Notre Dame's Coaching Dilemma: Freeman's Uncertain Future

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Transcript
00:00I know I'm certainly interested in some Notre Dame coaching conversations, because for me,
00:09Notre Dame in week two had a result that very likely seals Marcus Freeman's fate.
00:16A loss as a 28.5 point favorite at home to a Mac football team in Northern Illinois sees
00:24the fifth ranked Notre Dame fighting Irish fall to one and one.
00:31And there are a few names who I think could be interesting to take over for Marcus Freeman.
00:37Now firstly, let me just say in terms of, could I be overreacting?
00:43Could Marcus Freeman keep this job?
00:46Well, Marcus Freeman would very likely need to win at least 10 games this year to keep
00:55that job.
00:58If he loses to Purdue next week, or Miami of Ohio the following week, I think he's done
01:05right there.
01:07And they let offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock coach the rest of the season.
01:12So he's got two more games.
01:15If he wins those, then he probably gets the rest of the season.
01:25Probably though, no guarantees.
01:28They still then have to host Louisville, who they lost to last year.
01:32Then they would hit their bye week.
01:34If they lose to Louisville at home, who is currently ranked inside the top 20 and has
01:43a bye week and then home against Georgia Tech before playing Notre Dame, meaning Louisville
01:50should very likely be one of the 15 or so best teams probably by the rankings when that
01:56game shows up.
01:57But is that game going to potentially put Marcus Freeman on the hot seat?
02:01One of these games will.
02:04And again, for Marcus Freeman, the A&M win, the USC win, the Clemson win, they get canceled
02:14out when you lose to Northern Illinois, Marshall, Stanford, it just does.
02:21It's embarrassing.
02:25It's kind of funny, but Notre Dame would have been much better off if you flipped the results
02:31of their first two games.
02:34As good of a win as that was at Texas A&M, closing as an underdog of a field goal, right?
02:43Notre Dame could have lost that game ugly.
02:47They could have scored 13 points the way A&M did.
02:51And if they would have showed up next week and beat Northern Illinois, we wouldn't be
02:56sat here being like, oof, hot seat, season over.
03:02But sometimes the losses outweigh the wins.
03:06The question then when trying to find the head coach for Notre Dame is how do you get
03:13a coach in this building where when you see Northern Illinois, Miami of Ohio, Stanford,
03:21we know those are wins.
03:22And a guy that you then have confidence can step up and beat big teams.
03:28And I think for Notre Dame, they went with an in-house elevation and Marcus Freeman.
03:34Maybe they were somewhat surprised by Brian Kelly leaving for LSU, weren't prepared.
03:40But I think Notre Dame will look for a big name hire.
03:47I don't think this team elevates Mike Denbrough.
03:51I think that this team is going to look, I don't know if Jamie Chadwell is a big enough
03:57name for Notre Dame, even if you think Jamie Chadwell is a great coach.
04:03I think Notre Dame is going to be looking for a star head coach, a name that you know,
04:13a name that mostly anyone knows.

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