The Notre Dame Fighting Irish had a really good defense in 2024 en route to a national title game appearance. In 2025, that defense has arguably been the team’s Achilles heel amid a 1-2 start that has already pushed their 2025 CFP hopes to the brink. Despite that, Marcus Freeman isn’t going to take over playcalling.
Marcus Freeman isn’t going to take over playcalling for Notre Dame defense
Through three games, this Notre Dame defense is clearly not as good as last year’s version. Al Golden, the coordinator, left for the NFL, and in his place, Chris Ash has not been able to replicate the success. Still, Marcus Freeman isn’t taking over playcalling duties on that side of the ball.
“Trust me, I know the definition of insanity and, if that was the case, you’ve got to do what’s best for the program,” Freeman said via ESPN. “That’s not, to me, the issue when I’m evaluating our defensive play. It’s not what we’re calling at this time, or why we’re calling it. It’s why aren’t we executing it?”
He believes that times are certainly tough, but his team has two options: to fight or fly. “Guys that flight blame other people,” he said. He believes it’s foolish to blame the playcall or blame someone else, be it a coach or player, when things go wrong. Deflecting blame helps nothing, but being proactive, fight mode, is accepting a mistake and vowing that it won’t happen again, no matter what.
“We’ve got one of two options, as I told them: ‘We’re going to do this and get our guys better and believe in what we’re doing, or we’ll separate. And if we separate, it’s not going to be good for anybody,'” Freeman went on. “That’s got to trickle down to our players.”
Notre Dame has allowed 97 points in three games. It took them eight weeks to allow that many points last year, so it’s clear where the change has occurred from last year to this year. How much longer Freeman can get by with that sort of performance remains to be seen.
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