Everything is 10++. Recruiting. Attitude. Gets it. On and on. Absolutely love it all.

Still, the last 30 out of 31 minutes of the Fiesta Bowl was a hard pill to swallow. That gives me pause.

Yeah. First game. Tough situation. Two best players opted out. But 30 unanswered points and no adjustments. Ran the ball a whopping 5 times for 29 yards (with a fumble). Never should have lost that game after being up 28-7.

Making a game out of Ohio State would go a long way showing some lessons learned. But that was not a stellar first game performance.

Then again I thought Kelly’s floor would be 3-4 losses, not 8

It's tough to not be wildly optimistic after that. I know it's easy to get excited about a "new guy" who "says all the right things", but Freeman is more than that. Not only does he articulate what makes Notre Dame special, but he embodies it. His leadership is powerful and so genuine.

I'm concerned about the offense, and his ability to compete within the game against someone like Saban, but I can't help but believe that his leadership makes big success inevitable.

I haven't been fortunate enough to meet him yet, but haven't met a single person who was anything but enthusiastic about him (in fairness, Kelly was actually a pretty good guy to talk to 1:1 the few brief times I met him), and I think he has a great angle as someone who will work 24-7, was both an NFL player and academic-AA, coached/played at power schools, and will be gracious enough to learn on the job. My prior "checklist" of sorts would have included elite level playing experience (albeit I'd actually prefer a role guy to some superstar; Phil/Kerr > MJ for coaching), working under an elite staff to learn how the best do it, coordinator experience to develop expertise on one side, and finally HC experience at a smaller school to learn how to run a full program, and I still wouldn't mind that, but someone recently pointed out that many of the top recent coaches skipped at least 1-2 of these steps yet have done well. In addition to Smart, who was always well-regarded as a DC and recruiter, Day hired/retained an experienced staff and has also recruited incredibly well, Dabo had guys like Venables & Elliot before they moved on to head roles, and all have either won or been in contention without having HC experience themselves. I do realistically expect some growing pains, but I think athlete37's 7 is exactly my starting point with a 9 upside as Coach Freeman both gains experience and starts reloading talent - IMO, our version of a Tebow, Lawrence, etc gets this closer to a 9.5-10, as an elite QB can often just make things happen.

itself un-F'd.

I stand by my sentiments. The bowl game was a strategically placed “property of”lower back tattoo on a girl you thought might be an angel from above.

It's good to not have my blood running cold as it did when Kelly was on the sidelines...

Crazy Train or I’m Shipping up to Boston. ☘️

The song came out in November of 66, the same month that ND tied Michigan State 10-10 and then destroyed SC 51-0.

So, the song has more than just a little nostalgia going for it for me.

It put me in a great fucking mood for Christmas vacation when I came home and my SC friends bowed in tribute to the Fighting Irish.

Lead vocal by Sonny Geraci.

It came out in early 1966.

It was one of those songs that everyone loved to dance to, regardless of the lyrics.

I remember going to the mixers in Stepan Center, where 50 girls schools were invited and they came in buses and we Freshmen would wander over there and watch groups of girls dance in circles with each other.

We were a bit nonplussed, wondering how were were going to penetrate that defense and ask a girl to dance.

The worst part was going up to a girl in one of these Volvox-circles, asking her to dance, and then getting rejected.

Yeah, that was the memory.

But, one in three would say yes, and we would dance to "Time Won't Let Me" by The Outsiders. Just a great fucking song.

The girls would leave. I would go back to BP, get my books and go the Library to study until dinner time and then head to the North Dining Hall, wondering if any of those girls remembered me at all.

Then, I would think, "Probably not. Who cares?" Then, I would dream about a St. Mary's beauty like Carol Lichtefield or Anne Meagher and wonder if one of them would go to one of the ND dances with me. Carol did, and that was nice.

Freeman has shown the willingness to put in the work Kelly never would which should lead more athletes than we've had in a while. However the the portal if he has almost any lows there's a far greater chance to losing those same players to other programs than in the past. My hope is that having Golden on staff will help flatten the curve, and I hope he can bring in a similar coach on the offensive side to help Rees.

I think (hope) 5 is the floor...he doesn't strike me as a guy who will let himself be a "deer in the headlights" type on the sidelines.

However, it's hard to see the beginning of his tenure as much different than the beginning of Charlie Weis' tenure: a first-time head coach who "gets ND", has shown he can recruit elite players to the school, and says the kinds of things alumni/fans are hungry to hear. We all know how that turned out.

As for your #7 score, ND's record over the last 5 years is 54-10 (.844). Unfortunately, I think improving on that is not as likely as falling short of that...especially for a guy who hasn't proven his abilities as a HC elsewhere, and one that was hired after our AD had given the OC job to Golden Boy Tommy Rees, who I think will ultimately serve as a bit of an anchor for Foreman. I just hope he recognizes that sooner than later.

Clarification: When I refer to Kelly's "floor", I'm not talking about the nadir of his 4-8 2016 season, I'm talking about the ceiling and floor that we had reached by the time that Kelly departed.

While it's great that he finally got ND back to a point where being ranked and contending for playoff consideration was taken for granted, it was not so great that losing decisively to an elite program once we got to the playoffs was also taken for granted.

Freeman is super likeable and I'll be rooting for him with optimism, but I was disappointed that ND couldn't parlay its higher ceiling/floor to snag a coach who is not such a work-in-progress.

But some specifics would probably include:

Not being in a conference and therefore playing a greater "variety" of styles of play.
No division 2 warm-up opponents (changing, ugh).
Not having much of a regional recruiting base.
Having to navigate an administration that has a weird love-hate relationship with the program (especially the CSC).


On the positive side the job is probably less stressful than it was 30 years ago. With this athletic director you can go 8-5 every year and your seat will never warm up.

At least since Rockne.

Faust, Davie, and Weis are pretty convincing counterexamples.

Ara and Lou both said they needed all their experience. Who am I to doubt them?

Had desire. Weis had some aptitude but lacked the desire in the form of not willing to learn both sides of the ball and also no aptitude to throttle back his inappropriate decisions in games offensively- going for 4th down, not running out clock v going for scores when a run and eating time would end the game. Faust had no aptitude.

Freeman appears to have aptitude and desire. He most importantly he is willing to admit what he doesn’t know - leaving the door open to learn how to close those holes.

He can ramp up over time if that’s true. You can’t teach experience is his problem. He needs 30-50 games behind him to grasp during games how to adjust based on what he has seen and tried before (this looks like X, I tried Y and that failed before, so we need to do Z this time).

against top 10 defenses. I have heavy QB hesitancy.Not sure what the market is like, but I think Freeman needs to find an the OC equivalent of Al Golden after this season. Hopefully he doesn't have to wait until Allegedly retires to make the move, if this year doesnt go well.

If 9, as you said, is positioned as "I think he'll win a national title", I'm not there. It's very hard for us (as it is for anyone not in the current ruling class) to win a title. Not impossible as some say, but very hard. I need to see him beat an elite team before I go quite that far.

Outside of that I can see virtually nothing not to like. I've told everyone I discuss ND football with that he really needs to be good on the field because everything else is exactly what I've always wanted from an ND coach.

I think he will improve on the last 5 years - with the upgrade in recruiting, it's hard to imagine doing the same or worse. Whether he gets to a NC depends on how good a coach he is and how quickly he learns to become a head coach.

I'm already anticipating the 2022 starting with a loss - opening the season against the top QB and one of the top WRs in college football is not a recipe for a win. I'm certainly not going to get too worked up if season #1 has 3 or 4 losses, assuming every game looks competitive (well, except maybe OSU).

The Oklahoma State game shows some of the problems he may have. The team was well-prepared, but failed to adjust as the game went on and lost a very winnable game. The good news is that he can and should be better than Kelly, who was good enough to satisfy the AD, president,and BoT - but never win hard games. Freeman has all the natural abilities, personality, and charisma to rise to the top of his profession. He seems to demand accountability from all, even himself; and hopefully he is smart enough to learn from mistakes along the way and make hard decisions.

A risk well worth taking. Patience may be needed if we have issues at QB.

Leaving his cinder block of an OC aside, we simply don't have any idea about his football acumen and ability to go toe toe against elite coaches on raw football game planning and in game adjustments.

We are at absolute tabula rasa with these issues.

I think these issues are at least as important as fit, leadership, recruiting prowess, motivational skills, and charisma.

Kelly had exactly one strength: making trains run on time.

I guess, two. Rationlizing failure as the fault of the payers and/or institution.

I guess, three. Exploiting a compromised AD.

Which, if we are being honest, wasn’t really possible with the classes Kelly was bringing in from 2016-21 (using Blue Chip Ratio as a benchmark). That said, lots of teams with a Blue Chip Ratio of greater than 50% never sniff the playoff due to poor coaching, development, and culture.

I’m not clairvoyant enough to guess what will be most likely outcome but I’m more than happy to be rolling the dice with Freeman than continue the status quo with Kelly. At least we can plausibly see the promised land now.

OSU will probably win comfortably. I really need to see what improvements and mistakes Freeman makes. Are the good things substantive improvements, like good play calling and kickass OL blocking? Or are they flukey miracle plays that worked because of QB heroics combined with OSU's defense still shaking off the rust? Are the mistakes corrected or repeated throughout the game?

Like everyone else, I'm happy with Freeman's recruiting efforts and his zeal for the job. He's tireless and is clearly making recruits excited to come to ND. (Who was the player whose house Willingham stayed in for like 8 hours, practically uninvited? Yeesh. The contrast with Freeman is just nuclear bomb-striking.) I just really hope his recruiting matches his game day performance.

Willingham was an affirmative action hire; Freeman most definitely is not.

It appears that Freeman "gets" Notre Dame. Instead of making excuses for our unique characteristics, he embraces them. Culture matters, it might take three or four years but I believe he will get us in competition for the national title.

It began to trend upwards from the moment I saw the intro to the team. I've met and had good conversations with every ND head coach since Ara (didn't meet Divine) and yes some where after they left ND. My point is having met Coach Freeman it really feels like he has the right mentality and temperament to be as good of a ND coach as Ara or Lou. He certainly talks more like them in terms of accountability and culture. I never got that feeling with other coaches who for various reasons didn't understand the what the legacy of Notre Dame can bring to the program.

Do I feel Freeman is a 9 or 10 now? I'm not sure, but I feel that is a more likely place in the long run than a 7 or lower.

Faust was a better recruiter than Freeman can hope to be.

I didn't once mention recruiting. I'm talking about temperament and understanding of the University and the Football Legacy. I'm sure Faust loved/loves ND, but for various reasons I don't know that he "got" ND enough as a coach to be properly successful. I can't see players or students responding to him like they did/do Ara/Lou and now perhaps Freeman.

Davie and Ty sort of fell into the position, both in over their heads, and neither capable of self-assessment to bring in assistants capable of making up for their own shortcomings. Faust and Charlie both loved ND in their own sort of way and both desperately wanted to succeed at the position but neither could translate their previous experience to a college system. Kelly had a bit of both his "system" didn't fit and his "persona" didn't fit, his ego wouldn't let him "fail" and he was allowed to move the goalposts in order to keep his job. I've said before and will continue to say that any of the 4 I mentioned before would have killed for the treatment that Kelly received in his tenure.

I would say every ND coach I've ever talked with left me with at least a decently positive impression of them. That said, I could "feel" something off in the non-NC winning coaches that perhaps spoke to the flaws they had as leaders/coaches. I didn't really get that "feel" with Coach Freeman. However, this is only a first impression and I will be interested in if/how that changes in the next year or however long it is until I have a chance to talk with him again.

To go back to “everything about this program is doomed” levels of Crossian dialogue.

I defend NDN among other boards/ND fans when it is often called the old-man get-off-my-lawn back-in-1973 crowd, but these kinds of posts from you make it harder to do so.

Nobody knows if Freeman will do well at ND. We are simply saying it’s nice to go into the next few years with the possibility of a higher plane of achievement than the Kelly era. Maybe he ends up being in over his head. Maybe he can’t keep up this level of recruiting. Maybe Rees can only run Kelly’s shitbird offense. We don’t know any of that yet, though. The Oklahoma State game means nothing to me and it shouldn’t to anyone here. Give Freeman the three years test and see what he does. Using a tone like this before he has even coached a game(again, I don’t count that bowl game for a bevy of reasons that should be obvious) is ridiculous.

You’re one of my favorite posters on every other board, but this kind of thing is becoming exhausting to read on Rock’s.

Is fair, and mostly reliable (with a few, very few, exceptions).

And accurate thought.

You declared our new coach to be a vastly inferior recruiter than a guy from 40 years ago, when the new guy hasn’t even been around for a full cycle and is currently on pace to land a top 3-5ish class in the peak of the Wild West of the NIL era.

I’m the one displaying undisciplined and inaccurate thoughts that aren’t well grounded?

I think it would behoove you to listen more to a guy like Mike Frank, who you called “the most credible source and analyst of ND football for a quarter century”.

Results. Different era, different scholarship limits and roster size, less diffuse competition. We had remarkable talent, if not ideally distributed. Especially at the top end. Recruits like Allen Pinket, Greg Bell, the Francisco brothers, Allen Jefferson, Alvin Miller, Mark Brooks, Eric Dorsey, Brandy Wells, Tim Brown, Mike Larkin, Steve Beuerlein, this list goes on and on amd on and doesnt even include many elite OL or TE. Like Tony Hunter and Larry Williams

He has a decent shot at the #1 rated group. The QB (Moore) is the linchpin. His commitment will enable the staff to close on a couple of outstanding receivers. Both lines are shaping up to be the best we've had in years.

A pair of corners is a must but that should fall into place. We have one running back and have a couple of good options for a second. There are also a couple of skill position athletes we might take who can play in different spots.

Freeman's job is arguably harder than Faust's. The 85-man limit means he cannot have many recruiting misses, and the competition is more fierce. The SEC was hardly as dominant then as it is now, while the talent base has weakened in the Midwest and shifted to the South.

year under same. And yes, Faust started off with No. 1 or No. 2 recruiting classes from 1981 to 1983, including Alonzo Jefferson.

Even in the later years he got Parade All American like Mark Green, Frank Stams, Ned Bolcar (Parade defensive player of the year, etc., etc.) who formed the core of the 1988 leadership. He was a great recruiter and was very good at rounding up guys already anointed by recruiting analysts, but Holtz and Cerrato, et al, were better at making their own talent evaluations.

As you note, it was a different era, and Gerry's job was far easier. We were still "Notre Dame" and the recruits understood we were a team that had just won its 11th National Championship a few years ago, and had the highest winning percentage, the most national championships, the most All Americans, the most academic All Americans, the most Heisman Trophy winners, etc. We just had a run of 16 years with two future HOF coaches. Joe Montana was already winning Super Bowls.

Tonight I met an incoming Freshman student. He did not know who Knute Rockne or the Gipper were (let alone Leahy). He kept saying he did see Rudy many times though. I told him to watch Wake up the Echoes. The current recruits only know ND as a second rate program from before the time they were born. It's an incredibly harder sell now and Freeman is doing a great job. Don't take my word for it, ask any of those greats that Faust recruited because they know first hand how talented they were and are all in. You have decried taking low hanging fruit and Freeman now has a class with 12 guys in it already and none of them are three stars. Enjoy it while it lasts, there will be plenty of time to say you told us so later.

And somebody who was a bad fit and a royal douche from the get go, who also happened to have a shit offense as his secret weapon.

I have no way to predict what may happen on the field. So I can only hope.

Whereas I was certain that Kelly would chow ass.

whatever it was years with Kelly, consistently hating the guy from 2011 forward. Even in 2012, right after the Michigan win, I emailed a Michigan colleague and told him that was the last hurdle for Kelly until the bowl given our relatively weak schedule. I also told him that Alabama would then curb stomp us in the bowl game. Low and behold. Kelly never had a prayer of winning it all, or even exceeding his greatest bowl win over an 8-4 LSU team. It was 10 more years in purgatory. At least we have a chance now and with a guy I really like and want to see win.

Before Davie coached a down I had standard rant including about the knife in Holtz’s back and the fact that he would fail, and sat out his whole tenure. I was agnostic re Ty for about the first year or so. I drank the Kool Aid with Charlie and 2005 and 2006 were fun. As for Kelly, I remember seeing him on the TV coaching Cincy at the end of Charlie’s tenure. Kelly was turning purple over something and threw a kicker under the bus in an interview and I thought, “Oh no.” I heard him speak early on and it was akin to the DMV speech and I thought “Oh no.”

Long story short, other than 2005 -2006, it’s been about 26 years since I felt this good about the head coach. Guys from all eras, from Ara’s to the recent guys, are glowing about him. I know that’s not science but I think he is going to do well after some bumps as part the learning curve. It will be good to be all in rooting for him either way.

Job at Nd. Step 1 is loving ND as it is v wanting it to be something else. Sans that you can’t win at Nd at our desired level. Then it is the aptitude and desire I described in my post above.

Kelly could have had 22 starting 5 star players and still
Could not have won a title - because he was dead set on never fixing the offense. Freeman is very unlikely to repeatedly do something he sees is failing every time against elite teams. He unfortunately lacks the experience to already know what to do. He will have to cost us a title or two first by in game mistakes - but then he has that experience to learn how to not make those mistakes again.

Then layer in he can recruit at a Faust level so with elite talent and experience he can equal Holtz level results. I doubt the 3 year rule will work with him - title wise - but it will be clear by then if he is the real deal or not.

9 at the start of year

He's not like Ara or Lou who had years of successful HC experience behind him before ND so I do not expect immediate success.

As a new HC so I expect some growing pains over the next couple of years. head scratchers where we lose games we should have won. We've already seen him having HC issues at the bowl game and now in roster management.

At the bowl game, IMO, he was too hesitant to over rule his OC and DC to get the win. Now he isn't doing a great job of roster management since we have way too many long snappers and PK's on the 85 man roster and not enough WRs. BK wasn't too hot on this his first 5+ years but the last 5 he really concentrated in getting kids their degrees after 3 years in order to get them to move on if they were not contributing.

Once MF he gets his sea legs, after about 2-3 years, with his emphasis and skill on recruiting I think he'll be a solid 8. And in a few years after that, I do hope he can grow both him and his staff to earn a 9 rating.

Q

But I would take it every day of the week and twice on Saturday over Kelly. After two seasons under his belt as a head coach we can take a look and see where he is. Maybe he'll be a 9, or a 7 or remain a 5. 1st time head coaches are not super successful very often, and Freeman very well could be no different. But at least I like the guy and like that he is cognizant of what it means to coach football at Notre Dame. He'll have a good honeymoon period to see where his recruiting goes and how much he learns about coaching at the top levels of NCAA football.

For me is the first time since Lou Holtz that we have a coach that is this genuine. Brian Kelly was a mustard stain on his dress shirt South Boston used car salesman trying to sell you a stolen Ford Taurus. When Freeman speaks you can tell that his statements are thoughtful and direct. This guy cares. This.year will probably be rough but I think we will succeed in the long run.

He’s been thrown into the deep end without the luxury of selecting his full crew. We won’t know how good he can be until he’s allowed to choose his coaching staff - which may not happen at ND.

Unless things go downhill in a big way this year, which I deem unlikely for several reasons, he'll get a chance to hire his own OC pretty quickly. Whatever people here think of Rees, he appears to be a coach who's in demand, so another year of results comparable to the last two and someone will probably hire him as a head coach.

Zero evidence. Kelly wanted him. That is all.

For me, he has restored some of that magic that ND football had. He appears to be making the right moves now with recruiting, coaches, alumni etc.. This is a big jump over Kelly. There will be some tough times, but the future looks bright.

success for post-Rockne HC's at ND. Leahy, Devine, and Holtz won major bowls at other programs before winning titles at ND. Parseghian got N'western to its only #1 ranking in program history and he did very well @ Miami U.

Brennan, Faust, Davie & CW had no experience as a CFB HC. TW was 44-36 at the Farm (including 2 narrow wins over Davie ND teams that could've gone the other way). He was the only ND HC w/ prior CFB experience between 1997-2009.

BK's pre-ND tenure was roughly consistent w/ his ND tenure. His pre-ND record in top tier bowls was 100% consistent w/ his ND record.

Perhaps Freeman will defy past trends. I do note that he's the only ND HC to hold a lead in the 2d half of a top-tier bowl since 1/1/96.

Leahy, Parseghian, Devine, or Holtz.

There is no correlation between prior FBS head coaching success and future success in the modern game. However, you could argue that you need said success at Notre Dame specifically. Even there, though, I would say that's a case of correlation not equaling causation. Can anyone point to why you need that experience specifically at Notre Dame to win big versus, say, USC, Georgia, Clemson, etc?

If Kirby Smart came here instead of Georgia, does anyone doubt he'd be doing an outstanding job in South Bend?

The fact of the matter is that unless you're hiring someone like Saban or Meyer(not at all realistic at this point) anyone you hire is a gamble. Including those with decades of experience at the FBS head coaching level.

However, I don't think it is comparable to Davie, TW, or Weis. I felt only disgust for Davie, and zero confidence in Willingham and Weis. I feel much more confident with Freeman. Well, now we will see.

Dabo Swinney, Kirby Smart, Ryan Day, Lincoln Riley (at Oklahoma), Luke Fickell (unless you count his interim year at OSU, which I don’t really), Mike Gundy, Dave Aranda, Kyle Whittingham, Jimbo Fisher (at FSU, national champions). The head coaching experience group would include Saban of course and then I guess Harbaugh, Campbell, Kelly, Kiffin, Franklin, Ferentz (for three years at Maine in the early 90s, which isn’t much), Mack Brown and Cristobal? To me, the former group looks better than the latter overall. I’m possibly/likely forgetting some coach(es) on either list.

There have also been plenty of hot shot coaches that had success at Group of 5/lower Power 5 schools as head coaches who then failed as head coaches at more prestigious Power 5 schools (Tom Herman, Charlie Strong, Dan Mullen, Justin Fuente, Rich Rod, Hoke and our own Al Golden [who I think was a great DC hire for many reasons, including, ironically, his experience/lessons from failure at Miami], just to name a few).

To support a flimsy point.

You included more tha
several coaches who are far from "top tier".

Good grief.

I named all the coaches who could reasonably be considered the best in the game at the moment, and *then* listed if they are first-time coaches or have previous experience.

Go ahead and tighten the list. Obviously Saban’s at the top. He of course had experience prior to Bama (and LSU). But I think Swinney, Smart and Day would be in most top-five lists. They’re all first-time head coaches. I was overinclusive in my initial list, but if anything, if you tighten the list, the only “elite” current head coach with previous experience is Nick Saban.

If you want to say it’s not fair that I’m only including current college coaches and leaving out others like Meyer, Tressel, Carroll, etc., then that’s fine (although Bob Stoops from that generation was also a first-time head coach). From the current crop of what most would consider the best coaches in the game, about half, if not majority, are first-time head coaches.

It’s not a flimsy point. The point is simply that you don’t need to have previous head coaching experience to win/contend for a championship.

Since 2000, seven of the thirteen coaches who have won a title came to their teams having never been a head coach at the FBS level.

One could say that you have the same odds of striking gold by gambling on a newbie than you would by trying to go the route of experienced head coach.

For starters, who are we considering to be top tier right now? Saban is clearly #1(in history, not just now). Meyer is out of the game now but he would be #2. Then Dabo and Kirby. After that? It’s a lot more unclear.

So if the idea is that there are only 4 elite coaches right now, then 50% of them were first time HCs. If we expand it to the top 20 or so, it’s about 40% or so.

I don’t think it’s a ridiculous premise to say “first time head coaches have about the same rate of success as ones who have been head coaches previously”.

I’d take the chances of an unproven first time head coach to be great over an experienced head coach who has shown no indications of greatness.

The rating wasn’t specific to Freeman - I think I’d put a 4 next to any first time head coach. Though maybe a 3 for one with no major college recruiting experience.

As favorable to Freeman.

But he can recruit, which is 90% of the equation. Kirby Smart said it best:

“If you don't recruit, there's no coach out there that can out-coach recruiting,” Smart said. “I don't care who you are. The best coach to ever play the game better be a good recruiter because no coaching is going to out-coach players. Anybody will tell you that our defense is good because we have good players.”

I don’t put any stock in the Oklahoma State game. We were missing our two best players and I don’t think that you can say that’s what the staff wants to do moving forward based on one hastily prepped transition bowl game.

Still, I fear that Freeman and Rees are going to have some tough growing pains. I wish they both had far more experience. But, it’s going to be so sweet to see us land a top 3 class(and one higher than LSU) in his first year.

I was told over the weekend that if ND lands Dante Moore, Charles Jagusah, Monroe Freeling and Rodney Gallagher - and they're somewhere between favored and heavily favored for all 4 at the moment - that the class will already have outpaced last year's recruiting class in cumulative score on 247Sports. And that class itself was bumped up a few spots because of Freeman's recruiting work as DC.

Makes me worry; but then I think about coaches like Swinney and Kirby Smart that lacked HC experience who recruited well and had some rough patches but walked up the learning and got a national. We may see something similar with Freeman. I find him very likeable and he seems to be doing a lot of things right. Now though he has to prove it out on the field. I would urge patience here. I know its a cliche, but he's got a low floor and a high ceiling.

And people tend to forget now that Dabo was basically Brian Kelly the first six years he coached at Clemson. It wasn’t so long ago that the term used to shit your pants in a big game was called “Clemsoning”.

Of course this is a rabid college fanbase so I expect a lot of overreaction and hyperbole when we don’t win a title next year.

he would be wise to avoid overthinking the challenge and being too clever by half.

If he can get the team to be well-conditioned, focused on fundamentals, disciplined (e.g., few penalties and mental errors), aggressive, and motivated, I believe he has the talent to win at least 10 games in 2022.

If he ignores all of that in favor of reliance on some schematic wizardry or 4D chess tactics on game day, then we could lose four or five games.

I am basing this on the recruiting Freeman and his staff are currently doing. I also have slightly more optimism than most on this board about Rees. For all the "he's a first time OC" chatter here, he is going into his third year as our playcaller. I think there are things he has learned along the way. I have a feeling that the Ok St game in January is a bit of an outlier. Plus with a mobile quarterback like Buchner, I think ND will run the ball more this season. Estime seems like a solid RB, too. Talent will need to be developed and I think we'll have some tough losses (at least 3) in 2022. But there's no reason not to be optimistic for the futer.

Freeman may end up being a great coach, but he was essentially gifted the job because Swarbrick did not want to conduct an actual coaching search.

ND also seems to be taking a back seat on NIL.

Low expectations are not due to Freeman, but the fact that those in charge are acting like a mid level program and not a team that wants to be elite.

He gets ND and tireless recruiter. I don't think there will be head scratching losses, but, at the same time, he will be much more competitive against Ohio St and Clemson than Kelly was.

He'll learn a few things that will advance him to a 7 going on 8 the following year.

After that? Let's see who he gets in that 2023 and 2024 class and what he has to work with.

Also, by 2024, which assistants will still be there and which won't.

OT:He's in Tampa Monday speaking to the ND Club in the same downtown building where I work. I only have an elevator ride up 28 floors.

Freeman ranks high on five critical factors in my view: 1) He has charisma. Ara showed us its importance. 2) He can recruit. Half the battle. 3) Confident. Impressed when he hired Golden, his equal or superior, in his area of expertise. 4) Hard Worker. Appears to be a 24/7 guy. 5) Can assemble a good staff. Liked his O Line and Defensive Coordinator hires. I have more confidence in Tommy as OC than most on this board who blast him for the second half of the Ok State game. Overlooked is the fact that ND scored more points against Ok State than any of the opposing teams on their schedule. If Tommy doesn't come through, no reason to think Freeman won't replace him.

Hope I am right. Whatever, Best of luck to our new head coach. Go Irish!!!

He was there to talk about the two first-round UGA pick-ups made by the Packers, but the conversation drifted to UGA in general and he said when Kirby Smart got to Georgia he told his staff that recruiting was the #1 priority. I think Freeman understands that and has the magic mojo.

I have no illusions about 2022, what with Tyler Buchner only playing twice on the road last year (4-4 for 38 yards) and we are opening on the road against a QB (CJ Stroud) who some expect to the #1 overall draft pick next year coupled with a WR who some project to go in the top 10 of the draft. We have two difficult road games against very good coaches.

That said, I have higher hopes for 2023 because Buchner will have another year under his belt and more of Freeman's guys will be in the house. Therefore, I am in the 8-8.5 range. Could we see a Weis 2.0 or Ty 2.0 where they start out great but then fade away? Absolutely.

the “deer in the headlights” look that MF had
in the second half against OSU as the defense
was giving up 650 yards, and the offense completely
abandoned running the ball gave me pause.

Only non-game thing I haven't liked so far is scheduling Tennessee State, but I don't know if he requested it or if Jack had decided to schedule a shit program and asked Freeman for input on which one.

well, I certainly wouldn't select it, but why not dream, eh?

Memories of Gerry Faust are still fresh and painful.

I think we may drop a game this year that BK wouldn’t, but I think we have a better chance against OSU and Clemson than BK would.

I think after a few years, we will have the talent to win a national championship, but (without having seen him be the HC for anything more than a bowl prep/game in unusual circumstances) I don’t think it’s correct or fair to say it’s “very likely”.

ETA: One other thing I’ll add: if Freeman fizzles out, which I hope doesn’t happen not just for our sake, but for his too (because he seems like a great guy who loves ND), he’s ALREADY proven BK’s “shopping down a different aisle” rubbish was a bunch of crap. MF could literally go 0-24 and be fired at the end of the 2023 season and, at least, he has proven ND can still recruit at an elite level, which so many people (both internally - i.e., most of the fanbase, Swarbrick, etc. - and externally) didn’t think was possible due to Kelly’s BS to lower the expectations/pressure on himself. That alone would be a pretty big deal when hiring the next coach.

I have high hopes. He appears to be a quality person who gets ND. I will be rooting hard for him. He appears to have the emotional qualities and football IQ I would hope for. I was asked by a Virginia Tech booster what I thought about him before Kelly’s departure because he was high on their radar. I replied he is a crap shoot. The fact that Holtz era guys are fully on board is encouraging. He needs to realize that he is the guy and is in charge and can not afford to defer to Rees or Swarbrick. He can’t help but be an improvement over Brian Kelly

Wouldn't say an NC is likely, especially with the SEC using NIL money to become NFL lite. But we'll have more talent that should make an impact 2-4 years out. And with Al Golden at DC we should stay in most games.

The question mark is the Rees offense.

Being purely rational, ND is simply not a learn-on-the-job institution. As much as I have bought into Freeman the human being, delivering results on the field is not easy. My guess is we will drop a couple of head-scratchers in the first year.

My genuine hope is that while we lose a game we shouldn't we also win a game we wouldn't have under Kelly. I think Freeman needs something like that to keep recruiting rolling and get the talent to level up while he grows into the role.

Worst case scenario is we go something like 8-4 or 7-5 and can't sustain the recruiting, leaving us with both a talent and coaching experience issue.

Having said all that, I haven't cared this much about ND football in, quite literally, a decade. I desperately want to believe that Freeman embracing ND in the way that he has will lead to results because if he does ND will return to its rightful place as a leader in college football and the sports world in general.

Really hard to project but I'd feel a lot more optimistic without Rees as the OC. I love Freeman's personality but a first time OC and HC (whose focus is on defense) is a lot to overcome. With a more experienced OC we win the bowl game easily, as the second half offensive game plan showed his inexperience and struggle to anticipate needed adjustments despite a brilliant first half.

In my opinion the Ohio State game is going to be an excellent barometer for what we're in for the next couple years barring any major changes.

That is based strictly on game day coaching questions. I suspect that we will need to be patient with him as he gains experience.

I think he will be a great recruiter and I like the guy very much. I really like the fact that he has embraced Notre Dame and he seems to understand it better in his one year on campus than Kelly did in his way too many years on campus.

I am still very happy that he is our coach and Kelly is gone.

Hopes would be higherif he had a more proven staff and did not have an OC who may try to out Kelly Kelly

Experienced as a head coach in college and an NFL defensive assistant. Good person who doesn't have a huge ego.

If only we had a similar type at OC. Hiestand has experience but stays in his OLine silo. I doubt he'll exert much influence on Rees.

that Freeman should exert at least some sort of veto power over TRs play calling.

"Tommy, we've passed the ball 10 straight times."

"But Marcus, the defense is giving it to us."

"run it."

That imaginary conversation did not happen during the Fiesta Bowl. I hope that will change.

I think Al is very happy to be at ND and calling his own Defense. He has been around the block but knows this is Freemans show.

That said he is a senior memember of this staff along with Harry but knows to stay in his lane and be available when needed.

Its a nice balance and Freeman knows he has a trusted and tested guy to lean on when needed.

If we keep recruiting at the current pace Golden knows he has a jackpot potential to have a lights out D.

I would think he wants to stick around for whats to come.