As Notre Dame’s spring practices begin, Marcus Freeman continues to say all the right things

Oct 4, 2025; South Bend, Indiana, USA; Notre Dame head football coach Marcus Freeman adjusts his radio against the Boise State Broncos at Notre Dame Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Michael Caterina-Imagn Images | Michael Caterina-Imagn Images Notre Dame officially started the spring football season on Wednesday with a combination press conference, which of course, had Marcus Freeman front and center taking questions from the media . Either sometime durong or shortly after, I received a DM from a colleague simply saying this… “Marcus is so good man.

” Obviously, he’s right. Marcus is very good. The unfortunate situation from last season was something that programs could either die on or build on, and Freeman has decidedly BEEN building on it since the day it happened.

While Notre Dame’s detractors cited a “missed opportunity” for Notre Dame to get more practice time at the end of the season had they gone to a bowl, Freeman flipped the script, and found a way to begin to get his team prepared for the 2026 season rather than a meaningless bowl game in December of 2025. “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.