey, you would have 10 losses on your record before you did that, or nine before you did that, whew, and it's tough to really swallow. But that's what it took. And that's the experience that I've had to go through. We've had to go through as a program to put ourselves in a position we're in now. And now we've got to continue to use those experiences from the past as a new foundation for the future. Your path was so quick. you know, I mean, you were a coordinator at Cincinnati. You come here for a year, and all of a sudden, you know, you're the head coach of Notre Dame.

And I know you don't like being called a young coach. But the learning curve from those three games and then these three seasons, how steep was it? And how much more confident are you now going into an offseason, going into a season, high expectations, than maybe you were a couple of years ago. Well, I'm going to kind of ask you a question, right? Like, if you had experience doing this, right? You've done it 30 times. Yeah.

The 31st times, you're going to be a lot more confident than you were the first time. That's true. And so it's no different than with me. There's so many things that you have to learn through experience. There is no playbook. And somebody might try to give you a playbook to be a head coach, but until you have the experience, it's hard to truly understand what it takes.

So confidence is built through the experience, through success, but also through understanding what happened in the failure. Is there a moment that stands out? You know, is there a game that stands out that you felt like you learned the most, felt the most, you know, whatever it was? I think each loss might have taught me something different.

Okay. The very first loss to Oklahoma State, we're up big, we're up 21 getting ready to go in half. They end up scoring. We're up 14 at a half. And I'm like, man, this is easy. This is the head coaching thing? And then all of a sudden, you end up finding a way to lose that game.

And you go, oh, okay, this is not as easy as you thought. We play Ohio State the first game of the following year. We're up, I think, in the third quarter, 10 to 7 maybe. We're up in the third quarter. A tight game, low scoring. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, we're good. We lost.

We end up losing. We're going to be great. Then you lose to Marshall. And I think that loss, I had never won a game as a head coach. And it's a little bit of, you're starting to lose a little faith. Like, do I know what it takes? What's going on? We're a better team than how we just played.

What is it going to take? And so you learn through those losses. Then you lose to Northern Illinois this past year. And the lesson I learned from that was how to handle success. we weren't ready. I wasn't ready to handle success as a head coach. Off of the A&M win. Because that was the first time in my three years as head coach

that we had won that big game early. My first year, we lose Ohio State early. My second year, we won a couple games and then we lose to Ohio State last play here. Right? And so this was the first time we had won that big game. Right? Everybody's saying, you guys got an easy schedule

going to the playoffs, and then you don't prepare. mentally and physically the right way and the football gods taught us a great lesson and so I think every loss you learn something different and and now I mean that'll prepare you for this year because you got two big ones early I mean really a few but September is loaded yeah for you guys I know all of us in college football we can't wait to see you guys go play Miami can't wait to see A&M come up here amongst others Do you feel the energy in the off-season when you got one of those early big ones,

you know, in terms of the way the guys prepare and work and get after it? You know, I hope the mental approach to the season doesn't change, no matter who your opponent is. I think I was asked that as we were getting ready to play Navy, my second year in Dublin, Ireland. And maybe somebody had asked me, like, well, is it difficult to motivate your team to play Navy? Is it more difficult to motivate them to play Navy than it is to play Ohio?

State. I hope now. You get 12 guaranteed opportunities. That's all we get. And so to overlook any opponent is a disservice to the game of football. Yeah. Right. And so for me, I look at that big game and say, okay, what do I need to do to prepare this team for that big one? Sure. You know, and you're talking about whoever's our starting quarterback is going to be inexperienced, right? And how do we create as many high pressure situations in training camp so that they're not panicking all of a sudden you're down there in south florida getting ready to play the university of miami and so it kind of for me it it kind of plays with my mind of how we prepare this group depending on what personnel we have in the opponent we're playing yeah i mean i know i can't wait for it i can't wait to see it i was

hoping you were going to announce your starter right there that would have been great too now the The run last year, you know, after Northern Illinois, you guys beat A&M, you just start winning games. You lose to Northern Illinois. You just keep winning games. You know, stacking days, as coaches would say it, stacking bricks. And you find yourself in the playoff. And obviously hosting here was great. You guys beat Indiana.

But then there's this game. And from an outside observer, there's really two games that have happened in the last two years that I think have similarly changed where we're at in the sport. Michigan beat Alabama in the national semifinal in the Rose Bowl by just beating them up front. And then when you guys beat Georgia in the quarterfinal last year, by beating them up front physically, you were faster, you were more physical than they were. it's like a big shot to the entire college football universe is like, hey, this narrative is changing

and college football is changing. And I don't know if you felt that in the moment. I'm sure you were just focused on your team, but certainly from the outside looking in, it was one of those moments where it's like, okay, like this is different from what we experienced in the decade prior. Let's make sure we're on a record. You had that opinion of the game. That's right.

We physically beat them up. Well, you did. You did. I got a lot of respect for Coach Smart and that football team. And I look at that game, and I think, number one, our players had confidence. The moment wasn't too big for them. They were ready for that moment. They weren't intimidated.

And they believed they could play with that football team. but we were very opportunistic. It's a tied ball game with a minute left before half. Yep. And we get a sack, force a fumble, and recover the ball with a minute left. In the next play, we go and we score a touchdown. And that is what, to me, opportunistic teams do. They take advantage of the opportunity they have in front of them.

We head into a locker room with a seven-point lead, and we come out and take the opening kickoff return, opening kickoff for a touchdown. And now you're all of a sudden you're up 10 or 14. I can't remember exactly how much we're up. Now we have confidence in our defense play, lights out. And the other most impressive thing was our offense got the ball with probably 11 minutes left in the fourth quarter.

And we did not give the ball back to Georgia to around two minutes left in the game. Well, that's why I say physically. Because you don't do that in the fourth quarter of a game unless you can own the line of scrimmage, make plays on third down obviously and do those things, but you've got to be physically great in order to do what you just described.

Yeah, they were. They were a physical bunch. It's something we pride ourselves on. And I understand, like, no matter who the opponent is, we have a mentality that we have to be able to run the ball, stop the run, and it's a physical mindset. That's how we're going to win games here. And credit to our strength staffs,

credit to our offense, our coaches. Like, there's a lot of people. that deserve that credit for the mentality and the way our guys play. And it was a major victory for this program. Beat Penn State, go to the national championship, and unfortunately for the Irish came up short against Ohio State. What did you learn in that game? Because you're right there.

You're 60 minutes for a national championship. You know, you see a real veteran team. They're talented. Obviously a good team. I'm sure you felt like you had your moments to take control of the game. Incredible opening series. I talked a lot about learning from those losses, right? So when you get that close and you see it,

and it's right there in front of you, and you're across the field from the national champion, what did you learn that night? You know, I think in those biggest games, those biggest moments, you've got to play your best, right? You can't make mistakes in an adversarial team like Ohio State. And you would think about the first drive on offense. I think it was 19-play drive.

Incredible. We execute. We're physical. We go down, we score. Defensively, we didn't play our best, right? And trust me, credit to Ohio State, they had some elite playmakers. They played really, really well. I wish we'd go back and, dang it, we got to play our best.

And the outcome might still be the same, right? But there was moments in that game. I thought that's not how we have played all year long. And so for me, I think about that game and I say, okay, you know, we listen, fought to the very end. Yeah. Right? You're down 21, I think at half or something like that, 14 or 21.

And it was an eight-point game in the fourth quarter. Came back. And this group isn't going to quit ever, ever. And but as I think about it, it's like, okay, what didn't I do to prepare them the right way for that opportunity? What didn't I do as the head coach to make sure we were ready to play our best in that moment? Was the game too big?

Did I make it too small? I think of many different reasons. And I want everybody in our program to think that way. What did I do to make sure I was prepared to take advantage of that opportunity because it's really hard to get there. And so something I always remember, right? We made some changes already debrief from that game. And hey, if we're in that situation, here are some different things we'll do as we prepare

for it. But at the end of the day, you've got to play your best when you're playing the best. Well, you've elevated this program. You know, I know that you were incredibly deferential and rightly so to what Brian had built here, but you've elevated Notre Dame to a point where, you know, I think it's very likely to happen. Granted, you've got to go play well and you've got to do all of those things. So it's easy for me to say, just sitting on the outside looking in. But I believe in that.

And I know others do too, which is why you got a lot of interest even from the outside. and in particular the NFL. Rather than asking you specifically about that, here's how I would rather ask you this question. What is the one or two things that we have to fix in college football to make sure that the Marcus Freeman's of the world stay in college football and don't go to the NFL? You know, I think that I always think about our staff

and how do I as the head coach do the best, job possible to make sure our staff enjoys coming to work here. Right. And part of that is, you know, trying not to overwork them. Right. And I think sometimes college coaches can overwork their staffs. We're going to work hard. Right. I'm not saying it's, it's going to be easy. Nothing great in life is easy. But, you know, how do we continue to look at the calendar and let, and make it in a way that there's some type of balance for the assistant coaches. There's the ones that they're the ones that are on the road 24-7 constantly. Like we've got to create some type of balance for those coaches.

And I think we are. I see us trending from my first year to now my fourth year in a direction at us trying to create some type of balance for assistant coaches. And that's important. But, you know, I think how do we, continue to have a college football structure that helps young people

continuously become self-sufficient. I think back to my time at Ohio State, and I was a pretty big recruit, and there was a thought in my head, I'm going to walk in here and start. Well, you got guys that, you have three linebackers, two of them were first their own picks,

AJ Hawk, Bobby Carpenter, the other one was a third round pick, Anthony Schlegel. I wasn't good enough to start, right? And I had to learn for two years to embrace my role and to continue to work, even though I wasn't playing as much as I wanted. How do I as an individual just take advantage of my opportunities and get better? That's how you become sufficient. You overcome challenges. And there was no thought for me to get up and go somewhere else.

And that's the greatest thing that I had to learn to do, stay there, overcome some adversity, take advantage of the opportunities that I got, graduate, get a degree. get a degree, I just don't want a structure that's created when things get harder. It's just so easy to pick up and go somewhere else. I think it's important that we create rules and some type of structure that continues to promote, right, self-sufficiency for young people and overcoming obstacles. Delayed gratification. That's it. Right?

You're a father of six. You know being a parent, that's all it's about. Delayed gratification. That's where I want to end. How do you do it, man? You got six kids. How are you the head coach at Notre Dame with six kids? How do you be family man and the head man?

Oh, it takes number one an unselfish wife. I always say, like, I could not do my job if she wasn't taking care of the major things at home. Yeah. And you're an assistant coach at home. That's right. And the head coach at work. That's right. It's so funny.

When I come home sometimes and my wife has to go somewhere, they call me the babysitter. right dad's babysitting tonight and I'm saying hold on I'm your father I'm not the babysitter like what are we talking about and so but that's how you make it work you blend it as much as you can right and when I'm home I try to be as present as I can and I fell miserably a lot of times but as much as I can get the kids and my wife into the office around our players like that that gives me a chance to be a father and a husband but also a chance for my players to see me as a father and a husband so we make it work we make it work it's going fast I try to slow down time, but it doesn't slow down for any of us.

It never slows it down. That's right. Man, I appreciate you having us here. Like I said, this is a special place. Just a quick story. You know, like Brady Quinn, we work with Brady Quinn, and, you know, he's all, he's, he was so good and so handsome. It's like, you just want to hate Brady Quinn, right?

It's easy to want to, and Colorado, where I played, played Notre Dame in the national championship game in the Orange Bowl. So when I first came here, I was always like, I don't want to like Notre Dame. We got here a couple years ago, right before a Wisconsin game, you were the coordinator, and we came in to do some interviews and do our production meetings before your game in Chicago. And I'm walking around, and I'm kind of like, it's not that cool. And then we go to the grotto and we go to the basilica. We come here, and then we walk in this locker.

I walk out on the field. And I was so mad because I was like, dang it! This place is awesome! And I still feel like that. It's a really special place. It is. It's an honor. it's not to be a part of this place.

And you know, you've got to be cautious of how much you brag about it because somebody that hasn't been here or understand it might be taken back because of the way people have so much passion about this place. I think back to before I became the defense coroner here, I used to be like, man, Notre Dame fans are over the top. These guys are crazy. But then you get here and it's such a passion for this place in this universe. It's a special play.

Yeah, it's hard to describe until you actually get here. And we're here, like, we're sitting down in May. And I'm like, oh, man, this is great. So, hey, man, I appreciate your time. Thank you. Good luck next year. Thank you. You got it.