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).