Marcus Freeman is able to return to his alma mater and start his first season as Notre Dame’s head coach.

As the primary week of the 2022 season begins, Freeman met with reporters in South Bend on Monday afternoon for his game-week press convention forward of Notre Dame’s journey to Columbus to play Ohio State on Saturday evening at Ohio Stadium (7:30 p.m., ABC). The previous Ohio State linebacker was requested about his previous as a Buckeye, however needed to maintain the main focus totally on his personal staff because the fifth-ranked Preventing Irish put together to play the second-ranked Buckeyes within the stadium the place he performed his personal faculty soccer.

Right here’s a fast rundown of what Freeman needed to say in his first media availability main as much as the massive sport:

  • Freeman stated the Preventing Irish are wanting ahead to enjoying a “nice staff” in a “hostile setting” at Ohio State on Saturday. “Any competitor desires this. You need a possibility to go and play in opposition to the perfect. There’s no higher approach to see the place we’re at as a soccer staff than to go and say ‘OK, let’s go play the most effective groups within the nation.’”
  • Freeman says the Preventing Irish have to ensure they “put together our tails off” this week.
  • “Now we have to have the power to ascertain the run sport, care for the soccer, be disciplined in what we’re doing defensively.”
  • “Should you don’t cease the run, they’ll run all of it day lengthy. So the power to cease the run is most necessary.”
  • Freeman stated he’s assured Notre Dame’s management may have the Preventing Irish ready for Saturday’s sport.
  • Freeman says his focus has been all on the preparation, not on his feelings of going again to Ohio State or beginning his first season as head coach.
  • Freeman notes how the groups who had success in opposition to Ohio State final season had been the groups who ran the ball successfully in opposition to the Buckeyes, in order that‘s a degree of emphasis for Notre Dame this week.
  • Freeman says Notre Dame has to care for the soccer and set up lengthy drives with a view to restrict Ohio State’s offensive possessions.
  • Freeman stated Jim Tressel made certain his gamers at Ohio State understood the custom of this system, so he desires his gamers to grasp the custom at Notre Dame too. “Does it correlate with profitable? I believe possibly it does.”
  • Freeman stated being a head coach hasn’t modified who he’s as an individual. “You must lead and it’s a must to be the identical particular person that you just had been six years in the past, seven years in the past, eight years in the past.” The obligations have modified now that he’s a head coach, however his method to teaching and dealing along with the remainder of the employees stays the identical.
  • How is Freeman most totally different as a head coach than you had been going into the Fiesta Bowl in opposition to Oklahoma State? He says he’s attempting to be “very intentional” about being what he’s doing as a frontrunner and doing what’s greatest for his program.
  • Freeman stated Notre Dame left guard Jarrett Patterson, a first-team preseason AP All-American, continues to be questionable for Saturday’s sport at Ohio State. He stated Patterson, who has been coping with a foot harm, will apply this week. 
  • “I’ve nice recollections of working out on the sphere at Ohio Stadium.” He stated what he remembers most is the time he spent along with his teammates at Ohio State.
  • “Proper now, I’m fairly impassive about going again to Ohio State, however the feelings we have now is we get to go play an important staff. We get to go play in an important hostile setting.”
  • On beginning quarterback Tyler Buchner: “His progress as a quarterback and as a decision-maker has been actually good to see.”
  • The most important lesson he realized from Tressel: “The very best factor I noticed from him is the power to make all people in your group really feel necessary, but in addition make it in order that they’re necessary. … I do not care who you might be, should you’re concerned with this Notre Dame program, your position is as necessary as mine to ensure we accomplish (our objectives).”
  • Freeman says Notre Dame has to have the power to rotate at cornerback due to the depth of Ohio State’s broad receiver room. “The depth of that room is so long as any in that these guys can rotate guys in that may simply take the highest off a protection.”
  • Freeman says he doesn’t count on Ohio State’s protection to look the identical because the Oklahoma State protection Notre Dame confronted in final season’s Fiesta Bowl. He says “we have now an concept” of what Ohio State’s protection will seem like primarily based on Oklahoma State’s protection, however he expects Jim Knowles to adapt his defensive scheme to the personnel he has now at Ohio State.
  • Freeman says the Fiesta Bowl loss continues to be motivating Notre Dame as a staff: “That’s gonna be there for a very long time. It’s all the time gonna be there.”
  • On Ohio State being favored by 17.5 factors: “We’ll use that within the staff assembly as we speak. It’s good to know.”
  • Freeman stated he leans towards deferring if Notre Dame wins the opening coin toss so the offense begins the second half with the ball, however that adjustments sport to sport.