Everything Notre Dame football coach Marcus Freeman said to preview spring practice | Transcript

Notre Dame football coach Marcus Freeman spoke to reporters Wednesday to discuss the program’s offseason and the transition to spring practice, which will begin Friday and culminate in the Blue-Gold Game on April 25.

Freeman’s press conference followed sessions for reporters with Notre Dame director of football performance Loren Landow and associate athletic director of sports medicine Rob Hunt. Click here for a full rundown of Notre Dame’s injury report heading into spring practice.

A full transcript of Freeman’s press conference is below. Questions may be paraphrased. Answers are slightly edited for clarity.

Marcus Freeman’s opening statement

Freeman: “Obviously, my opening doesn’t need to be long. We went through most of the things we usually talk about in the opening. So, it’s been a great winter conditioning, winter development stage. We have an unbelievable team. And when I’m talking about team, I’m not talking about players right now. I’m talking about the guys you just talked to: Rob Hunt, Loren Landow, our sport performance team, [director of football sports nutrition] Alexa Appelman. I can go on and on, with what they do. They’re professionals in what they do, but the investment that they make into our players is why our guys have really been able to develop and to ultimately get close to reaching that full potential.

“We wrapped up today with really our last ‘football school.’ They’ll have a meet-lift-flip tomorrow and we’ll get into practice on Friday. But they’re excited. They’re ready. They’re ready to practice and be done with the winter conditioning stuff, and continue to develop. The focus has to be, how do we continue to develop this team and get them ready for the fall?”

Q: You’ve hit on the importance of having both of your coordinators back for the first time in your tenure. We know that probably pays dividends in the season, but why is that a good thing right now in March?

Freeman: “Well, I think for the guys that have been here, they’re at a different level in understanding what’s expected. You don’t have to start back over. We saw last year — for me, it was going through the experience of, okay, we might have position coaches back, you might have players back, but you may change the coordinator, it still takes time. Certain terminology changes. Certain expectations change.

“And so, to have both of those guys back, our special teams coordinator back, and then players in important positions — very position’s important, but obviously the quarterback position’s important — that understands the expectations, understands the terminology. You’re able to really be developed at a different level than you were previously. And we were able to do some of the football schools, the schematic things, farther ahead than we would if it’s a new coordinator.

Q: With the coaching changes you did have to make (DL, DBs, LBs), what have you seen from the new guys that lets you know, ‘We’re going to be who we were last year’?

Freeman: “You know, a lot of the evaluation is done before you make hires. You have to do thorough evaluations of the personnel that you bring into the football program, whether that’s a coach or a player. I knew through those evaluations, the interviews and the discussions, that we were bringing in the right people. They’re great people, but also great football coaches, great technicians.

“And what you’ve seen is them invest the time into understanding what’s expected schematically, in their meetings with [defensive coordinator] Coach [Chris] Ash, but also reinvesting in our players. I remember when I first came up here in ‘21, my family was still in Cincinnati. Part of it, yeah, you miss your family, but there’s also that you have nothing else to do but to be in the office. And so, if players come by at night, players have free time to come and meet with the coaches, it gives you a chance to connect with those guys, and just talk about different things, coaching and expectations.

“And so, the thing I see is, when I walk around that office — it might be 8, 9 at night — and there’s players and players, just asking their coach to meet, talking, watching film, going over different things. It’s not only making the players better through fundamentals, but also it’s giving the coach a chance to learn what the players know and the expectations that he has for the players.

Q: For the 2025 team, the playoff situation didn’t finish well.

Freeman: “There was no playoff situation.”

Q: For the ’26 team, are there benefits to having a longer, extended offseason?

Freeman: “Yeah, are there benefits? Absolutely. And I probably got up here last year after we played the national championship game, and you would ask a similar question. I would’ve said, ‘Yeah, the benefits of playing that late in the season because of the practices that you go through.’ But this has been a unique offseason for me to see, because we’ve never had this much time. We’ve never had this development, that full eight weeks of being in the weight room, the meetings, the football schools, the individual drills. We’re at a different level than I’ve previously seen us at.

“But, one of the discussions we have amongst coaches is, are we looking at shifting the calendar? Is there a way to shift the calendar so we all get those eight weeks of winter conditioning, and don’t feel like you’re not as developed all year if you make a playoff run? And so, we’ll see what the future holds in terms of the calendar, but there’s been a lot of benefits for this group to have those eight weeks of uninterrupted training.

Q: You have over 30 new players, which is unique. What are the challenges for the coaches and the training staff that to bring the team together, and how has your leadership been among the players?

Freeman: “Yeah, I think the leadership has been tremendous. This is the first time for me to have two returning captains. We’ve got a bunch of guys that have played that are leaders, that wanna be leaders and understand those expectations. As far as the new additions, I think we have to be very intentional to start, to separate the new guys from the guys that have been training in your program, because you have be able to evaluate where they’re at.

“Whether that’s college transfers or it’s high school guys, they need they need individual time or their own group with our strengths staff, with our medical team, and our nutritionists and all those different areas. When you feel like they’re ready to join the guys that have been here, the veterans, you integrate them. For some guys, it might have been a week or two, and for some guys, it was three or four weeks. But you have to be intentional about, we can’t train these new guys the way we train guys that have been here right away until you know what their bodies can handle. I’ve been very pleased with how we handle that, and everybody has obviously transitioned to one group now in terms of the way we train and the way we run things.

Q: The quarterback conversation is different this spring, with CJ Carr obviously as the No. 1. How do you go into spring and make sure you understand what Blake Hebert and Noah Grubbs can do?

Freeman: “Yeah, obviously CJ will get the reps with the ones. But, how do you — you have threes in certain positions, and you don’t. So, we have to be intentional about where can we script drills or periods where we have a third group, and where can we only have two groups? And if we only have two groups, now we have to rotate those guys with the second group.

“And so, it’s no different than last spring when you have three quarterbacks in a true quarterback battle. It’s about how you’re intentional with scripting practice to get the right amount of looks or reps to evaluate for the guys in our competition. CJ has to get his work in. We know that. But also, we got to see how Blake and Noah handle their opportunities in practice, and we got to be intentional about the way we script.

Q: You have big shoes to fill at running back, and some guys missing this spring at that position. How do you approach spring at running back?

Freeman: “Yeah, we had to add some depth there, just to practice. We got a couple new guys that joined the team. We had a couple walk-ons join the team. We had tryouts, and they’ll help us in terms of numbers. Because, obviously to be able to run the ball, yeah, the guy with the ball in his hands, but those big guys up front and the wideouts blocking on the perimeter all contribute to success running the football. And so, okay, maybe we have a guy that might not be competing to be our starting running back carrying the ball. We can still evaluate and really improve those guys that will be blocking for the running back.

“The guys that are healthy, they’ll get plenty of opportunities but we can’t kill them either. We can’t put so much load on those guys that they have diminishing returns. We have to be able to spread the workload, and one of the important things for us to do is to get a couple guys at least to give us reps, so we can practice and develop the depth of our team.

Q: What are your thoughts on the nickel position, and how viable is Christian Gray as an option?

Freeman: “He’s a viable option. We’re gonna play him at nickel. We’ll play Dallas Golden as nickel. We sprinkled a couple guys there through football school. We’re not super deep right now in the DB position, period. And so, we’ve got to be able to rotate guys in different positions, but we feel confident in Christian Gray at nickel. We obviously know Dallas can do it. We’re going to rotate those guys, both inside and outside.”

Q: One of the things that you’ve liked to do since you’ve been the coach here is question everything.

Freeman: “Challenge everything.”

Q: Yeah, challenge everything. In terms of your own vision for this program, what were your top priorities in terms of that?

Freeman: “I think I mentioned in the last press conference: how do we find a way to start faster? That’s a general term, right? Start fast in a game, start fast in a season. We know we want to do that. But what is our process? Let’s evaluate our process over the past four years in terms of what we’ve done in terms of the weight room, what we’ve done in terms of practicing, some of the analytical numbers and really challenge those things to hopefully produce a better result.

“We won’t know. We don’t know until you go out there and play and you have a season and you look back. It’s always when you look back that you say, OK, here’s where we have to find a way to be better. That’s something that’s really important. How do we practice in a way that we have to practice to develop as a team? But also you want to prevent as many injuries as you can. Availability is pretty important, and it’s a double-edged sword because you can’t walk through, you can’t practice soft and expect your team to be prepared for what’s ahead. So, we have to practice with physicality.

“We’ve got to challenge all of us, myself included. How do we continue to challenge us to understand and believe that choosing the struggle, the struggle will help you grow, will help you improve, and then be willing to do it? Every individual. I’m just thinking about things that I’ve continued to challenge myself and the team to do is to understand. Do you believe that you’ve got to choose hard every day? You’ve got to choose the struggle. You’ve got to choose things that are going to challenge you mentally and physically. First you’ve got to believe that, then you’ve got to be willing to do it. You’ve got to do it.

“How can I find ways as a leader in this program to be uncomfortable every day? And there’s only limited physical things I can do. I’m not playing anymore. But mentally studying, discussions, evaluations, like how do I find a way to evaluate everything we’re doing so that we can be better? We need everybody in our program to have that mentality. All those different things are things we’re evaluating, I’m challenging our program to do.”

Q: With the mindset of challenge everything and starting faster, specifically as it relates to spring ball, what kinds of tweaks or changes did you make to your process there?

Freeman: “We looked at what time we start. Coaches always want more time. We want to practice more. We want more meeting time. Well, coaches are greedy. There’s NCAA rules about how much time you get. And then there’s also, I want our guys to be rested. I want our guys to make sure they’re prepared to have a good day and they can give us what we want.

“We evaluate what time we’re starting meetings a certain day. When you have certain veteran guys coming back, like we’ve had probably more individual drill time in these eight weeks than we’ve ever had, because we started right away. So, we’ve had a chance to have individual drills. So, how much more individual drills do we need during practice? That’s something we’ve talked about.

“OK, we can have more team periods. We’re going to do more football. We’re going to do more good-on-good to evaluate different things. Where is the runway? Because we’ve had this really good offseason, how much runway do we have to ramp? Usually you start with what if we go eight or nine periods and we build up to 15, 20 periods. OK, well, we feel like we’ve had a good eight weeks. These guys should be ready for 10, 11, 12 periods to start.

“That’s all the feedback that I get with our sport performance team. And then you create the practice bases and you build it. We’re going to have more time for football dedicated to actually 11-on-11, 7-on-7, inside run drills, because we feel like they’re at a level that they’re ready to handle that.”

Q: I think this is the first time we’ve talked to you since quarterback Teddy Jarrard signed. Even though he’s not going to be here until the summer, what made it right for both you as a program and Teddy to reclassify? How could he potentially factor into the backup competition despite not coming until June?

Freeman: “It was something that Teddy had brought up to us and his family. They felt like it was right for him. And then we had to have dialogue with our admissions to see if this was possible. Then everybody gave the thumbs up.

“We want to try to keep four quarterbacks on scholarship. And so, bringing him in in June, we felt there’s enough spread between Blake going into his second year and then Noah being here in January and Teddy being here in June. At the end of the day, you let them compete.

“We wouldn’t have signed Teddy if we didn’t think he was a great player. He’s a really, really good player. He’s a Notre Dame kid. He understands the things this place stands for. He’s going to have a great career. I’m looking forward to seeing what he does when he gets here.”

Q: Have you decided that you’re just going to go with the young guys as the backup quarterback or are you going to evaluate what happens this spring? The pickings are slim for any other quarterback that’s out there. What is your plan?

Freeman: “Are you talking about like for next year, transfer portal? Is that what you’re asking?”

Q: Yeah, would you still try to bring in an elder quarterback with all the young guys that you have on the roster?

Freeman: “If from now until December you did not feel like you have a future starting quarterback in the program, you have to. I have a strong conviction, and I started that last year, that we’ve recruited well enough that our next starting quarterback, which could be this year if something happens to CJ, is right here in this program. I have a strong conviction of that.

“But you’ve got to get through the season and evaluate. Do we believe the future starting quarterback is here in this program? I do. I say this right now: I have a strong conviction. You’ll add Teddy in June. You’ll put these guys in game-like situations, see how they perform.

“Again, I want to continue to major in developing our quarterbacks in-house and not having to go get a transfer portal quarterback. But I’ve still got to make decisions that we believe is best for the program.”

Q: You’ve said that you want the freshmen and transfers coming into the program to feel the pain that the returning players experienced last season. How did you come up with that? How did you disseminate that opinion to the new guys?

Freeman: “I’m sure when you heard that, I used the example of my wife. It’s how do you relate the things we ask you to do in the game of football to real life. Because there’s so many parallels. There’s so many parallels.

“Using that example into a marriage. There’s expectations in relationships. At least that goes for my house, me and my wife. I’ve often said if she does not like somebody, I might not dislike that person, but I can’t be friends with them. I have to go home and see her every day. No, I can’t. There’s expectations here.

“So, we have to get the new coaches, the new players, the ones that weren’t here to understand that relationship. We’re in a relationship. This is a family. This is a brotherhood. So certain things that have happened in our past, they happened to you too, right? You have to be able to keep that pain. You have to feel that pain that we had when they told us that we didn’t make the playoff.

“You can’t sit here and go, that was them. No, that was us. When you come here, I don’t care if you’re here for a year or for five years or six years. You’ve joined. You put everything in the past and said I’m joining this family and this brotherhood. That’s what I mean when I say it.

“It’s a way of getting them to say, you know what, I’m choosing to put Notre Dame in front of myself. My journey to Notre Dame might have been different than Coach Freeman’s journey. But we’re all in this thing together now. So, some of the traumatic things that have happened in the past, they happened to us. We have to use that in certain situations when we talk about motivating, we talk about choosing hard and those type of things. We have to use that. I think more than anything it’s to get them a way to say, you know what, put self away. I’m putting family and putting Notre Dame in front of myself.”

Q: I think the last time we talked to you, you left us with the message that you’d given the team of leave no doubt this year. Over the last eight weeks, can you give us some examples that indicate to you that the players are dealing with that process the way you want?

Freeman: “I want it more than anything to be an everyday mindset. I want it to be an everyday mindset that we leave no doubt that we made the most of what we had today. And if you accumulate that over the course of months and months and months, we’ll see if we left no doubt that we reached our full potential. But talking about that, it’s just a phrase right now, right?

“It’s just, ‘Hey, leave no doubt.’ But I came with that when I … I don’t want to lose … How do I use that situation that happened in December and not lose it? I think you lose it when you blame somebody else for the situation you have. It is so easy to blame somebody. That’s what’s human nature. Let’s blame the CFP committee. Let’s blame X, Y and Z for what happened.

“But when we own it and we say, ‘You know what? We left doubt. We left doubt. We sleep in the bed that we made, that we left out that we should be in the playoffs.’ Then I think you can use it, right? You can use it in motivation, you can use it in terms of everyday struggles.

“So, that’s kind of the mindset of the thought process of when I kind of said that, but I want them to use it today. You left no doubt that you made the most of this opportunity you had today. Remember, we had football school today. You leave no doubt that you were the best version of yourself today. And then today will be yesterday and tomorrow, we got to leave no doubt, but I can use that and why am I not playing? You left doubt? Why am I not the starter?

“You left doubt. Leave no doubt. We’re not going to make decisions. You make the decision. Leave no doubt in decisions that need to be made. And so I think we can use that as individuals. We can use that as a team. We can use that in life. Leave no doubt. It’s up to us. It’s up to me, not up to somebody else.”

Q: You talked a lot about your backup quarterbacks, the two that are here now, and obviously Teddy coming in in the summer. How much stock do you put in needing to determine the No. 2 versus letting all three of them kind of learn and develop? Finding a No. 2 and finding a starter beyond Carr are two different things. How do you try and do both at the same time?

Freeman: “Yeah, I think you’re going to have a three-way battle for who’s going to be the backup quarterback because at some point before the season starts, you have to name a backup quarterback because the backup quarterback, if CJ stays healthy, the backup quarterback at any moment could be a starter. So that guy has to know, prepare, and take all the two reps in practice. But that doesn’t mean you’re going to be the starter next year.

“We need to make sure that we name a backup quarterback for the start of the season when that time comes. But the competition of who’s going to be the starting quarterback next year is going to go all the way until there is no doubt who that person is.

Q: What’s the meaning of God, Country, Notre Dame to you? What’s the meaning of those words in 2026 to you, to recruits when you bring it up, to families, and how special is it because there’s no God, Country, Oklahoma?

Freeman: “I think that phrase to every individual could be different, right? To me, when I hear God, Country, Notre Dame, it stops with God and my faith and understanding how blessed I am and why I’m here. And for me, my faith is so important, right? Then the country, the ability to live in this country, the things I’ve learned growing up in this country, the ability to have gratitude, right? I’m not getting politics. I’m just talking about having gratitude. Just gratitude to be a part of this country and this world.

“And then Notre Dame, I think of gratitude. I think of gratitude. I think of what Notre Dame represents. I think of no matter if you’re a student, no matter if you’re an athlete, no matter if you’re a coach, an employee, this place can change your life if you let it. I mean, I’ve said that in my opening press conference, and I believe that in my heart, if you let this place change your life, it will.

“And I have gratitude to be a part of this place. I have gratitude to be a part of a place that can impact so many for good. And I’m grateful. More than anything, I’m grateful. When I hear that thought, God, Country, Notre Dame, there’s a lot of gratitude.”

Q:  What effect did the recent celebration of Coach Lou Holtz’s life have on you and maybe anybody else in your circle who came across his former players? Were any special requests made by any of those former champions?

Freeman: “No, Monday was an opportunity to celebrate a life of a special individual, and that’s what every individual that came back was here to do. And I remember sitting in Basilica at Mass, and you’re hit with a whole bunch of emotions and every person probably got hit differently, but to realize the impact that that one person had on everybody in the Basilica was, Wow, I’m grateful that I got a chance to be impacted by him. I didn’t get a chance to play for Coach Holtz. I didn’t get a chance to coach for Coach Holtz, but I did get the opportunity to be influenced by him. And I’ve said this to people that were there at the celebration of life, that to me, leadership is influence, right? And the greatest evaluation of a leader is how you lead during tough times. And that’s who Coach Holtz was for me.

“During the toughest of times, every Sunday after the loss, I knew his call was coming and it wasn’t a magical message, right? He just always say, ‘I’ll give you my opinion, never any advice.’ But whatever he said in that moment is what I needed to hear. And I’m grateful I had the opportunity to be influenced by Coach. And it’s special being around all those former players because I wouldn’t be standing here in a position that I’m in and I’m talking about the position of head coach at Notre Dame, like where it is. And I wouldn’t be standing here if it wasn’t for every coach that came before me, if it wasn’t for those players that have become before us. Our football program’s at a position because of all those guys. And so it’s so great when they come back because this is their home and I want them to always know that and they know that.

“They hear it from me enough that come back because this is your home. You’re a part of Notre Dame football and this football program, and it was awesome to get a chance to see a lot of them.”

Q: In your quest for personal improvement every year, you’ve gone and you’ve visited different people or you’ve done different things. What did you do this offseason?

Freeman: “Some of it, I’ll keep private, but I’ve done so much. I’ve done so many different things and I wish, like in this moment I could say this one thing was the best … I know a lot of people see me at those basketball games, right? And it’s more than just sitting on the court and watching these guys play. That’s entertaining for me, right? I get a lot out of that, but to be able to always spend time with the coaches, even some players when I’m out recruiting.

“Those are moments that are valuable for me to be able to say, ‘Okay, give me your secret sauce. Why are you in this situation? What have you learned? Give me advice.’ It’s a different sport, but it’s still leadership. It’s still making yourself better and making those around you better. And so those are the things that I spent a lot of time with different people when I was on the road recruiting, depending on what city I was in, that just being able to be a sponge and take notes and listen to the wisdom of a lot of successful people has helped me tremendously.”

Q: You mentioned you brought in walk-ons for the running back group. Your linebacker corps got thinned out quite a bit too with injuries. What steps have you taken there?

Freeman: “Well, we haven’t added any walk-ons in that room. As you look at the majority of the time right now, not just college football, but if we’re facing our offense, you’ll see a lot of 11 personnel. So if we’re seeing 11 personnel, you’re going to see nickel. So you’re only going to see two backers on the field. So you’re not going to maybe see as much rotating as you would if everybody was healthy. But I think we have plenty of depth there.

“And if our offense is going to go 12 personnel and get big, then maybe we only have two groups because we don’t have enough linebackers to go three groups of three linebackers. So we just got to be intentional about that. Jack, you asked a question earlier about practice and what are we doing specifically? That’s another thing we’re doing is that we’re doing a little bit of O-D emphasis.

“That’s something we haven’t been able to do previously. So, hey, our offense can dictate what the defense is doing for a certain amount of plays because it might not be something our defense does every game or in its normal package, but our offense needs to see it. Same thing, our defense needs to see this 12, 13 personnel. So they get the emphasis here. And so I think that’s another thing that we’re doing, we probably haven’t been able to do in the past in spring ball.”